A New Teaching Aid With Exceptional FormsBy: Veronica Kennedy

Introduction

Clickers address two of the oldest and most fundamental challenges in teaching: how to engage students and how to determine if they are learning what you are teaching.

This are three article that address the use of clickers

Douglas Duncan

Roger C. Lowery

April R. Trees and Michele H. Jackson

Douglas Duncan

Why use clickers?Students become active participants

They ask more questions

Attendance increases after the introduction of Clickers

What Clickers can do!Measure student attitude

Find out if students have done their assigned reading

Get students to confront common misconceptions about the class and/or chapter

Douglas Duncan

How do Clickers work?Each student has a transmitter (Clicker) that looks like a small TV remote.

The classroom will have one or more wall mounted receivers that will pick up the signals generated when a student pushes one of the buttons.

A computer equipped with software will record each students response.

Example of a question that

you would answer using

a Clicker.

Douglas Duncan

Students who do not like ClickersDouglas Duncan says,

“In response some instructors argue that these are students who would prefer a class that allows them to pass by memorizing what the instructor says and then feeding that information back on tests without ever having to demonstrate conceptual understanding or explain themselves to another student.”

Duncan, D. (2006, May 03). Clickers: a new teaching aid. Astronomy Educational Review, 5, 1-18. Retrieved December 11, 2009, from http://casa.colorado.edu

Roger C. Lowery

Potential Benefits: Improve student learning

1. Improve class preparation

2. Cleaner comprehension

3. Active participation during class

4. Increased peer or collaborative learning

5. Greater student satisfaction

Reduce the paperwork & faculty labor1. attendance taking

2. test administration

3. Grade recording, calculation, and analysis

Roger C. Lowery

Are Clickers inexpensive and what do they instill?

Inexpensive Keypads (one-way transmitter)1. Infrared (IR) Keypads: TV remote with a limited set of response keys. Most IR keypads are one-way devices. They just summit and answer, there are no receivers.

2. Radio Frequency (RF) Keypads: Most RF keypads are two-way devices

Expensive Keypads (Web-based computer devices)

These devices can take many forms in PDAS, smart calculators, and/or desktop computers.

Roger C. LoweryLowery suggests that teachers (or other users) should make very clear instructions to first-time users. He believes that switching clickers with other students is considered cheating.

He also makes a point that classrooms should practice using Clickers once or twice before posting questions for any type of points. He feels that it is necessary for students to become use to the Clicker itself.

Lowery, R., C. (2006 April 05). Clickers in the classroom: A Comparison of Interactive Student-Response Keypad Systems. National Socail Science Association. 2-22. Retrieved December 11, 2009 from http://people.uncw.edu/lowery/

April R. Trees and Michele H. Jackson

One major problem:Traditional lectures format students rarely receive feedback concerning their thinking prior to the exam, and instructors have a difficult time assessing students’ understanding of particular material.

Clickers however, provide an opportunity for all students in the classroom to interact and contribute their viewpoint, encourage students to actively respond to ideas and questions, and give instructors an opportunity to assess student understanding at the moment.

April R. Tree andMichele H. Jackson

Student IssuesClickers creates a learning environment with higher expectations for student preparation prior to class.

Students also find that activities that encourage analysis and application violate expectations that large course professor that will simply provide information that they then memorize of a test.

While instructors may be motivated to incorporate response systems into a large class, students do not necessarily share the same assumptions about what the large class should look like.

Student attitudes can function a barrier to change.

April R. Trees andMichele H. Jackson

Trees and Jackson believe that Clickers are an unusual educational technology. However, unlike websites, Power Point, or even course management tools such as Blackboard, the success of Clickers depends less on the instructor and more on the student They believe this because clickers require a change not simply in the mode of communication between instructor and student but in the very culture of the classroom environment.

Jackson, M. H., & Trees, A., R. (2007 March). The learning environment in clicker classrooms. Routledge, 32,

21-40. Retrieved December 11, 2009, from http://fpdc.kent.edu/resources/a_stories/clickersDocs

Conclusion

The three articles taught me a lot about Clickers and how I could incorporate them into my classroom.

I think that they are a great tool to use to engage your class in discussion and it helps teachers to know what area that the class might not be understanding.

All I have to say is that I wished we could be using Clickers in all of my lecture classes because I think it would help me to remember key facts that I am learning!