In-Class Student Response System

This is a request for one of my colleagues.  She is wondering if anyone has successfully (or not!) used an in-class student response system - clicker technology or something like that.  A bit of poking around turned up this information, but she isn't satisfied with what she's found:

Someone suggested a website called yorn.com but I spent about 10 minutes on the site and was completely lost. I simply couldn't figure out how to set up questions. I may try again to figure it out after a break. A few people suggested that TWEN's polling feature could be used for this (though nobody actually uses it for that). The TWEN platform isn't really great in my opinion as it doesn't let you show individual questions one by one and it also requires students to bring laptops. I found one website (polleverywhere.com) that does what I want - but only allows up to 40 student responses with free access. This would work for a lot of classes but not for a large first year class. It's quite expensive to get a subscription for more than 40 responses.

Anyone have experience with this type of technology and want to share their experience?  Thanks!

Comments

[anon2]

I think Jonathan Zittrain wrote and uses a program for this that is pretty good for this.

[Richard Gershon]

I have used Turning Point software and clickers, and the feedback from students has been universally positive. The software works with PowerPoint. You create question slides, and the students respond. The feedback is immediate in the form of a slide that lets you know how the students answered.

I have found that students are more willing to speak in class, after they see that other students answered the same way as they did.

[Mark Spottswood]

I use TurningPoint when teaching Evidence, and have found it both easy to implement and popular with students. It works best for multiple choice, but you can also configure it to ask short-answer questions. As Richard noted, it integrates easily into powerpoint presentations, and the question slides can be built using a bit of software that adds a few extra buttons to powerpoint.

[Rick Bales]

I use TurningPoint for my Civ Pro class. Several of my colleagues do as well. Our library has purchased 150 of the clickers; when I will be using the clickers for class (about every 4th day), I check them out from the library, distribute them at the beginning of the class, then return them to the library after class. This way the students don't have to pay for a clicker that they may seldom if ever use again in law school.

[Eric Muller]

Your colleague should contact her campus's teaching and learning center. (Is this a Drexel colleague? If so, it's this: http://www.drexel.edu/provost/dcae/) This is what they do for a living.

[JoshMBlackman]

I use a Live Chat during the classroom that allows students to interact with me, and with other students. Recently, I have been using Today's Meet. Here is the feedback from my class on Monday: http://todaysmeet.com/Property2b-Aug132012

[Dross17]

eInstruction's CPS for Higher Ed is a great tool. It has the most robust reporting and the school pays nothing, students pay a nominal fee to use their clickers in many classrooms per school. Also, coming soon from eInstruction, students can use their smart phones,iPads, laptops, etc. The best part about eInstruction is the reporting. The teacher gets great reports from the responses, plus can get a teacher pad that gives them real time data for $449.

[Jeff Lipshaw]

I also use Turning Point. You have two choices. You can embed the Turning Point in the Power Point itself, but that is problematic if you use Power Point for Mac, because Turning Point doesn't support the most recent versions. So, as a Mac user, I use "Turning Point Anywhere", which runs as a separate program in the background of whatever is on the computer.

Substantively, I do multiple review questions at the end of each unit, and I use the software for anything that I might have asked for a class vote or preference. I also use it to teach UCC Article 2 remedies by way of a series of problems.

Finally, as to the response technology itself, you can either use clickers, which either the school or the students have to buy, or the students can buy ResponseWare license by which they can download an app for their smartphones or tablets that allow them to respond. That's the option we are going with this year.

[David Herzig]

I use i-clickers. It is easy to set up the questions (just do it in power point). Then when the question is asked, the technology takes a snapshot of your screen and the answers the students input. You have a handy graph that displays the data if you want to share it with the students, e.g., how many answered each question.

[Greg McNeal]

I use Turning Point clickers, and this year nearly 2/3 of our faculty will as well. Our library purchases the clickers and "checks them out" to students for their use during the semester. I use the clickers for discussion questions (get a sense of the room), testing understanding of material, review questions, etc. They are great and easy to integrate.