Overview
Personal response system (PRS) clickers are pocket-sized keypad devices that, used in conjunction with PowerPoint, enable instructors to poll an entire class of students and view instant aggregated results.
Description
USC has experimented with clickers since 2003 and recently adopted The Turning Technologies ResponseCard as a recommended standard for course use. Standardizing clickers throughout the University means that students can use the same device for every course and faculty have more opportunities to learn from each other's experiences with using clickers. A standardized system also simplifies IT support.
Capabilities
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Just-in-Time Teaching. After posing a question, instructors can use the information from the histogram of student PRS clicker responses to gain insight into what students know and don't know and tailor the lecture "just in time" to address specific gaps in knowledge.
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Posing concept questions (defined as questions which require no calculations but address a core concept). Used heavily in the sciences and engineering, posing concept questions helps shift the focus of a lecture from facts and procedures to overarching concepts. Instructors can easily judge students' overall understanding by posing a carefully constructed concept question and asking students to respond via clicker.
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Anonymous polling. This procedure is perhaps most popular in the social sciences and other similar disciplines. With specific privacy settings and/or random mix of clickers, students can feel confident that their individual responses to questions on sensitive or controversial topics will remain anonymous. A view of the aggregate responses shows precise, diverse student demographics, experiences, and opinions.
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Instant roll call and attendance count. Instructors can use PRS Clickers to quickly determine who and how many students are present at any given time.
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Quick quiz. Instructors can conduct real-time, graded evaluations of student performance.
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Mid-semester evaluation. Similar to anonymous polling on sensitive topics, instructors can conduct a privacy-protected, mid-semester evaluation.
Tools
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PowerPoint—The instructor shows a PowerPoint slide which poses a question to students. Students select an answer using their clickers. The answers are collected by a USB receiver and tabulated directly within Powerpoint via Turning Technologies TurningPoint system applications. Within seconds, the class can view a histogram of responses and instructors can save this data for further analysis and/or grading.
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PRS Clicker (one unit per student)—Departments and faculty have two options for obtaining clickers for their classes: (1) The department can purchase clickers to check out to professors for distribution in individual classes on an as needed basis; or (2) Faculty can require students to purchase a PRS clicker as part of the course materials. The Turning Technologies ResponseCards are available to students in the bookstore at a discounted price of $32 each.
Faculty who actively use PRS Clickers
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Carol Koprowski, Keck School of Medicine
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Tom Lyon, Gould School of Law
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Ken Sereno, Annenberg School for Communication
Featured Faculty User
Carol Koprowski of USC's Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention has implemented PRS clickers, along with other technologies, to teach HP-431 "Behavior and Education Strategies for Nutrition and Fitness." In her course, Kopowski uses the PRS clickers in several ways—as a quick check on the students' comprehension of the reading; as immediate feedback on their understanding of the lecture, which allows her to adjust her presentation as needed; as a spontaneous and anonymous polling tool for issues and questions raised in class; and as practice for the mid-term. In anonymous surveys, as well as in focus groups, the students overwhelmingly agreed that using clickers made the class more interactive and engaging and that the devices helped them to learn.
Manual
Contact
Rick Lacy, Program Manager
(213) 740-8823