CLICKERS IN THE CLASSROOM Audience Response Systems

Typical College Classroom Look familiar

Why Clickers? Active learning last longer than passive listening Help students find out what they really don’t understand and what they need to think about further Proper use leads to higher grades Credit for participation Clickers are fun! SFA has adopted Turning Technologies

Turning Point Software Free download Integrates into Power Point Content questions delivered throughout lecture

Who is this person? 1. 1.George Bush 2. 2.Rush Limbaugh 3. 3.Edward Michaels 4. 4.Martha Stewart 5. 5.Jon Stewart 6. 6.Barack Obama

Testing Point  Integrates into WORD for creating clicker tests  Tests are self paced  Students answer the questions onto a paper form  At the end of testing, student uses clicker to enter answers and transmit to instructors computer.

 Quizzes at the start of each class  5 pts/day  Takes 2.5 minutes each day  Allow students to miss a few without penalty  Allow bonus points for those who take them all  Improves attendance  Spectacular way to get students to be on time!  Grades can be easily uploaded into gradebooks Uses- Daily Quizzes

Uses – During Lecture  Interspersing questions during lectures helps:  Make sure students are “getting it”  Initiate discussions on a topic  Keep students alert.

Uses – The “A” Word  Collect end of semester assessment data quickly with a clicker quiz.

ResponseWare Allow a laptop or smartphone to act as a clicker Instructor requests a session ID using Turning Point. Communicates the ID to students, who input the session ID into their phone or laptop. The session ID communicates answers to the TurningPoint server and then to the instructor’s computer. This solution is cheaper than the clicker.

Polling Software  Top Hat (one semester is $20, five years is $38)  Poll Everywhere ($14 per year)  Google Docs Forms (Free)  QuestionPress ($66 per year for up to 95 students)  Potential Problems  Not everyone has a smart phone (but even dumb phones can text)  Not everyone has unlimited texting

Features  Most polling sites can integrate into PowerPoint  Most sites offer a free version  Features will be limited  Clickers can be abused or forgotten  Students may bring several clickers to class but students will not share their phone  Students may forget their clicker but they will have their phones