Faculty Focus: What’s Happening at USA?

The use of Clickers at USA has really taken off over the past year or two, and while there have been a few headaches and hiccups along the way, most of the comments that have come my way have been decidedly positive.

We had an article about a year ago on Dr. Nicole Carr’s use of clickers in her classes, and since then we’ve had numerous well-attended workshops and I’ve visited several departments and colleges to talk to them about using the clicker.

I’ve always felt that the biggest advantage of using clickers is that they increase the level of student engagement by forcing students not only to pay attention, but also to interact intellectually with the lecture content.  In addition, clickers can help you keep track of where your students are in their understanding of the course material.  Finally, since research shows that student attention spans begin to wane every 15 minutes or so, breaking up a lecture every 8-10 minutes with something like a clicker question will help to keep them with you.

Clickers have also finally started getting some attention in the literature, such as this article that found clickers improve student performance when used in conjunction with small group discussions.

PETAL has been involved in several events where clickers have been used to collect participant data for polling or research purposes.  Dr. Vaughn Millner used clickers to give talks to Mobile United and the Mobile Bar Association.  Dr. Ronald Franks used them for an interdisciplinary session with students in all areas of the health sciences.  Each of these sessions were very successful.

One of the complaints about clickers that I am starting to hear is that some faculty require students to put their entire J number into the clicker, and others require that they omit the initial "J00." There are valid arguments for each alternative, but problems arise when students are forced to change it between classes. We are working on a standardized policy and welcome your input. So please contact me if you have any comments or suggestions.

It is our hope that as the use of clickers continues to grow at USA, we at PETAL will be able to learn from all of your experiences and help to generate and promote a campus-wide dialogue that helps all of us.

Finally, if you are using clickers, you might find the following policy suggestions helpful:

• All students should be required to have their own Interwrite PRS RF clicker.  You should point out that sharing clickers between students, even students in different classes, can cause conflicts in the data because the clickers use both the student's J number and a unique Net ID number to identify responses.  If there is a mismatch between these numbers, responses will not be properly credited.
• All students should be required to bring their clickers to each class period.  Failure to do so should constitute an absence.  (If you want to soften this by saying something like you will forgive one instance per student per semester, but the student must submit a written record of responses for that day's clicker questions, that is fine--the important thing is that if you want to enforce penalties for not bringing them, it is much better if you include that in your syllabus.
• You should tell students the clickers serve a valid pedagogical function (e.g., The clicker is being used in this class to provide immediate feedback on your knowledge of the material being covered, to increase student engagement, and to improve retention).
• You should tell them how responses will be graded (i.e., is it part of their participation grade and they get credit for just playing along, or are there stakes in regard to how they answer?)
• You should tell them that clickers will be used to check attendance.
• You should tell them that the use of another student's clicker for that student's gain will be considered an act of academic misconduct that can result in significant penalty (which you should explicitly define).

Discuss this on the PETAL Blog

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