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Use Response Cards or Clickers

Tags

All Ages Strategy

Skills

Auditory Processing Expressive Language Verbal Reasoning Processing Speed

Use Response Cards or Clickers

If your students are reluctant to participate in class or hesitant to raise their hand if they don't understand

How To Apply It!

  1. Response cards or digital response systems, such as clickers, are an increasing popular approach for teachers to use for increased student engagement and as a quick check-in of student understanding as they are presenting a lesson.
  2. Whether using paper or digital options, teachers can ask a quick question during the course of a lesson and have everyone respond simultaneously. Depending on the tool, the answer could be fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, or yes/no.
  3. Intermittent active check-ins are shown to increase student engagement throughout the lesson.
  4. Private responding enables students who might be more reluctant to raise their hand the opportunity to actively participate. Students who work at a slower pace also might appreciate they can more fully participate if teachers are able to take an extra pause to give all students time to respond.
  5. There are many digital options including Kahoot and Socrative. These can be fun and interactive, enable students to respond privately or publicly, and quickly allow the whole class to discuss their responses.
  6. Teachers can accomplish much of the same using traditional pencil and paper. For example, students could have index cards with different multiple choice letters or yes/no that they hold up to answer the question. Teachers should make sure that any paper response cards are not designated by color to maintain answer privacy.
  7. Teachers benefit from gaining immediate feedback on how well the class knows/understands the material and make an immediate decision to review further or move ahead. For digital tools that can record, teachers might have the option of reviewing data for specific student answers after class to provide as-needed support.
  8. Note, clickers can be beneficial to ensure students understand factual or foundational information but might not be effective for responding to deeper or more complex questions.

Why It Works (the Science Of Learning)!

When students are more engaged in learning, they are more likely to listen and retain what they hear. Having all students respond to questions throughout a lesson, rather than one student at a time, can effectively boost engagement. However, when clickers are used for responding to deeper or more complex questions, they can actually reduce students' learning if students are not actively engaging beyond the clicker.