If there’s one thing I’d like to have in my classroom this coming school year is a “clicker”. The clicker here is not a person who’d click with me but a handheld wireless device that looks like a remote control. Having the device is one thing but having the multimedia equipment to handle is another. But I can dream, can’t I?
We spend an average of 16 years attending school. Mine was longer, all of 22 years. So I’m pretty sure you’re familiar with the scenario where the teacher asks a very simple question that would necessitate an opinion by raising ones hands, either for or against an issue, and nobody in a class of 40 to 50 students would be brave enough to respond for fear or embarrassment to give a wrong answer. I have come across this scenario a lot of times during my teaching career and all I got were blank stares and I would remember blurting out “Are you thinking or just pretending?” To which I get more blank stares.
But now there is a technology available that would extract answers from shy students and shut up dominant ones and it’s the clicker. If you’ve seen an episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos in cable TV, there’s a portion in the show where the studio audience gets to vote for the funniest video towards the end of the show. The audience then cast their votes through a device attached to the seats and key in their votes and the video with the highest votes win. The clicker functions like the device the AFV audience use.
When a teacher for example asks a moral question answerable by a yes or a no, students simply key in their answer and in a few seconds the answer to the survey is shown on the board. No raise of hands necessary yet the teacher gets instant feedback minus the embarrassment that goes with choosing a moral stand. But supporting one’s opinion is another story as this entails an explanation.
Besides real time statistics, it also levels the playing field in the classroom because even the shiest student’s opinion is counted. Although using the device would entail changes in a teacher’s strategies, the device allows for more “silent” student interaction. That’s wish number one for me.
Another useful tool that would be very helpful for teachers like me is an essay-grading software. What teacher wouldn’t want one? Believe me, an essay test is the easiest test to prepare but the hardest to check. Besides checking the content and relationship of ideas in the essay, I can’t help editing the answers to grammatical errors. I cannot forget the migraine I had a few years ago that lasted for two weeks, the worst I had in years, for reading error-laden compositions.
Various essay-grading software analyze sentences and paragraphs looking for keywords as well as the relationship between terms as earlier encoded by the teachers or compare the essay with previously corrected ones then provide a score.
The software is not foolproof as students device ways of going around the system, but they can’t be smarter than their teachers who were students first. That’s what I always tell my students. And that’s wish number two for me as I look forward to another semester of teaching the same subject. I just hope I get less blank stares this time even without the clicker.
(Email me at openingpagemb@yahoo.com)
