Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/81027
TIPS FOR USING CLICKERS Keep the number of answer choices to five or fewer. Do not make questions overly complex. Allow time for discussion between questions. Jack West helps his science students point their "clickers" at a receiver. learning with clickers, says Karen Taylor, who teaches students with mild to moderate learning disabilities at Monte Vista Middle School in Tracy. "It creates metacognitive learning in Students become more responsible for their own the classroom," says the Tracy Education Association member. "I love that they get so involved in the learning process. And when I look at the graph of how many students got the answer right and how many got it wrong, it gives me an idea of how to guide my teaching the rest of the week, because I know if they are getting it or not." "Clickers are fun — kind of like tex- ting, but in a different way," explains stu- waiting for them to do homework and finding out the next day where they are having trouble. I like that students can participate in a risk- free environment." small class of about 15 students, which her school site council donated. Sequoia High School physics teachers Jack West Increase responsiveness by giving students a time limit. Do not overuse the system at risk of losing student engagement. and Ben Canning in Redwood City, and J. Bryan Henderson, a doctoral student at Stanford University, spent three years studying the use of clickers with peer instruction in the science classroom. They concluded that the interactive technology could create social learning opportunities. Using handheld devices, students anon- From Margie Martyn, "Clickers in the Classroom: An Active Learning Approach," EDUCAUSE Quarterly ymously answered multiple-choice ques- tions projected at the front of the room. After giving their answers, students were asked to discuss the questions with their peers, which resulted in "convergence" on the best answer with little additional infor- mation provided by the teachers. "Clickers focused the classroom activ- Karen Taylor dent Juan Ulloa. Taylor appreciates that the program allows her to create a grade book for tracking student progress and save on paper by conducting clicker tests. The only downside is the price; it cost $2,000 for a set for her was that these classrooms often performed at statisti- cally higher levels on a common international physics assessment than classrooms not utilizing this tech- nique, even when the teacher was the same. " What is the most effective, user-friendly technology that you've used in your classroom? Let us know at www.facebook.com/californiateachersassociation! 14 California Educator September 2012 ity on student-to-student interactions, and from this social learning the students appeared to make progress their own," says Henderson. "Even more encouraging ON THE WEB