Ready, Set, Click! Using response systems in the classroom. Presented at Conference on Information Technology (CIT), October 12, 2009, Detroit, MI. Sandy McCarthy, Faculty Librarian, Washtenaw Community College.

1. Ready, Set, Click!
Using personal response systems in the classroom.
Using Clickers Information Literacy
Description
Experience
Clickers are designed to elicit student participation in Clicker Question: Clicker Responses:
Classroom activity – Periodicals
classrooms. The poster session, through the use of charts and
Students need to learn the difference between
graphs, demonstrates how clicker questions in a for-credit
newspaper, magazine, professional/trade, and
information literacy course are used to enhance class
scholarly periodicals. The lecture includes information
activities. In addition, the benefits and drawbacks of the
describing the differences between the types of
personal response systems are discussed.
publications. Students then worked in groups with
Benefits samples of newspaper, magazine, professional/trade,
and scholarly journals. Students recorded their
What are the benefits to using the clickers the classroom? findings on the activity sheet. The clicker was used by
•Encourages attendance each student to report their answers. A low score
•Lets you know how well students understood the material required a review of the topic.
•Increases class participation
Additional examples:
•Easy to add the questions into any PowerPoint lecture •Used with plagiarism activity to identify which paragraph
•Transforms student learning experience from passive to Clicker Report: Scoring Distribution Report was guilty of plagiarism.
active •Used in review of types of sources to consult for
•Anonymous answers (no hand raising) 70%
information from previous lecture.
•Create a participant list to track students 60%
60% •Used to review reading assignments.
•Students really want to get the answer correct
•Allows instructors to quickly review the material again if
50%
scores are low 40%
•Promotes 100% student participation since you can track how 30%
30%
.
many have responded 20%
•Students can change their answer 10%
10%
Drawbacks 0%
Popular Magazine Trade/Professional Journal Scholarly Journal
0%
Newspaper
What are the drawbacks to using the clickers in the
classroom?
•Cost for the clickers (handheld devices) Participant List
•Annual maintenance cost
•Individual clicker frequency issues Clickers today, smart phones
•Instructor must take the time to create quality questions
•Up front time designing the questions in PowerPoint tomorrow?
•Student immature use towards technology
•Distribution and collection of clickers to students
•Can only create yes/no, true/false, or multiple choice Sandra C. McCarthy, Faculty Librarian, Washtenaw Community College,
questions Ann Arbor, MI
Presented at Conference on Information Technology (CIT), October 12, 2009, Detroit, Michigan