In my freshman year Intro to Biology class, clicker questions accounted for a small percentage of your grade. It was a way for the professor to see who came to class — and who was focused enough on the lecture to respond (and to respond correctly) to the insta-pop quizzes in our very large class.
In a recent NY Times article, “More Professors Give Out Hand-Held Devices to Monitor Students and Engage Them,” the topic of clickers was explored and the article made an excellent point about the cultural impact of these clickers.
“They have altered, perhaps irrevocably, the nap schedules of anyone who might have hoped to catch a few winks in the back row, and made it harder for them to respond to text messages, e-mail and other distractions,” the author, Jacques Steinberg wrote.
Of course, as the article cites (and as I remember), there were always students who would skip class for whatever reason and hand off their clicker to a classmate. But I also remember hearing about people who said they were going to do this for someone and then never touched the other person’s clicker. Cutthroat? Yes. Welcome to pre-med classes at an Ivy League university.
In the article, the importance of clickers as a gauge of student opinion in a large lecture was also mentioned. Occasionally in another class I used clickers in, Developmental Sociology, we used them for this purpose, and I found it really interesting and made the class seem less like a large lecture.
What I want to know is what YOU think of clickers!
Do you think they are too big-brother-ish for a college setting when you are supposed to be more autonomous? Do you like that they hold you accountable for going to class and paying attention in a large lecture while there are so many distractions? Do you prefer them for instant pop quizzes or for opinion gauges? Do any of your professors use them now? Weigh in below!