Experiences with Classroom “Clickers” in Introductory Agronomy Course.

For the past three years, the introductory plant science/agronomy course (average student enrollment of 65) at Illinois State University has required the purchase and use of an interactive audience response system (“clickers”) for all students. Illinois State University has selected TurningPoint from Turning Technologies as the standard platform. The TurningPoint audience response system integrates 100% into Microsoft PowerPoint and allows students to participate in lectures by submitting responses to questions.  Since each student has a unique clicker ID, these responses can be graded as a quiz, or just used to gauge student comprehension of lecture concepts.  Illinois State University is in the process of investigating the use of clickers and students’ clicker perceptions, and to document the relationship between these factors with actual class performance.  As part of this process, students enrolled in the introductory plant science/agronomy course will be surveyed in Fall 2009 semester, and the survey results will be presented at the ASA meetings in November 2009.