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"CLICKERS ARE A POWERFUL, YET SIMPLE, WAY TO GAUGE CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING AND TO STIMULATE DISCUSSIONS." —Janet de Vry, University of Delaware, Newark Clickers, or classroom response systems, provide University of Delaware faculty instant feedback about student learning. TOOLS OF THE TRADE Students 'Click' to Learn When Helen Bowers wants to know if undergraduate students in her introduction to finance course understand a complex concept, she doesn't have to wait until the final exam. Bowers, an associate professor of finance at the University of Delaware's Lerner College of Business and Economics in Newark, simply asks her students a question about the concept. They use radio frequency clickers to submit their responses instantly. "If I ask a question about how cash flow drives stock prices, for example, and 90 percent of my students answer correctly, I feel very comfortable moving on," says Bowers. "But if only 46 per- cent get it correct, I know I need to go over it again." Faculty across the University of Dave Wilson, a professor of political science at the The Interwrite PRS RF clicker uses radio frequency technology to encourage classroom participation. Delaware campus began using Interwrite PRS RF radio frequency clickers in 2006. The clickers provided a way for faculty to "encourage active learning," says Janet de Vry, the university's manager of instructional services in its IT department. "Clickers are a powerful, yet simple, way to gauge conceptual under- standing and to stimulate discussions." Bowers notes that students are often very reticent to admit they don't understand a concept. Or they may think they understand it when they really don't know the finer details. "If I were to just ask questions, I'd likely be greeted with silence," she says. "With the clickers, students find it much easier to ask questions or make a comment. The clicker questions help them self-identify their problem spots." For her last course, Bowers asked 33 clicker questions over the semester, which counted for 2 percent of students' grades. The clickers not only allowed Bowers to know how well students understood the material, but also encouraged attendance, increased class participation, and transformed students' learning experience from passive to active. Students developed a "good-natured competitiveness," she says. They really wanted to get the questions right, she says. And when they didn't, they weren't shy about asking why. University of Delaware, is exploring the technology's appli- cation to another academic function: research. In many surveys, especially those that ask questions on sensitive top- ics, people may not give candid or truthful responses due to embarrassment or even shame, he says. Last fall, Wilson used the Interwrite clickers in his class to see if students would offer more candid responses to questions about racial attitudes. "With the clickers, I had fewer nonresponses," says Wilson. "Stu- dents were not ashamed to say they had issues with different religious or racial groups, or that they didn't want members of certain groups teaching their classes or running for office in their communities." He notes that the clickers also offer researchers another added benefit—immediate data col- lection. "Even with paper-and-pencil surveys, you have to enter the data," he says. "The clicker software allows you to analyze the data immediately." Wilson adds that the clickers require that instructors spend more time thinking of relevant questions to ask of students. To reap their educational benefits, instructors also must make sure to use survey results to spark in-depth discussions. In addition, there is a learning curve; users must get used to the clicker's operation. Even so, Wilson plans to use the clickers again both to engage students in the classroom and to improve his public opinion research. "At a recent conference, I gave a presentation of the research I conducted using the clickers," says Wilson. "After I finished, no one asked about my research—they only wanted to know more about the clickers!" For more information about Interwrite clickers, visit www.interwrite.com. Other vendors also offer radio frequency and infrared clickers, including Turning Tech- nologies' Turning Point (www.turningtechnologies.com), eInstruction's CPS (www.einstruction.com), and Wiley Higher Education's WileyClicks! (he-cda.wiley.com/ WileyCDA/Section/id-103701.html). ■ z BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007 65