A two-hour course with hundreds of students used to be a recipe for students losing attention, says Dave Dusseau, a senior instructor of business.
But Dusseau is trying to change that with some help from technology. He recently started using classroom clickers – radio frequency devices about the size of a credit card, but thicker.
Professors post questions on an overhead, and students can choose from multiple-choice answers. Students hit a button on their clicker to choose an answer, and the results appear on the overhead anonymously. The device is designed to give students and professors immediate feedback on course material.
The University is experimenting with the clickers right now, but may use the devices in classes with large enrollments.
Dusseau started using the clickers in his four Intro to Business courses – each with roughly 285 students enrolled. Dusseau says he usually talks for about 10 minutes and uses the clickers the remainder of the class.
“The students then have the responsibility to interact during the whole class meeting,” Dusseau said.
During a business class Thursday afternoon, Dusseau posted a question and encouraged students to answer.
“Make your best choice now,” he told students.
About 99 percent of the students answered correctly, so Dusseau briefly explained the answer and moved on to the next question.
“If only 2 percent of the students got something wrong, then those students didn’t understand it, but if 20 percent didn’t understand it, then I didn’t do my job right,” Dusseau said before the class. The system helps Dusseau become aware of any topics that he needs to spend more time on, he said.
The class also works in groups to answer questions by collaborating and using class notes and books.
“The activities are a lot more interesting and engaging than listening to me,” Dusseau said.
The clickers encourage interaction, but they also provide feedback.
Dusseau said he once used written multiple-choice questions to get feedback from students.
“I really had no idea how well people understood things,” Dusseau said.
University freshman Curtis Fetzer says the clickers are beneficial in class.
“It gives you perspective and makes you think about the material more,” he said. Fetzer says the clickers save time and paper because no written quizzes are handed out during class.
Fetzer, who graduated from Tillamook High School, says the class helped him meet and interact with new people.
“I definitely wasn’t used to the large courses,” he said.
Using the clickers did, however, come with a few growing pains and technical difficulties.
Dusseau said there was some debate on whether or not students should pay for the clickers. The University decided to supply the clickers.
“Thirty bucks additional for one course – even if you can sell it back for $20 – seems like an inordinate burden for the student,” Dusseau said.
Professors keep the clickers and bring them to each class, and students in different sections use the same clicker. At the beginning of class Thursday, business students passed out boxes filled with clickers.
It’s possible students could be required to buy clickers if more University courses required them, Dusseau said.
JQ Johnson, director of the University’s Center for Educational Technologies, said in an e-mail the University is currently in an experimentation phase with clickers, with Dusseau’s class acting as the only test class this term.
“They are a very popular technology at other institutions, though, and there is hope that we might start to see widespread use of them, perhaps as early as next fall,” Johnson said. “The trick, as with any instructional technology, is to make sure that the costs are lower than the benefits.”
Dusseau said he will continue to use the clickers in the future.
“They really help put everything together for students,” he said. “Oh, and they’re cool.”
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