WHY CLICKERS?

For most students, clickers will improve learning. This is the
fundamental reason for using them.

The challenge is to use the time in a large lecture in a manner that is
useful and productive. There is a great deal of research on student
learning in general and on physics learning in particular which shows
that unless minds are engaged in an active manner, very little recall
much less understanding will result. The use of clickers is a method to
encourage and reward your active participation in class and thereby
improve your learning.

For the time in class to be useful, you must be prepared and must be
thinking about the information, ideas, and questions that are presented.
Learning is also greatly aided by two-way discussion. Clickers can help
with all of those.

Preparation: For each lecture, there will be a reading assignment which
you should study BEFORE the lecture. (Check out the document "How to
read physics.") At the beginning of class, there will be a brief, closed
book clicker quiz on the reading. This will have one or two short
true-false or multiple choice questions that I hope will be
straightforward if you have done the reading. This will encourage you to
come to class prepared to benefit from the discussion. Almost all
students are pleased to have this to help them keep up on the reading
for the class. As you have discovered by now, physics ideas build on
each other. If you miss an important point, much of what comes after it
may be impossible to understand. It is very important to keep up.
Students who fall behind more than a week, are rarely able to fully
recover.

Active participation: To make it easier for you to keep your minds
turned on and actively engaged during class, I will pose questions for
you to ponder and then answer with clickers. A lot of the questions will
be chosen to help conceptual understanding rather than the simple
memorization of information.

Two-way discussion: Discussing, explaining, and arguing about points of
physics is a huge aid to understanding. All physicists do a lot of this.
Thus when the the clicker questions (except for the reading quiz) are
posed, you will be encouraged to discuss the possible answers with
classmates sitting near you.

Unfortunately, you will have to buy the clickers. The good news is that
the campus has now standardized on the Interwrite PRS RF system, so that
you should be able to use the same clicker for all your UCD classes that
use clickers. Also the bookstore will buy back used clickers similar to
the way that they buy back used textbooks. All your clicker answers will
be transmitted to the receiver with your student ID which you will enter
into your clicker just once. Since this ID can be changed, you might be
able to sell your clicker when you no longer need it.

IMPORTANT TECHNICAL ISSUE: When you send a response with your clicker, 
the clicker sends both your student ID and a clicker hardware identifier
with it. The software records all of this info. It is vitally important 
that you enter your studernt ID correctly and that you use the same clicker 
throughout the quarter and do not share it. Unless you are attentive to all 
of these points, it is likely that some of your responses will be lost.
1) Enter your student ID correctly.
2) Use the same clicker all quarter.
3) Do not share a clicker.

Of course bringing another student's clicker to class and sending responses 
for them is a violation of the Code of Academic Conduct.