End of Boring Classroom Lectures – Peer Discussions and ‘Clickers’ Take Centre Stage

Peer discussion in classrooms can be enhanced with the use of what researchers call “clickers” - simple audience response devices that help students learn more; declare researchers at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Even though students across the university campus are sharing answers, checking their responses to questions against those of their neighbors, and making adjustments to those answers in hopes of earning a better grade., professors are encouraging the whole activity.

And surprisingly, the students are getting more answers right.

Declining the suggestion of cheating among the students, Associate Professor Tin Tin Su insisted that they were learning from each other in a meaningful way.

Clickers are devices similar to a TV remote control that allow students to record their answers to thought-provoking, multiple-choice questions in class.

Once students answer a question individually, the instructor often asks them to discuss the question and then vote again before revealing the answer.

The study has shown that students usually do better on the question after discussion.

"I was skeptical about whether in-class discussion really led to students' learning. The clickers are a good way to get instant feedback, but do the students really learn from discussion or are they just changing their answers because of peer pressure?" said Su.

Given that no other study had ever determined which of those possibilities was true, Su's team decided to find it out.