Clickers in the Classroom - How It Is Changing Education

As an educator you are well aware of ‘active learning approach’ where students partake in different activities as this method has improved classroom participation. While definition wise it is all about engaging students in reading, writing and sharing their opinion without the use of right technology it is a herculean challenge. In today’s world technology has invaded into every aspect of our lives and helped make serious improvements. Talking about education we have seen the power of PowerPoint presentations and Internet in terms of aiding classroom lectures and helping students gain in-depth knowledge in subjects being taught.

In fact technology has in true sense empowered education and made knowledge accessible to millions of students. It has helped improve success rate among students and benefitted the larger education scenario. Clickers are the next big thing that will transform education right from elementary level to higher education. 

Making Education Participative
How do clickers in the classroom help? They make classroom sessions more participative. Traditional model of teaching was a big disadvantage for students who were introvert or ones who lacked behind their peers in terms of grasping concepts. These students never really came out and expressed their opinions on the lessons that were being taught or even the fact that most of what had been discussed didn’t register with their minds. Clickers in the classroom allow students to share their opinion and feedback on what is being taught in the classroom. They allow students to participate anonymously in discussions which are their biggest advantage for students who lag behind their peers.

Generating Feedback
With this technological innovation trainer can gather instant feedback from their students and are able to gauge level of understanding among the students with respect to the lessons that have been taught. At every given point of time the teacher to measure the retention power of the classroom and work on innovative teaching methods that increases retention. They are able to build more active and integrated learning model that make the sessions fruitful and participative for the entire class and not just a group of few brilliant students.

Summary – In this short write-up we take a look at how clickers in the classroom are completely transforming the education system and benefitting the students. 

Put Learning into a High Gear by Making it Interactive

 

Highly interactive environment is crucial for the transformation of learning into an extremely effective and enjoyable experience. Classroom response systems bring interactivity to lectures, classroom discussions, presentations and various other training and education sessions. With instant feedback and questions answered in real time, academic and corporate worlds take their learning into new heights.

Increase level of interaction between teacher and students

Interactivity is created between the trainer and the trainee by the classroom response systems that combine wireless audience response clickers with interactive polling software, most often integrated with PowerPoint.

These systems have been increasingly utilized in carrying out classroom surveys, voting and taking the responses of the local and remote audiences.

Assess student’s response in real time

• You content is projected on the screen and the classroom response system displays the questions to the audience. Participants then make use of the wireless keypads to answer the questions in real time.
• All the results are collected by the response software and are displayed after the polling has been closed.
• All of the information collected by the response technology can be used to evaluate, grade and track progress of the students. Additionally, a polling system can take the attendance of students present in the classroom.

Get immediate feedback while the lecture is going on

• Teachers can discuss with their students the reason why they chose a particular answer and can reinforce the key points of the discussion and or material.
• Using classroom response systems is completely anonymous in comparison to other traditional methods like raising hands. However, presenter can choose to track keypads and their holders using a participant list.
• With the help of the response keypads, audience can give immediate feedback at the time of presentation and the presenter can have a timely understanding about their level of comprehension.
• This technology is extremely useful in the execution of the quizzes, polls, research and seeking immediate replies.
• After closing each of the question & answer sessions, response software displays the results graphically, as well as stores data for future reporting and assessment needs.

Classroom response technology makes learning fun and interactive

The students will have improved attention in the classrooms and they will be able to retain the subject matter for a longer time. In fact, using a classroom response system can increase retention of the course material by 40% over a period of 3 weeks and promote discussion among students which improves understanding about the subject.

Create detailed and more customized lesson plans

After each session, the teacher can generate reports from the data, which is collected and stored in the software. Reports can be customized and will enable the teacher to determine the level of effectiveness of his/her lectures. By studying the answers given by the students, underperforming ones can be easily spotted and given extra attention. The teacher can create a more detailed lesson plan for certain topics and can closely monitor the performance of the students in various subjects.