1. Student Response Systems:
A Teacher’s Perspective on Their Use in the 2nd Grade Classroom
By Shawn Telford
Project Description
My original idea for a TechQuest was more research oriented. My principal is
interested in purchasing a mobile laptop cart with Wi-Fi, but was wondering what
equipment would be the best to purchase – laptops or netbooks? I was going to do the
research for the purchase. After reviewing the requirements for the TechQuest project
a bit more closely, I realized that the timing of this project would not allow me to do any
sort of implementation. Around the same time I had an “aha! moment” that we have
student response clickers in my building to go with our new interactive whiteboards, and
I have never used them because I don't know how and haven't had the time to
investigate. This brought me to my new topic - Student Response Systems, a.k.a
Clickers.
In order to plan instruction more efficiently, formative assessment is necessary in
the classroom to make the best decisions about where to steer the curriculum. One of
the issues with formative assessment is grading it and putting the information in a form
to analyze it - very time consuming. My hope is that by using a Student Response
System I would be able to do more formative assessments and do them in less time
than having to use a paper and pencil quiz and then creating a spreadsheet and
inputting the data before being able to analyze it. The goal then is to use the clickers
and accompanying software to do formative assessment more often and in less time to
better guide my instruction. While I can see utilizing the clickers in all subject areas, I
would first like to focus on math because there are more discrete skills to assess. It
would allow me to gather information that I could use to decide who needs to receive
instruction in what area with the long term tutor that I have in my room at the end of the
day. This way the tutor's time can be focused on small areas of need with only the
students who need the extra help.
Someone teaching: The teacher will be able to do more formative assessments to
better guide instruction and have the data available in less time, with less work than
using paper and pencil and a spreadsheet.
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2. Someone learning: Students will benefit because instruction can be tailored to meet
their specific needs because deficiencies in learning will be detected earlier and
supplemental instruction can be done in a timely manner.
Some subject matter: The initial focus will be on math with possible expansion to other
subject areas.
In some setting: The implementation of this project will be in my second grade
classroom.
Research
Upon beginning my research for my TechQuest on student response systems, I
just typed in "student response systems." Most of the research I came up with was
related to their use at the college level. It seems that clicker use in college, especially in
large lecture classes, is more common than I would have thought (either that or college
people write more about their experience using clickers). So, I added "elementary" to
the end of my search string and was able to find more articles related to using student
response systems with younger students. Doing a general Google search found a lot of
companies that make and sell student response systems - another eye-opener,
because I didn't realize there were so many options.
Another site I found doing a regular Google search was Classroom 2.0. There
was a current discussion forum about using clickers in the classroom. People from all
over posted their experiences using different kinds of student response systems.
Users gave tips, resources, and recommendations based on real classroom use. A
blog on the same topic listed some resources to check out and was a starting point for
finding articles.
By switching over to Google Scholar I was able to find credible research
published in professional journals. I have found from the research I had to do while
getting my Ed. Specialist at MSU that Google Scholar is a very efficient search engine
to find articles and abstracts. I also use resources given in articles I find to find other
related articles. I then take that information to the MSU library site on-line and get the
actual article. Once in a while the article is available for free through the Google
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3. Scholar search, but often there is a charge. Usually, I am able to access the article for
free through MSU and most of the time it is available in PDF format.
A particularly interesting article I found was a survey study about teaching with
student response systems at the elementary and secondary school level (Penuel, et.al,
2006). As stated earlier, much of the information regarding clickers focuses on their use
at the post-secondary level. This research agreed with that and was considered a
relatively new piece of research for the K-12 level. Interestingly enough the researchers
found that goals for clicker use at the K-12 level are similar to the goals of use at the
university level. Teachers use the devices both to assess (mainly formative) and as an
instructional tool that provides opportunities for student engagement. Since this study
was relatively new in the field of clicker use at the elementary and secondary level,
there were many suggestions for future study and some suggested hypotheses as well.
One that I found particularly interesting and that hit home with me was the
suggestion that for student response systems to be used to their greatest benefit,
teachers need to be trained in their use. Training at my school consisted of one person
spending 15 minutes on showing how they work and telling us they were in the building
to use with our new interactive whiteboards. Had it not been for this project, I would not
have pursued their incorporation into my classroom as soon as I did. It takes time to set
up and figure out. As it stands now, there are only three of us in my entire building to
have used the clickers - the person who went to the original training, her teaching
partner, and me.
Another research article was a case study on the use of a document camera,
tablet, and clickers in a third grade classroom (Swan, et.al, 2007). This article's
conclusion was students were significantly more engaged when student response
systems were used as opposed to the other available technologies. This article made
me more interested in trying the response systems for more than formative assessment.
There was a good article about using clickers (referred to in this article as
audience response systems - ARS) in the large (lecture) classroom in college (Caldwell,
2007). I might have overlooked this article, but as previous research stated, clickers are
used for similar purposes in both K-12 and post-secondary settings. What was of
particular interest in this article was the examples of questions types that can be used
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4. with clickers to take them beyond a simple factual quiz into more of a discussion starter
and tips for writing clicker questions.
Overall, I was pleased with the amount and variety of research available on
student response systems, given their relatively new status, especially at the K-12
level. This is not an exhaustive search, but with student response systems becoming
more popular, more research will become available shortly.
Implementation
In order to implement my project, I had to do some set-up of the response
system. I got the set of clickers which comes in a padded bag with each clicker in its
own slot, in numerical order (clickers are numbered so you can associate a clicker with
a particular student), a USB stick, and a CD from which to install the software. The
brand we have is CPSPulse from eInstruction.
First, I installed the software on my computer and set up a database of my class.
Doing that was fairly easy and straight forward. The clicker set was numbered 65 – 96,
so I assigned each student a clicker – the default in the database starts with one and
increases to as many students as you have in class. At this point I knew my first use of
the clickers was going to be something fairly simple, straightforward, and not critical to a
student‟s grade. I wanted to focus on getting the students to use the clicker. I started
investigating the software to see about creating a simple assessment on telling time.
This part was not as intuitive as setting up a class database. Fortunately, there are
easy to find tutorials on making things work.
The tutorials were short video clips on the Internet that you could access through
the software on the computer. There were a series of 2-5 minute clips that showed you
how to set up quizzes for students to take as a class via an interactive whiteboard or
how to create a paper quiz and have students enter their answers using the clicker. I
debated which way to go with my second graders and opted for having the students first
complete a paper quiz and then enter their answers using the clickers. This would allow
me to assess the accuracy of their answer entries to see if this is a tool I could use to
give me reliable and accurate data for both formative and more “serious” assessments,
such as those tied to a grade for report cards.
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5. The creation of a quiz and the corresponding
set-up on the computer for this type of clicker use
was fairly easy. I decided to assess student‟s
ability to tell time, an important skill that we have
been working on in class lately. I created a short,
multiple- choice quiz of six questions. Each
question had 3 possible answers. I created the
paper quiz on the computer using a similar format
to the Math Boxes in Everyday Math with which
student are familiar. Each question showed a clock
face with hands set to various times. Three
possible times (answers) were shown labeled A, B,
and C (see quiz, left).
The set-up for the clickers was easy for this type of quiz. There is a “quick quiz”
feature that allows the teacher to set up a quiz by inputting the type of quiz (in my case
multiple-choice with three possible answer choices) and then the correct answer for
each question. It was really easy and didn‟t take much time at all.
I had my colleague who had been trained in the use of the clickers show me how
to make everything work with the students - select the quiz, then “engage”, select
“student-paced”, and “begin”. All I needed to do now
was to instruct 25 second graders on how to use a
clicker to input their answers to this short quiz.
My students were very excited to try out this new
technology. I used my document camera and interactive
whiteboard to demonstrate the use of the clicker. I
showed them how to turn it on (power) and the 4 buttons
that they would be using – A, B, C, and send. I showed
them the screen at the top which tells them which
question they are answering and lets them confirm their
answer choice before hitting send. I gave each student
their clicker according to the number that had been
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6. assigned to each. I then handed out the paper quiz and had them use a pencil to circle
their answers. Upon completion of the paper quiz, each student powered up the clicker
and entered answers. I was able to monitor student responses on my computer screen
and troubleshoot and assist with students who were having difficulty. When everyone
felt confident with their answers, I had them power off their clickers and I collected them
as well as their paper responses.
Surprises, Bumps, and Delights
Now what I just described makes it sound like everything went smoothly and
quickly. Not exactly. What I described did happen, but things did not go smoothly nor
was the process quick. This six question quiz that would normally have taken five
minutes, at the most (including passing out and collecting papers), took 25 minutes. I
happen to have some of the worst listeners ever this year, so inevitably there was
someone who entered all of their answers without hitting send in between each one.
Luckily, I could track that on my computer screen and see that she was having trouble.
Also, I forgot to mention one important
detail when I gave the instructions – how
to correct an answer that was entered
incorrectly. Once students began
inputting their answers, about half of the
hands in the room went up. I thought
something had malfunctioned with the
system, until I figured out that I hadn‟t
told them to use the arrows on the
clicker to return to a previous question or
correct an incorrectly entered answer.
Once I explained that, things proceeded
smoothly.
At this point, I thought the results
were going to be disastrous. I expected
a total disconnect between paper
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7. answers and clicker answers. After school, I eagerly printed the “Instructor Summary”
from the list of possible reports to see how the students performed. I was pleasantly
surprised to see a fair amount of students only have one incorrect answer or 100%.
The print-out gave the class average (77.33%), listed the students names, clicker pad
number, the number correct out of the number attempted, the percent correct and a raw
score. My colleague who had used the clickers recommended this report as giving the
most useful information. I also noticed that two students had only answered 5 questions
instead of six. I should have looked for this more carefully as students were taking the
test, because I could have had them correct their errors. That was definitely a lesson
for me to remember next time.
I also printed out an “Item Analysis Report” that showed the percentage of
students who gave each of the 3 answer choices, with the correct answer having an
asterisk next to it. This print-out reminded me of the MEAP print-outs we analyze each
year to find specific areas in need
of improvement. I could see using
this report in the future, because it
would allow me to focus on
specific areas of need for the
entire class. For this particular
quiz, it was telling time to the 45
minutes. Forty percent of students
missed this question.
Since I had collected the paper version of the test, I corrected them to see how
accurate students were when entering their answers. There were the two students
mentioned earlier who only answered 5 questions. Two other students each had one
incorrect entry that didn‟t match their paper answer, but everyone else (21 students)
had a paper score that matched their clicker score. I didn‟t think that was too bad for
the first try. I would like to try another quiz with them to see if we can take the quiz in
less time and if all of the students can enter their answers correctly. If accuracy
improves, I would like to try a quiz where it is done on the whiteboard without needing a
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8. paper copy. It would certainly be a more eco-friendly way to do formative assessments
and would cut down on the time involved with a paper/clicker combination.
Evaluation
I am so glad that I chose the project that I did. Having the extra push of a class
to implement and evaluate the use of student response systems in the classroom was
valuable to me as a teacher. I was able to use the clickers for two different formative
assessments with my 2nd graders, both of them math assessments. The first
assessment was telling time to the 5 minute and the second assessment was on money
(counting, making change, etc.) Both assessments were formative and I had the
students do the test as a paper assessment and then enter their answers using the
clicker.
My goal was to use clickers to do more formative assessment in a shorter
amount of time. Let me evaluate this project related to the four common places of
education:
Someone teaching: The teacher will be able to do more formative assessments to
better guide instruction and have the data available in less time, with less work than
using paper and pencil and a spreadsheet.
Reality: This is where the clickers fell short of expectations. Overall, this was not a time
saver, at least initially. There were significant time savings for the teacher as far as
correcting and analysis goes, but the time in class to pass out the clickers and tests,
have the students take the paper test and then enter in their answers on the device, and
then collect everything was much longer than just taking a paper and pencil test. I
guess the total time might be the same, but the class time involved was definitely
greater.
Things did go faster the second time than the first and I think it will go even fast
next time, but since I have to share the clickers with others classrooms, I feel the need
to put them back in the padded case they came in, so they can be easily transported. If
I had my own class set, I would put sets 4 or 5 clickers in baskets, spread out the
baskets, and have the kids get their own. Since that's not possible, I think that I will use
my label maker to put a little sticker on each desk to remind students of their number
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9. and have kids get their own clicker out. I think I might be able to number the slots in the
padded bag to make putting them back easier, as well.
As far as preparing the test, now that I have a template for a paper test, that part
didn't take too long. Also, setting up the test on the software for a paper test is very
quick and easy. Also, I have the tests ready for future use, which will save time in the
future. What I think will take more time is to create some assessments/activities for the
students to take without paper and pencil. As long as I don't want graphics in my
questions, the process seems OK, but adding graphics was not as simple as doing so in
Word. The other downside is that all students need to work at the same pace because
the questions would be displayed one at a time on the interactive whiteboard, but it
would only require passing out clickers and not dealing with papers and pencils. This is
my next step in exploring clicker use.
Someone learning: Students will benefit because instruction can be tailored to meet
their specific needs because deficiencies in learning will be detected earlier and
supplemental instruction can be done in a timely manner.
Reality: Yes, this can be done easily because of the ability to quickly gather results and
analyze them in multiple formats with the click of a button. After students have entered
their answers, I can easily print a variety of reports that show which areas need more
attention and which students are still struggling with particular concepts. This was
where the time savings was obvious.
Some subject matter: The initial focus will be on math with possible expansion to
other subject areas.
Reality: This is the subject area that lends itself most easily to multiple choice or true
and false type formatting. I usually prefer a fill-in-the-blank type format because
students can't just guess from the 3 or 4 options given in the test. But, using it for
formative assessment is fine and it also give kids practice doing multiple choice
questions, which is more MEAP-like.
In some setting: The implementation of this project will be in my second grade
classroom.
Reality: I wondered if 2nd graders would be able to use the clickers successfully so
that my results were usable (accurate and reliable). The first test had two students
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10. making errors in their data entry (didn't enter the answer that they put on the test). The
second test had only one student with a data entry error. In all three cases, their
electronic score was worse than their paper score. Since this is formative, I feel
confident enough now that the clickers are a useful way to collect information so that I
can find focus correction areas. I don't feel comfortable using this method on a test that
I would take a grade for that would apply to a report card grade - at least not with 2nd
graders. As I said before, I prefer fill-in-the-blank for that type of test anyway to truly
gauge what students know.
Overall, I am pleased with the clickers and will definitely continue to explore ways
of adding them to my teaching. I would like to investigate their use in other academic
disciplines like science and language arts, but since it takes time and time is precious, it
will be a process like adding any other new technology.
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11. Resources
Allard, J. (2009, January 13). Student Response Devices (Clicker!!!) Who has them and
how do you use them? Message posted to
http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topics/student-response-devices
Bruff, D. (2009, April 27). Clickers in K-12 Settings. Message posted to
http://derekbruff.com/teachingwithcrs/?p=184
Caldwell, J.E. (2007). Clickers in the Large Classroom: Current Research and Best-
Practice Tips. CBE - Life Science Education, 6, 8-20. doi: 10.1187/cbe.06–12–
0205
Manzo, K.K., (2009, June 16). Student Response Systems Provide Instant Classroom
Feedback. Education Week. Retrieved from
http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2009/06/17/04feedback.h02.html
Penuel, W. R., Boscardin, C. K., Masyn, K., & Crawford, V. M. (2007). Teaching with
student response systems in elementary and secondary education settings: A
survey study. Educational Technology Research Development, 55, 315-346.
doi:10.1007/s11423-006-9023-4
Swan K., Kratcoski, A., Van „t Hooft, M., Campbell, D., & Miller, D. (2007). Technology
support for whole classroom engagement. Journal of the Research Center for
Educational Technology, 3, 1-12. Retrieved from
http://www.rcetj.org/index.php/rcetj/issue/view/7
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