Keypads are used in a variety of modes, each with different advantages.
"Individual anonymous" enables the educator or consultant to gather the aggregate views of all members, whilst the participants have the comfort and confidence to express their opinion without it being explicitly traceable back to them.
"Individual attributable" allows the lecturer to gather the aggregate views of the class and also to pick out specific results, either to engage the individual in debate or to use the results for assessment purposes. Assigned keypads may also be used to monitor attendance, although a judicious approach to this is strongly advised.
"Group" usage of the keypads requires small groups to log their views or answers via the keypads. The dynamic within the group generates discussion which relies much less on stimulation by the lecturer, than when the keypads are used on an individual basis.
Question Types
Question types available through the standard manufacturer's software varies but typically includes:
- Multiple choice (single answer)
- Multiple choice (multiple answers)
- Match
- True / False
- Numeric response
- Free text input
How best to employ questions is heavily dependent on the adopted pedagogy, the learning objective(s), clicker allocation (group / individual / anonymous / attributable) and on the relative timing of question/activity/clicker input. Thalheimer (see Links and Resources) lists some 39 variants of question type and educational objective! The displayed output tends to be in a simple graphical format and ABT broadly terms this combination "voting."
Peer Instruction
Devised by Prof Eric Mazur of Harvard University, Peer Instruction focusses participant on developing and applying their learning. A challenging question is posed and audience responses logged using clickers. Audience members are then challenged to discuss their view with somebody who disagrees. A re-vote is then taken, the correct answer revealed, and the reasoning discussed.
This teaching method is particularly effective, not only at engaging the audience, but in deepening their understanding of the subject matter.
Your View
ABT's "YourView" extends the potential of keypad use to enable more numerous inputs from each clicker to be aggregated into a calculated model, often displayed on a two-by-two matrix. (see Voting and Modelling for further details)
Simulations
ABT's Simulations extend clicker use still further whereby clickers are used as data input terminals, with data from each clicker being used for independent functions, rather than being aggregated.