Close this Advertisement
Close this Advertisement

News

Cal State Long Beach Pushes iClicker for Student Response

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 05/27/09

Starting this fall, California State University, Long Beach will roll out iClicker as its preferred student response system. Clickers were already popular at Cal State Long Beach, and the student senate, representing 38,000 students, voted to encourage faculty to incorporate iClicker in the instruction, mostly because they liked the instant feedback.

"Simplicity and reliability were central to our faculty's decision to standardize with iClickers," said Leslie Kennedy, director, instructional technology support services. "We all liked that iClicker's response system was about minimizing the technology and keeping students focused instead on the course material."

Instructors use clickers as a tool to gauge students' understanding and to deliver quizzes. Students use a wireless handheld device that allows them to vote for an answer by clicking on the appropriate button. An instructor "receiver" plugged into the faculty computer collects the votes from the student clickers and displays the voting results in a graph to the audience. At Long Beach instructors can integrate clicker results with BeachBoard, the university's course management system.

The initial demand for clicker standardization at Cal State Long Beach came from students who found themselves required to buy multiple devices. Associated Students Inc. (ASI) met with Paul Boyd-Batstone, chair of the Faculty Advisory Committee on Technology (FACT), asking for help. Boyd-Batstone drafted an Academic Senate resolution after attending clicker demonstrations, surveying faculty, and researching how other universities standardized. Cost, reliability, ease of use, and accessibility were primary selection criteria.

Other institutions of higher education using iClicker include California State University, Fresno, the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, and the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business for a number of publications. Contact her at dian@dischaffhauser.com.

Share

Comments

Sun, Aug 15, 2010 Renee Simmons Roanoke City Schools

I am excited about using the Personal Response System in my classroom. I plan on using assessments for pretesting and unit review. The quick feedback will be helpful to the students and teachers. In other classrooms, I have seen the children stay engaged during the activity. I am looking forward to see how second graders react to the program.

Tue, Jul 27, 2010 Bonnie Montgomery Roanoke City Public Schools

No one in my school is currently using the clickers that we have available at our school. I am looking forward to using the clickers to get small snapshots of how well my students are grasping new material. I think this system will be great to desegregate data so that I may break my students into smaller groups and concentrate on the specific concepts that they are struggling with. I also think using the clickers if good practice for taking online SOL tests since the old pencil and paper are on their way out the door.

Wed, Jul 21, 2010 Latasha Suggs Roanoke City Public Schools

Personal response systems allow for the active engagement of the students. They also provide both the teachers and the students with immediate feedback. Teachers can use the personal response assessments as either a pre-assessment to see what the students already know or as a post-assessment to check the students' understanding. In my own classroom, I have found the CPS system that our district has to be very useful as reviews before tests. The students are always very excited to use the technology and it is not hard to keep them engaged. I am looking forward to creating more lessons and using them in my classroom during the upcoming school year.

Sun, Aug 2, 2009 D. Witt Roanoke City Schools

The CPS is a wonderful way to evaluate students. From my observations the students seem to enjoy the system and really think about their responses. Students seem to remain engaged throughout any activity and are more conscientious about their replies than if the assignment was strictly paper/pencil. I'm looking forward to learning more about the system and using it in my elementary classroom.

Thu, Jul 16, 2009 Gale Gravely Roanoke City Public Schools

As the Library Media Specialist of an elementary school, I am always intrigued when new technology equipment passes through for my barcoding. Our school system had purchase a set of personal response system clickers for our school’s use. I immediately considered a grade level with a large number of students and different ability levels to practice this new approach of instruction. Some nonfiction “reading for information” passages with simple questions for response were chosen for use. The selections were first read out loud in class. Highlighting the important bits of information on the hard copy was encouraged. Their highlighted notes could be used in the answering process. The students were engaged with the clickers at the onset. The personal response system allowed for the whole class to have a visual with a percentage of right and wrong answers after each question. This immediate feedback was extremely valuable. Students were extremely conscientious with their replies. Overall, I found the system known as CPS (Classroom Performance System) developed by eInstruction to be somewhat effortless in its operation. I now would like to become more proficient with the system’s software to sharpen my instruction for the next school year.

Wed, May 27, 2009 ADW Rexburg, ID

We also had the problem of 4 different brands of clickers being used on our campus. We eventually decided on iClicker for the same reasons mentioned in this article.

Add your Comment

Your Name:(optional)
Your Email:(optional)
Your Location:(optional)
Comment:
Please type the letters/numbers you see above

Related Articles

Latest Webinars

More FREE Webinars