For Faculty
From itghelp
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What are clickers?
Clickers are more formally referred to as Classroom or Personal Response Systems.
The system enables lecturers to create special PowerPoint slides with multiple choice questions. The students answer the questions using wireless handheld keypads. The answers are recorded by a small USB receiver plugged into the lecturer's computer and displayed on the next slide.
What are other faculty doing with clickers?
Faculty most commonly use the clickers to gauge students' comprehension of topics during lectures and to introduce interactivity to large lecture sections. Here are some more specific examples:
- Margaret Clark and Marvin Chun in Psychology use the system to have students anonymously respond to questions about relationships and other concepts. The students make predictions and test psychological theories based on the responses.
- Jeff Kenney in Astronomy asks challenging clicker questions requiring students to exercise quantitative reasoning during the lecture session. He also writes clicker questions focused on problem areas identified in the students' homework quizzes to make sure those areas get proper attention in class.
- Allyson Polsky-McCabe in English asks provocative questions which the students answer anonymously to stimulate class discussion in her introductory writing class.
- John Concato in Epidemiology and Biostatistics has groups of his students in his large lecture section stage debates on public health issues. The students who aren't participating in the debate use the clickers to vote for the group they believe had the most compelling argument.
How much time and effort is required?
Out of Class
If you know how to use PowerPoint, then you more or less know how to use the software already.
What takes the most effort is writing good questions. A sign of a high quality multiple choice question is that it will have a pretty good distribution of responses across your answer options the first time students see the question. This means that the correct answer isn't obvious and all (or most) of the distractors are plausible. If you've ever written a multiple choice exam, you know how difficult this is.
In Class
Most faculty who use the clickers ask 3-5 questions per lecture. Depending on if you encourage your students to discuss the questions before or after polling or if there is protracted computation or reasoning required to answer the questions, each question takes anywhere from 1-5 minutes of class time. Some professors have introduced online materials or activities to make up for the lost class time.
I'm interested. How do I get started?
Contact Matthew Regan in the Instructional Technology Group by email at matthew.regan@yale.edu or by phone at 436-8887.
Where do I obtain the software?
TurningTechnologies offers free software called TuringPoint which is a PowerPoint add-in that allows for real-time polling.
The latest TurningPoint 2008 software can be downloaded from this page: TuringPoint Software
Note: TurningPoint 2008 is not compatible with Office 2008 for Mac.
An alternative to TurningPoint is TurringPoint Anywhere that runs independently from PowerPoint and has served as a solution for Mac users wanting to use PowerPoint 2008 or Keynote. The TurningPoint Anywhere software can be downloaded from this page: TurningPoint Anywhere Software
TuringPoint documentation can be found on this page: TurningPoint Documentation
For TurningPoint 2008 receiver upgrade codes, please contact Matthew Regan: matthew.regan@yale.edu
For instructions on how to upgrade your receiver license, please refer to this page: Receiver License Upgrade
Does ITG offer alternative clickers/software?
There are many vendors that provide personal response systems. Publishers frequently package clickers with textbooks. Addiditonally, SMS text-based applications using students' mobile phones instead of clickers are entering the market. Currently, ITG only supports TurningTechnology products. However, we are available to help faculty evaluate their pedagogical requirements and consider which technological options might best fulfill those requirements.
For additional informaion, please contact Matthew Regan at: matthew.regan@yale.edu
When and where do students check out a clicker?
Yale college students enrolled in classes using clickers may checked them out from the Bass Library circulation desk. The circulation desk is open Mon-Thurs 8:30 am - 11:45 pm, Friday 8:30 am - 9:45 pm, Saturday 10 am - 6:45 pm, Sun Noon - 11:45 pm.
