Clickers in the Math Classroom

At Day 2 of MCC Math & Tech, the Adventurers learned about Clickers from Derek Bruff, Assistant Director at the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching and Senior Lecturer in the Vanderbilt Department of Mathematics. Derek is author of the blog Teaching With Classroom Response Systems and the book Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments

Derek was not in Michigan, but presented remotely to the group. I first heard of clickers about 8 years ago and heard about problems with signals and receivers that made me shy away from trying them at that time, but according to Derek, clickers now use radio frequency and those problems have disappeared.

There are a number of clicker vendors and he suggested that when exploring we consider: i>clicker, turning technologies, eInstruction, Interwrite PRS, and Quizdom.

In terms of cost to college and students, there are two distribution models. In the first the college buys the system and a classroom set of clickers is distributed to students at the beginning of each class and collected at the end. This is often done at a college that is new to clickers. It saves cost to the student who is likely only using a clicker in one class. Th second model is usually used when clickers will be used across the campus. Students purchase one clicker that they use in multiple classes and the college purchases the receivers and installs them in a number of classrooms for multiple users.

There is also a way to use clickers without clickers and receiver with polleverywhere.com where students use their cellphones and the instructor uses a website to collect responses. This might be a good product to try for a single professor working at a college where all the students have cellphones available in class. There are also models used where each student has an accessible computer - perhaps in a computer lab, and some that use iphone apps.

Derek then spent time showing us how to use clickers in math classrooms and how to get clickers to help students: move beyond common misconceptions, find error in problems, and think more deeply about mathematical concepts. You can also use clickers to motivate interest in a topic.

Derek is a great presenter and I am going to spend more time on his website and seeing what clickers are available on my campus.

Do you use clickers in your teaching? Tell us about it in comments.