Can Clickers Promote Collaboration and Creativity?

Wesley Fryer, on his “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” blog, recently argued that clickers shouldn’t be put in the same basket as laptops or netbooks when it comes to educational technology in the classroom. He writes:

Personally I am NOT a big fan of clickers. Clickers don’t promote creativity. Clickers don’t empower learners to create and share content, or collaborate. I have been in many classrooms equipped with electronic whiteboards and even clickers, where the ISTE NETS were not being met AT ALL.

There’s a great discussion in the comments below Fryer’s blog post about clickers, faculty development, and active learning. Fryer has apparently not seen clickers used to foster active learning, but he’s open to hearing ideas. Here’s what I said about these issues in the comments:

Dean Loberg makes some great points above about the use of clickers as a faculty development tool, giving faculty members an easy way to become more student-centered in their learning. It’s true, as Wesley Fryer points out, that for a few hundred dollars, you can purchase a netbook that replicates the function of a clicker while also allowing a larger set of rich interactions. However, basic clicker models run closer to $25 than $70, so clickers can be cheaper by a factor of 10.

Furthermore, shifting from “stand and deliver” teaching to a mode of teaching that leverages the interactive capabilities of a class full of networks is a big shift in one’s teaching. That shift might not be an easy one or even an appropriate one for all teachers in all teaching contexts. Polling students to gauge their understanding during a lecture makes sense to most instructors used to the “stand and deliver” method. Since clickers are surprisingly flexible instructional tools, instructors who adopt them for use in very limited ways often find more interactive, student-centered ways to use them.

How can clickers be used to foster student creativity and collaboration? I think the key idea here is to think about using clickers to ask questions you wouldn’t put on an exam. Imagine providing students with four or five contribution factors to a particular historical event, then asking them to select the factor that was most significant. This kind of question wouldn’t work on an exam, unless you had an essay question to accompany it in which students justified their answers. However, this is a great clicker question, since it asks each student to evaluate the given options and commit to his or her answer, creating conditions for a fantastic classwide discussion of the question. Having students pair up to discuss their answers before voting adds even more to the collaborative dynamic. And knowing the distribution of student responses to this question gives the instructor useful data for making the discussion more relevant and responsive to the students.

I blog regularly about teaching with clickers. If this topic interests you, you might start with my recent post on using clickers to teach critical thinking.

I’ll add here that instructors who use clickers in rather limited ways (just taking attendance, for instance, or facilitating the grading of quizzes) don’t always find more student-centered ways to use them. I’ve blogged in the past about the challenge of helping instructors think creatively about their use of clickers. The fact that Wesley Fryer, who is clearly a creative and enthusiastic proponent of educational technology, hasn’t seen clickers used well reminds me that it continues to be important to share best practices for engaging students with clickers.

Image: “school bag” by Flickr user joe.yeah / Creative Commons licensed

Clickers and the “Last Technology Holdouts” says:

July 31, 2010 at 11:35 am

[…] My Thoughts: Using clickers to foster creativity and collaboration […]

Irene Knokh says:

August 3, 2010 at 4:52 pm

Derek, thank you for the post and responses to the Chronicle article.

Educational technology supports learning and teaching-not hinders it.
It’s what you use and how you use it that matters.

There are good ways in which technology, including clickers is used. Granted I am an instructional designer so I am a little biased but consider this-without copy machines, would profs have to distribute their materials?:-)
People need to think of creative ways to use technology and not just insult it as “snake oil” and attacks on hard working faculty….who aren’t the only ones who work hard by the way. 🙂

The key here is collaboration-learning from each other and sharing different tools, that is, what works and what doesn’t.

All I see in the responses to the article is gritted teeth defense. No one is encroaching on faculty’s expertise.

Educational technologists strive to help faculty shine in the class and , most importantly, help their students learn. Quite often, they have significant educational backgrounds themselves. I also noticed in the Chronicle the sometimes disrespectful attitudes to “those IT people.”

In regards to clickers:
I know that with clickers, for instance, one can discuss sensitive situations in a group (scenarios) and ask the participants to respond with their answers (toss in peer to peer learning here too). Clickers would provide a safe learning environment. That’s just one example.

I do have a feeling that a more balanced discussion is needed. Because Chronicle is geared towards a particular audience, I think that sometimes we don’t get all the perspectives. Plus, I have seen faculty who are very technologically savvy (by this I also mean that they really think about the best way to use technology in the classroom to support their teaching)–that doesn’t depend on age (“old fogies vs. young things”).

Learning styles are key
Not making assumptions about the audience is key
collaboration and an open mind are vital….and the operational definition of using technology also differs widely….as can be seen by the responses to this article. 🙂
Thanks,
Irene

derekbruff says:

August 4, 2010 at 9:51 am

Thanks for the comments, Irene. I second your point about “those IT people” having teaching backgrounds. Lost in the hubbub over the article was the very good point that helping faculty members see value in educational technology is easier when “those IT people” talk about teaching and learning issues first and technology second. Many of them do just that, drawing on their own experiences in the classroom.

You also make a great point about using clickers to make it safer to surface student perspectives about sensitive topics. That’s a very common and effective use of clickers, and one that I didn’t mention in my response to the Chronicle comments. I skipped it because the comments focused on using clickers to foster critical thinking, not opinion-sharing, and because my response was already long enough! Thanks for adding that element here.

For more on using clickers to surface student perspectives, see my blog posts in the Student Perspective category.

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