Check your browser!
|
This site is best viewed with Firefox (Internet Explorer users may experience page format difficulties).
|
Navigation
Using Personal Response Systems (PRS) or "Clickers"
New PRS ("clickers") Instructor's Guide
Why is it that every faculty member who is experienced with using clickers effectively swears by them? Why are the students in classes using well-implemented clicker questions dramatically more engaged and asking more numerous and deeper questions? Why do the students in these classes overwhelmingly recommend that clickers should be used in all lecture classes?
This document has been collaboratively written and edited by members of the University of Colorado Science Education Initiative and UBC's Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative.
It was written to help instructors understand the answers to these questions, and to help them use personal response systems ("clickers") in their classes in the most comfortable and pedagogically effective manner.
What exactly is a PRS, and what does it do?
"PRS technology is designed to provide interactive communications between individual students in a class and the teacher. It is known by various names such as Student, Personal or Group Response Systems (SRS, PRS, and GRS), Classroom Communication Systems or “Clicker” Systems...PRS
is comprised of individual student transmitter/input devices (via keypad, remote, PDA or laptop), receivers, a master/central/host system with software used to electronically gather and tabulate student responses, and infrastructure (sensors, wire, conduit, etc) to support the system. Additionally, the system requires administration to manage the assignment, registration, inventory and control of the student input devices, as well as resources for operations and maintenance of the system over its life cycle.Functionally, the system allows students to respond to questions posed by an instructor, and allows instructors to view student feedback in real-time, thus allowing them to modify instruction based on individual student or group responses. Some systems also potentially allow students to send real time questions to the instructor during the presentation.
The use of a student response system can add a higher level of interaction and participation in class and allows comprehension to be assessed in real-time. The immediate feedback provided by the PRS enables the instructor to gauge the effectiveness of his or her training. This allows the instructor to alter the presentation and address problem areas for any topics that the students are having difficulty understanding."
Using clickers in the classroom
This clicker information page, produced by the Center for Instructional Technologies at the University of Texas (Austin) provides a great overview of how clcikers can effectively be integrated into a lecture class. In video clips, a Biology Professor discusses everything from the research and rationale behind such clicker systems, to hands-on tips and strategies.
Other useful clicker references and resources
- The "Classroom Response Systems" website from Vanderbilt University (USA), Center for Teaching.
- Duncan, Douglas. (2005). Clickers in the Classroom: How to Enhance Science Teaching Using Classroom Response Systems. Pearson Education Inc.: San Francisco, CA.
- CNET, Personal Technology, Aug. 5, 2005
"Writing for CNET, Alorie Gilbert describes how the use of wireless responders, or 'clickers' as they are often called, has taken off. Instructors are jumping on the clicker bandwagon to take attendance, survey students opinions, and test students' conceptual understanding. However, several manufacturers now supply clickers and so compatibility is quickly becoming an issue. As the article points out, compatibility concerns may be made irrelevant by a new generation of systems that replace clickers with more common devices many students already own, such as Internet-enabled cell phones and laptops with Wi-Fi capability." (From the Mazur group)
