Saturday, February 16, 2008
Clicker Technologies as a Tool to Increase Student Engagement and Motivation
Click! Click! Click! This sound was heard as Jennifer Diers introduced her session on the Personal Response System (clicker) and its pedagogical implications for the classroom. This small handheld gadget allows audiences and students to actively participate in lectures and presentations by submitting responses that are aggregated and reflected on a screen for all to see. It reminds one of the audience response system used in Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The "Turning Point Clickers" are low cost to students, have a seamless integration with PowerPoint and WebCT, are adaptable and sustainable across courses, have textbook and publisher collaboration, offer website support and generate reports for assessment uses. Additionally, clickers reduce anonymity in the classroom, assist with grading and reporting and give immediate feedback to the instructor. Pedagogically, the clickers can be used to poll students about anything, to review content questions, to conduct pre/post testing of knowledge, to set up a video or demonstration, to do case review questions, to do individual or team based questions and to review teaching practices. Students can also gauge their learning individually and holistically while becoming more engaged and motivated. Increased class attendance, improved student attitudes, the development of students classroom voice and improved student collaboration have been reported as corollary benefits to the use of clickers. References were provided. A very good presentation.
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3 comments:
I still think TurningPoint systems are really expensive at $1500 for a classroom of 60 university students. In addition, as a grad student, I don't like paying $40 for my clicker for the semester. I don't pay to use the other ed tech like scantron grading (it should be part of my tuition). Have you seen http://www.polleverywhere.com - basic ARS where students use their cell phone to vote. There are pros/cons to each, but Poll Everywhere is free to low-volume users and 1/100 of the cost.
Thanks for the fabulous synopsis of my presentation on clickers at the Lilly Conference. As the instructor of a large lecture course and one who is studying the use of clickers in varying settings, the results are very promising as to the use of clickers to engage and motivate students. Student response to clicker use is highly positive. In response to Jeff's concern about the price, I must say that has also been an issue on our campus, although with collaboration with the campus bookstore we have been able to significantly reduce the price of the clickers for the students. If I were to teach a small enrollment class, I would most likely write for a grant to simply purchase the clickers for the class use, avoiding student cost. While polleverywhere.com seems to be promising technology, I do see several drawbacks. It does not look like this cell phone technology allows for the connection of student information to responses, therefore I would not be able to assign points to clicker responses and upload into my WebCT gradebook as I am able to do now. In addition, there are several other features available with the current clicker software that I do not see available in the polleverywhere software. However, I am sure that technology will emerge as we continue to improve the cell phone polling methods.
Hi Jen - the ability to track individual students progress is coming very soon.
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