Participating with clickers

Three times a week, students in Professor Stan Schein’s Psychology 115 class enter the lecture hall with their clicker devices in hand, hopefully having skimmed through the required readings and lecture slides prior to their arrival.

At any point during lecture, Schein will quiz his students on the day’s material, and students will click in their answers electronically to earn participation points.

The clicker serves as a teaching tool for various professors primarily in the life sciences and is currently being used in eight classes, said Neil Yamaguchi, Associated Students UCLA academic support director.

The small device allows students to prove their attendance and be rewarded for paying attention when they answer a question on their clicker, said Schein.

Once all the responses are received, a histogram is generated immediately, allowing students to see the correct answer.

Schein said he integrated the clicker into his class after noticing that attendance dropped once his lectures became available via podcast.

“The clicker gives students a snapshot of what they do and do not understand,” said Professor Debra Pires, who teaches Life Sciences 1. She began using the clickers in winter 2006 and said she hopes to create better learners by having her students become more self-aware ““ the clickers let them know right away the concepts they need to review.

However, for some students, the use of the clickers in class does not justify their cost.
“Typically the professors ask only three or four clicker questions per lecture that could just as easily be answered by a show of hands,” said Erika Sweitzer, a third-year biology student who has had to buy three different clickers thus far.

She added that with the rising cost of student fees and overpriced textbooks, some sort of clicker rental program would help to alleviate the burden of their cost.

Clickers are a pricey investment, retailing for $45.99 or $52, Sweitzer said, depending on the brand. Professors choose which brand they want to use based on their own preferences. The TurningPoint clicker can be used for multiple classes, while the InterWrite clicker can only be used for one.

Schein said he hopes someone will create a website where students can offer to share their clickers with students in other courses.

Despite their cost, some students said they like the clickers because they help them learn the material taught in lecture.

Gabriela Gonzalez, a second-year microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics student, said in her Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology 50 class students discuss controversial issues by providing input via their clickers.

“The clickers allow you to see the distribution of people who agree or disagree with you on a particular topic, which is engaging,” Gonzalez said.