Electronic Voting Systems - Clickers

Electronic voting systems (EVS) are used to collect digital responses to questions from groups of students. Each student has a hand-held personal response system(similar to those used in the TV programme “Who wants to be a Millionaire?”) and a receiver is attached to the lecturer's computer. The system allows lecturers to add question and answer activities to lecture sessions with large groups. EVS have been used in Universities for several years, and have adopted the name 'Clickers'.

Gathering responses from students during lectures has helped lecturers gauge the understanding of their students, giving them a chance to focus on areas the class is struggling with.

Here are my top 5 tips, on using electronic voting systems in your lectures

Peer Discussion - Ask students a multiple choice question then asks them to answer individually. Display their answers but not the correct answer, and then ask them to discuss with their neighbours and vote again. – This purely peer led discussion with the students learning from each other.
Asses understanding - of a complex topic, it’s too easy to assume everyone got it! Gauging your students’ understanding of points made during a lecture. Students often hesitant to ask questions when they don’t understand something, or are naturally shy. Using clickers in this way we can get a feel for how the whole room is feeling about a particular topic.
Graded Quiz – Give students, the questions before the lecture and ask them to prepare, we can then ask the pre prepared questions at key points during the lecture. Instead of the need to have them at the beginning or end using a paper quiz.
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