Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for April 2, 2009 STUDENT RESPONSE SYSTEM

Being a self-confessed dinosaur, this is one of those things that make me go "Ho Hum" rather than "Hmmm..."

If I were attending the workshop on implementation, I'd probably be trying to figure out which button will "Beam me up, Scotty?"

But, hey...to each his/her own!

Devices that encourage class interaction gain traction in schools across the state

By Linda K. Wertheimer, Globe Staff

LEXINGTON - Their eyes glued to the screen, the eighth-graders each grasped a clicker, a 4-ounce device akin to a television remote, and pressed a letter on the keypad. Then, they stared at the screen expectantly.

Seconds later, their answers appeared in a color-coded bar chart. Many students gasped in surprise at the results. The 19-student US history class at Clarke Middle School was severely split on the answer to a multiple-choice question about whether President Polk was justified in asking Congress to declare war on Mexico in 1846.

Eight students tapped A: "Yes, it was time for war. Congress was justified." Seven picked B: "No, it was an excuse to push America into war for more land." And, four chose C: "Wait! I don't get this yet."

In an instant, the teacher, Edward Davey, discovered that he needed to teach more on the topic, the students received a snapshot of one another's views, and a lively debate ensued about the 19th century conflict.

"It's here to stay in my room," said Davey, who began using clickers this year. "It's not magic, but with a lot of effort, it's a classroom changer. It adds more energy to the classroom. I use it to spur discussion."

Long used in university lecture halls as a way for professors to better connect to students, these clickers - known as student or personal response systems - are becoming increasingly prevalent in K-12 classrooms. Teachers in at least 50 school systems across the state, including Boston, Lowell, Waltham, Dennis-Yarmouth, Rockport, Stoughton, and Haverhill, use the devices, according to three of the largest manufacturers.

But although teachers and students rave about the excitement the clickers bring to the classroom, some educators and researchers say schools should proceed with caution. They warn that the remotes, which send students' answers to a teacher's computer via radio frequency or infrared signals, risk becoming gimmicks if used for simplistic quizzes and games.

The devices, which first became popular at the college level a decade ago, made a later entrance into K-12 systems for various reasons, including cost. Colleges can get better deals for thousands of student users than school districts can for a class or two. After Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, however, schools became eager for more ways to check on individual students. Clickers record data on individual students, immediately showing a teacher whether a student really understood what was just taught.

Companies use the school districts' need to track each student's performance as part of their sales pitch, said Todd Craig, the K-12 sales manager for Turning Technologies, a company based in Youngstown, Ohio. The company's software includes 30,000 questions that align with curriculum standards, he said.

Steve Kaye, chief executive officer of eInstruction, brushes away concerns that the devices can be seen as gimmicks.

"There's nothing wrong with kids being excited and awake when they're supposed to be learning something," said Kaye, whose Denton, Texas, company is working with Lexington's two middle schools and high school.

A set of classroom clickers costs between $895 and $3,000 depending on the company and type. Most sets include 32 remotes. Their growing use in school systems happens gradually in most cases, classroom by classroom, rather than districtwide, manufacturers say.

At Lowell High School, physics teacher Bill Jumper used his own money to buy a $1,500 set directly from iClicker, a division of Macmillan based in New York. Jumper uses the devices for individual or team quizzes to see whether students understand a particular physics concept.

"The ideal is to develop a game show kind of atmosphere where it's engaging enough that students are enjoying the experience, but they have to think," said Jumper, adding that he uses the clickers only once every other week because of the time involved in designing questions and material that work well together. He, like Davey, prefers to write his own questions.

In 1990, Eric Mazur, a Harvard University physics professor considered a pioneer in student response systems, began asking students to hold up flash cards to show their answers to questions in class. By 1993, he was using early versions of clickers, and in 2000, he began running workshops for K-12 teachers.

"They discover pretty soon that's it's not just the clicker. You have to have good questions. You have to find ways to engage the students," Mazur said. "It's about teaching by questioning rather than telling."

Davey, whose clickers were paid for with a grant from the Lexington Education Foundation, kept the questions coming after his first query about the Mexican-American War. Then, he asked students to explain their reasoning to a peer, a discussion that blossomed into a classwide debate that Davey led.

The clickers, students said, add a cool element to class and also tell them quickly how they are doing when Davey uses the response system for quizzes or fact checks.

"It helps you to really know, 'I need to work on this part because I got this question wrong,"' said Abby Grant, 14.

Better yet, some students said, their identity is shielded from peers when answers are displayed. Each student is assigned a number for a clicker.

"A lot of students don't want to go up and admit, 'I don't really understand this.' It's not public humiliation," said Felix Cancre, 14. "Middle schools can be mean."

A technology expert at the University of Maine, however, questions whether purchasing clickers is worth the expense in such small classrooms. The devices make more sense when it's a class of hundreds of students, said Andrei Strukov, an instructional technology specialist.

"In a small classroom, a kid can always raise his hand and ask the question directly," Strukov said.

But several K-12 teachers said class size is not relevant.

Larry David, a Lexington High teacher, said he has used the clickers with as few as 10 students in US history classes and witnessed students cheering when they answered correctly.

"Sometimes, gimmicks work," David said. "If you get more kids interested in learning, then they're going to remember more. Everybody's got their own hook if they're an effective teacher."