Teaching with Clickers: Engaging Students with Classroom Response Systems

Facilitator: Derek Bruff, Assistant Director, CFT

Session 1, 1:00-2:15

Register for this session here!

Classroom response systems (“clickers”) are technologies that enable teachers to rapidly collect and analyze student responses to multiple-choice (and sometimes free-response) questions during class.  These systems can be used to effectively engage and assess students, particularly in large classes.  This workshop explores questions and activities that make the most of these systems, as well as solutions to common challenges involved in teaching with clickers, including writing effective clicker questions, structuring class time using clickers, and responding to results of clicker questions.

I’m Derek Bruff, an assistant director at the CFT, and I’ll be leading the clickers workshop at gradSTEP 2009.  My book, Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments, is coming out in February and features examples of clicker questions and activities drawn from interviews with almost 50 faculty members from a variety of disciplines.  I’ll share some of these examples in the gradSTEP workshop.

Here are a couple of resources to get you started thinking about teaching with clickers:

• I’ve written a teaching guide about clickers for the CFT Web site.
• I also maintain a bibliography of research on clickers, also on the CFT Web site.  It’s organized by discipline, so you can use it to find examples of clicker use in your field.

What questions do you have about teaching with clickers?  What examples of effective use of clickers have you seen or read about?  What potential do you see in using clickers in your teaching?  Leave your thoughts about these questions in the comments below…