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. 

Response Technology Creates Interactive Learning Environment

Highly interactive learning environments make teaching a fun and pleasant experience. Classroom response technology allows users to increase the level of interaction between the instructor and his/her students, boosting the engagement level of the learners. Classroom response systems utilize wireless hardware technology along with interactive polling software. During an instructional session or assessment, a teacher can use their computer or smartphone to operate the polling software and to display the question content along with the student responses.

Students can answer using their keypads or mobile devices

The students can use keypads or mobile devices to respond to questions asked by the instructor. The result of each individual response is aggregated and displayed graphically in real time. Classroom response systems can be utilized by instructors to grade students and to assess their responsiveness in the classroom. Classroom attendance can also be gathered quickly and easily using a CRS. With the help of group response devices called clickers, students can immediately give their feedback allowing teachers to conduct classroom polls, quizzes and tests with ease.

Increased level of knowledge retention and better understanding of topic

Response technology greatly improves knowledge retention through immediate reinforcement of correct and incorrect responses. A question is asked to a group of learners, the group responds using the clickers or mobile phones and the results along with the correct answer to the question is shown to the group in real-time. Every student can participate in the discussion by using the hand-held device and their responses are collected and stored in the database for further evaluation. Each week, month or semester, the results can be evaluated through reporting and analysis modules built into the software, or online, where data is aggregated and stored in a private account.

Response data is integrated with the Learning Management System (LMS)

Every student is assigned a code (ID) and his or her responses are recorded against that ID. The response data of the student is integrated with the Learning Management Software and it imparts chance to the teacher to closely monitor the performance of the individual student. Another crucial benefit of the Classroom Response Systems is their ability to generate reports from the student’s data stored in the database. This system makes the entire environment of the classroom exciting and more fun-filled.