Clickers and Our Participatory Culture
A little while ago I reviewed an article by David Campt and Matthew Freeman describing the use of clickers in dialogue facilitation. I was impressed by their nuanced use of participant perspective questions–the kinds of questions I call “student perspective questions” in my book, questions that surface students’ (or dialogue participants’) opinions and experiences. The idea of using what appears to be a factual question (such as, “What percent of US citizens are people of color?”) to surface participants’ assumptions and impressions was particularly interesting. Prior to reading their paper, I hadn’t thought of such questions as perspective questions.
More recently, Campt and Freeman wrote a short article for the Web site Religious Conference Manager describing ways clickers might be used in religious settings (sermons, conferences, and so on). The article describes the kinds of perspective questions I mentioned above, as well as strategies for making the most of clickers in these settings. The following line stood out to me:
Internet experiences and television shows are creating the expectation that people will be co-creators rather than mere passive vessels.
I hear this perspective expressed frequently in educational technology discussions, particularly in regard to students’ participation in Web 2.0 online tools like Facebook and YouTube, tools where students are not only consumers of content but producers. I hadn’t thought about this notion in the context of teaching with clickers, however.
Certainly, if you’re giving your students a quiz that requires them to recall a few facts, then you’re not using clickers to help students become “co-creators” of knowledge in the classroom. However, if you’re asking clicker questions designed to generate discussion (like tough conceptual understanding questions, application questions, or critical thinking questions), then as students involve themselves in that discussion, they are, indeed, become co-creators in their learning. And if you’re using clickers for perspective questions in the ways that Campt and Freeman do, then the students’ responses (their opinions and experiences) are integral to the learning process, making them co-creators.
When used just for voting, clickers do indeed bring in the interactive element that students are accustomed to having in their daily life–“liking” a friend’s wall post in Facebook, rating a book on Amazon, voting for a favorite contestant on American Idol. We live in a participatory culture where everyone seems to get a vote, a way to provide feedback. Clickers provide a way to connection with that culture in the classroom.
Moreover, when used to generate discussion, clickers help motivate an even more participatory culture in the classroom, one similar to that of a blog with an active commenting community. The author of a blog post gets the conversation going, but everyone weighs in–just like an instructor gets a conversation going by posing an engaging clicker question and the students weigh in via votes and discussion.
What do you think? Does teaching with clickers work particularly well with students used to a participatory culture? Do you buy the argument that today’s culture is more participatory than, say, 15 years ago?