Clickers in the Classroom

I have been working with teachers on using clickers for instruction.  Clickers have the potential to really guide teachers with informative feedback as they teach.  Clickers also provide an opportunity for students to be involved in the learning.  We no longer have to survey a few students and assume that these students' responses represent the majority of our students' understanding.  Teachers can ask a question and have instant data to guide their lesson.   An even better method is to pose a question and let students discuss with peers what they think is correct and then have students vote on the correct response.    

When clickers become an integral part of instruction, it benefits all learners.  However, clickers will only have this impact when they are used in conjunction with quality instructional strategies.  The infamous Ferris Bueller's Day Off Voodoo Economics is not going to become much better even with clickers.  If you combine good instruction with "wait time," pair-share, and other instructional strategies, the payoff will be student engagement and learning. 

The videos on this link site are geared for university level teaching, but these same methods can be applied to k-12 teaching.  Douglas Duncan's book, Clickers in the Classroom, provides some good techniques on how to use clickers in your classroom.   This link provides a preview of the first two chapters of Duncan's book.