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Comment by Fomite | Hacker News Reader

I don't know a single faculty member who has positive things to say about clickers, even those who were optimistic.

I'm a lecturer and I think clickers are great, for large classes especially. Clicker questions and small group discussion about the answers gets students thinking rather than just sitting there with eyes glazing over. It works well. By giving a small amount of real credit to the answers you even get all the slackers discussing the topic and arguing about which answer is right.

Technologically clickers are impressively easy to use as well, you just need to put in slides with questions into the main presentation. The biggest disadvantage is students who forget to bring their clicker or have endless excuses about why they couldn't be in class on a certain day.

They seem unfair to me :). I learned most afterwards when I was sitting in room alone and really learning. I was present at lectures wrote notes and all that, but found it hard/uncomfortable to absorb it immediately or form an opinion. I prefer to have time to think about material before being questioned on it.

My grades were good, so I do not think it is the issue of me being incapable of college level of learning.

I also usually managed to get enough participation points or answers or whatever was necessary for the grade, but rarely felt that the whole thing added something to my learning. It felt more like waste of time, especially those parts when people asked or had comments only to show they are participating.

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