More on Clickers in the Law School Classroom

As regular readers of this blog know, I am a zealous advocate of clickers (Taking Back the Law School Classroom: Using Technology to Foster Active Student Learning, 54 J. Legal Educ. 551 (2004)).  Indeed, I am even more convinced of their effectiveness after using them for six years at three law schools and demonstrating their use at faculty workshops at nearly a dozen law schools, the AALS annual meeting, and two national library conferences.  I had anticipated that the clickers would be popular with students near the top of the class (by giving them another opportunity to demonstrate their prowess), but after reading over 1,000 student evaluations I am gratified that all students, especially those near the bottom of the class, appreciate the daily feedback that the clickers provide.   Clickers also can resolve the tired laptops in the classroom debate by enlisting technology in helping students resist their laptop's siren song. Clickers also can be an important arsenal in a law school's response to the reform demands in the Carnegie Report and Best Practices for Legal Education.

Here are several new developments on the clicker front:

• In Search of Answers, Teachers Turn to Clickers, NPR, All Tech Considered (Mar. 2, 2009), by Dan Bobkoff
• Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments (Jossey-Bass, Feb. 2009), by Derek Bruff (Assistant Director, Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching)
• Teaching with Classroom Response Systems (Blog)

(Hat Tip: Jim Hart, Law Librarian Blog.)