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Remote Controlled Teaching
This story about teachers using "clickers" in university and law school class rooms is fascinating:
For these and other professors across the nation, the newest aid in the classroom is a small wireless keypad, linked to a computer. Students answer questions not by raising their hands but by punching buttons, with the results appearing on a screen in the front of the room.
Although some skeptics dismiss the devices as novelties more suited to a TV game show than a lecture hall, educators who use them say their classrooms come alive as never before. Shy students have no choice but to participate, the instructors say, and the know-it-alls lose their monopoly on the classroom dialogue.
Professor Wilde has her students answer multiple-choice questions to gauge whether she is getting her point across and adjusts her lectures accordingly. "I can instantly see that three-quarters of the class doesn't get it," she said.
. . .The devices look and work much as a television remote does, sending infrared signals to a receiver at the front of the classroom. The receiver is connected to a computer, which tabulates and analyzes the responses. The data can be displayed by an overhead projector, incorporated into a spreadsheet or posted on a class Web site. Responses are anonymous among the students, but not to the teachers, who can identify students by the serial numbers of their clickers.
Doesn't that sound awesome? I'm not sure how these clickers would integrate with discussion; it seems a teacher would have to be well-prepared and very flexible to encourage regular, productive give-and-take of classroom discussion in addition to having time and opportunity to make the clickers useful. But that's just it; if teachers are forced to think a bit more about how they present information, and if students are constantly forced to engage, I bet learning improves. Maybe it's just the tech-fan in me, but I would have loved to try to make use of these things in the English classes I used to teach, and I would have loved to use them as a student in the past year of law school. [link via JD2B, which also links to an abstract of a forthcoming journal article on the subject of using clickers in law classrooms]
Posted May 3, 2004 06:24 AM | law school life generally
I think it sounds wonderful. I'm sure there's abudant potential for complications and snafus, but the potential for a professor to have *instant* feedback regarding whether the class 'gets it' might be quite valuable. On the other hand, the profs I know who would want to use such a tool already do what they can to assist students. Those I know who I believe would scoff at such devices already don't care who is following along and who isn't.
Posted by: Kelly at May 3, 2004 11:20 AM
Unfortunately, that's too true. But I wonder if there might be some slacker profs (the ones whose teaching suggests they don't give much thought to pedagogy) might be drawn to these little toys as a more "efficient" way to track class participation or whatever. Before they knew it, some of these profs might end up improving their teaching despite themselves. Maybe...
Posted by: ambimb at May 4, 2004 07:14 AM
