Clicker devices make it easier for students to cheat off what other classmates press into their device, or [to] answer… for another student if he or she was unable to attend class.
The Chronicle of Higher Education also believes clickers give students more opportunities to cheat and abuse the system.
In a Sept. 4 article, the Chronicle’s Jie Jenny Zou writes, “Students purchase remotes and register the devices in their names. Those who choose not to attend large classes can simply ask friends to bring along their clickers and get whatever credit the instructor assigns for showing up.”
But hell. That’s nothing compared to how you can cheat when the whole course is online.
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Editorial, The Baylor Lariat
September 15th, 2011 at 9:46AM
Lots of people talk up how “great” clickers are, but to me, they just seem…I don’t know, so…programmed? Like rats in a cage pushing levers for a pellet.
Why can’t we just TALK to our students any more to try to find out what they do and don’t know? I’m not at all fond of the current mania for constant numerical assessment.
September 15th, 2011 at 6:13PM
From later in the editorial:
“Rather than having clicker responses account for most of the points in the class, professors ought to use them for polling responses and engaging students throughout the lecture to grasp their full understanding or misunderstanding of what is being taught.
It is wonderful that in a class of 200 students, a professor can monitor what each student understands or needs help in; this interaction usually only happens with smaller classes.
If professors instead use the clickers for students to provide feedback on what information they understand or what information they would like more explanation on, then clickers can help guide the class in the direction they need to go.”
I teach larger classes (60-100 students) and use clickers for attendance. I schedule 2-3 questions per 50 minute session so that they have to respond every 15-20 minutes. I want to keep them focused and I want to see how much material they are absorbing. If students do gather up piles of clickers so that their friends get credit, good for them. It’s only worth 2.5% of their grade. Some students will always find a way to cheat. But in my experience, judging by the number of clicker responses and how full the classroom is, the large majority of students aren’t doing that. The point is, this is just a tool, like every other piece of technology. There is a place for it in education.
September 16th, 2011 at 10:26AM
My experience fits with Rosemary’s. They’re terrible if you actually give texts or graded quizzes with them, but as a tool “engag[e] students throughout the lecture to grasp their full understanding or misunderstanding of what is being taught” it works fairly well.
There’s still the issue of students claiming attendance when they aren’t there, but I find those students will fail the tests anyway.
Not that I like clickers, but when you have to deal with a large lecture class, they’re a decent tool. But using them for graded quizzes or tests? Bad idea.
September 18th, 2011 at 2:48AM
I must be rather un-modern, but I’ve never used “clicker” devices. I’ve heard them being used in larger classes to do some mini-quizzes to raise attention during the lectures (the professor describes a problem and proposes several possible solutions).
If we really need to check attendance, we have students sign on a roll call.