Central Washington University students in science classes are seeing an unusual requirement beyond textbooks. Commonly known as a “clicker,” this tool is making its way into more classrooms. The clicker, a small remote control, allows teachers to add topic-based questions to their lecture slides for students to answer for points.
“What I would do before, is I would ask a question of the class and somebody would raise their hand to answer, and when you do that you tend to get a few of the brighter or more outgoing students that always answer the questions, and most of the class just continues to sit there,” said Gabrielle Stryker, assistant biology professor. “So [using clickers] is a way to actually engage everyone.”
This technology not only allows teachers to make sure that their students are paying attention, it is also a way to improve and encourage daily attendance. Each clicker has its own number which is recorded each time a student uses it to answer questions. Because of this, students who are less motivated find it more difficult to go unnoticed in a class when absent.
“I do like [the] idea of engaging everyone in the class, not just the few students who want to sit up front and raise their hand and are very comfortable in that position,” Stryker said. “I think it’s good for those students who do feel intimidated, that are a little shyer about answering questions.”
The need for a clicker currently depends on whether or not a specific professor decides to use it. Clickers can be purchased at the Wildcat Shop for $41 new, $31 used and can be resold to the university.
“If it was something that was adopted campus-wide - which I would actually be supportive of because it is such a good way to test your knowledge as you’re going - I feel that it would be more worth it,” said Laural Bales, senior psychology major.
This quarter there are a total of five courses using the clicker in the biology and nutrition departments. Despite the occasional compatibility problem, and a few bugs, which can create a loss of lecture time, junior geography major Toni Christen believes that clickers can be useful.
“It’s kind of good at highlighting what’s important in the material because once you go through like, 10 or 15 slides, you kind of have to pick and choose what you think is important,” Christen said.
“But when they give you a specific question based on what you just learned, you can say ‘okay, well, this was obviously important,’ so I can write it down and study it later.”
According to Stryker, technology is good for the most part and is created to make life easier. But she also believes that it depends on the specific technology itself.
“I think that [the clicker] has a long way to go to become friendly enough before a lot of teachers will use it,” Stryker said. “But I hope that they get there.”
Aside from the clicker, professors have also made good use of the Internet in their classrooms. Stryker has personally been using embedded YouTube videos within her PowerPoint presentations for the past two years. Before this ability, showing students videos was much more of a hassle.
“Your PowerPoint is showing up on the screen and then as you click … it shows up on the screen big and then the students can actually see what they’re supposed to see in the microscopes,” Stryker said. “Some people are visual learners, some people need to read the material, some people need to hear the material. So using different approaches to present the same material, you’ll help the greatest number of students.”
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