Clickers Make the Grade

Posted on July 17, 2008
Filed Under News, The Daily Prereq | By Mike Dang

The TV remote control revolutionized the way people watched the tube. Now, the clicker is revolutionizing the way college students are learning in large lecture classes. According to Science Daily, students get better grades when they use wireless hand-held devices resembling small calculators to participate in science classes. At Ohio State University, the clickers have been highly successful, especially in physics classes. Students who used the clicker in the multiple-choice section of their final exams scored an average of 10 percent higher — a full letter grade — than students in non-clicker classes.

Here’s how it works: As professors teach, they put up multiple-choice questions on a large computer screen at the front of the lecture hall. Students use their clicker to cast their vote for the correct answer based on what they’ve learned in class up to the point. After voting, a bar graph appears and shows the percentage of students voting for each answer. This gives the professor an instant sense of how many students are grasping the subject matter and how the lesson could be reworked to make sure more students leave class with a little extra knowledge. It also helps students stay focused in class, since clickers engage every student. Let’s make all those long, droning lecture classes more interesting by throwing in some clickers!

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