by Dr. Spencer Benson
Director, Center for Teaching Excellence

The university has initiated a two-year pilot project to assess the effects of student classroom response systems, also known as “clickers,” on student learning and engagement. Clickers are an emerging classroom technology shown to increase student learning and engagement in a variety of disciplines, according to Clickers in the Classroom by Douglas Duncan.* A classroom clicker system is composed of several handheld devices, one per student, used to respond to instructor questions and a receiver that collects and compiles the student responses. Here at the university, they have been used in introductory physics for several years with positive results, and over the last year a committee of faculty, administrators, and staff has worked to identify the key issues involved in making this teaching tool widely available on campus.

Although there are several clicker systems on the market using different methods of sending, receiving, and compiling information, the committee recommended having a uniform system wherein students could use the same clicker for all their classes. For the pilot phase, the committee recommended supporting a radio frequency (RF) based TurningPoint system from Turning Technologies. TurningPoint interfaces with PowerPoint to construct learning activities and to then collect, display, and analyze the students’ responses in an Excel type format. It can collect, evaluate, and record responses from everyone in the classroom in less than a minute, thus transforming a lecture into a more effective learning environment for everyone.

The sending unit, or student clicker, can be purchased from the University Book Center for $48. Once purchased, the student can register their clicker and use it in a variety of classes. Individual student responses can be tracked for participation grades or extra credit. A number of textbook publishers are now packaging clickers with various texts. However, when choosing these texts, it is important to ensure that the clicker is the correct one for the TurningPoint system.

An alternative to requiring students to purchase their own clicker is for the department or college to secure a set of clickers that faculty can borrow on an as-needed-basis to evaluate this learning tool. The College of Health and Human Performance is piloting this approach. For faculty in other departments, the Center for Teaching Excellence has established a loaner program whereby faculty can try out a portable system that includes both the clickers (either 20 or 50 units) and a laptop with the necessary hardware and software. The only additional requirement is that the classroom has an LCD projection system. With this approach, it would be difficult and time-consuming to link specific responses to individual students. However, more general assessments of a class’ understanding are quickly and easily obtained.

Faculty interested in testing out clickers in their classes should contact Cynthia Shaw at the Center for Teaching Excellence (ceshaw@umd.edu) for additional information. For general information, visit www.clickers.umd.edu or e-mail clickers@umd.edu.

*Clickers in the Classroom, Douglas Duncan, 2005 Pearson Education Inc. San Francisco