Presenter(s): Jeff Nugent

Classroom response systems, or “clickers”, have become more widely used in education in recent years. Clickers can provide valuable feedback about how student are learning and thinking about a particular topic. However, use of these devices often requires that students purchase hardware and that faculty learn new software tools in order to use them. This has often prevented the occasional or spontaneous use of polling technology in the classroom. This session will explore alternatives to clickers, which include cell phones and freely available web-based tools, and discuss possible classroom uses.

Introduction

• What are "clickers" and how do they tend to be used in the classroom?
• How can classroom polling be used to enhance teaching and learning in the classroom?
• What alternatives exist for occasional classroom polling?
  

Food for Thought
The idea of classroom polling and the use of "clickers" is not new. Faculty interested in what students are thinking - and making that known - have engaged in this practice as long as there has been formal schooling. That said, there are some instructional practices for which classroom polling seems to be an ideal complement. Below are a few resources that might be of general interest:

Making Thinking Visible

• Project Zero - Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels.

• Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible - A seminal piece by Allan Collins, John Seely Brown, and Ann Holum that provides a thoughtful overview of the value of helping students see the proces of the work of experts and compare it to their own.

Peer Instruction

• Mazur Group - Physicist Eric Mazur has engaged in pioneering work with the peer instruction model for over a decade.

Web-Based Polling Tools
Below is a list of freely available web-based polling tools that we'll explore in the brown bag session.

Poll Everywhere - Live audience polling can be used with cell phones, smart phones and web.

Poll Daddy - Live web polling, can be embedded in web pages and blogs.

Google Moderator - Web-based tool from Google that permits participant generated questions that an entire group can then vote on and rank.

Zoho Polls - A web-based polling tool that manages feedback about ranking items.

(Example of use in class - http://zohopolls.com/bwatwood/ )

twtpoll - A polling tool that launches a poll from your twitter account...for those of you that are tweeters ;-))