It was once the contention of Thomas Edison that “waste is worse than loss.” For students at U of T’s Scarborough campus, this phrase has taken on a new meaning. The issue at hand involves the school’s tactless decision to force some students to purchase “clicker” contraptions as part of a new means of evaluation.
The clicker system is part of an experiment aimed at stimulating participation in spite of the often impersonal nature of large classes. In this system, professors are to ask multiple choice questions throughout their lectures and students are to provide answers via their individually purchased clickers.
According to the bookstore website, the device is currently a course requirement for some first-year physics and environmental science students; a lack of effectiveness in second-year organic chemistry classes has led to its complete abandonment.
Resembling a television remote in appearance, the clicker transmits answers to the professor’s personal computer, which tracks correct responses and credits the respective student with appropriate participation marks. Professors are thought to gain from better feedback on their teaching quality by analyzing the information harvested.
Though the proposal seems ingenious on paper, disparities inevitably arise between theory and practice. At around $30 for purchase and registration, the clicker doesn’t exactly cost an arm and a leg, but it is another unnecessary bill that students are now obliged to pay.
Costs aside, the age-old adage, “If you are going to build something, build it right,” has had little effect here. Without any display lights or indicators there is no way for students to tell when their clicker runs out of battery life, or worse, whether the device is functioning at all. Even a cinderblock cell phone from the ’90s can tell me when it isn’t feeling well.
More preposterously, a lack of foresight in design has left the devices without an LCD display screen. Students cannot confirm the answers inputted into the central computer system; simply put, there is no way to know what you have just entered if you happen to become distracted. This deficiency has understandably ruffled a few feathers.
“It was a complete waste of money,” argues Mack Leung, whose organic chemistry professor eventually abandoned the clickers.
“We hardly ever used them-it was a complete mess. The problem with the Q&A sessions is that some people would check their textbooks before they input an answer.”
Despite a $15 rebate on the clickers offered by his environmental hazards course, second-year student Fred Ho also acknowledges the futility of the system in that “people just copy and share answers.” As a means of measuring the teaching quality of professors, these clickers undoubtedly receive an F.
Having forced students to buy these devices, some professors eventually began to abandon the clicker system, finding the question-and-response sessions to be extremely time-consuming. The useless nature of the clickers has left some professors scrambling to find a functional purpose for them.
In at least one instance professors tried to integrate the system into the processing of midterms, with students being told to enter their answers via clickers after completing the test on paper. Due to technical issues, a number of students were unable to operate their devices during the midterm, but fortunately for them it turned out that only the answers written on paper were evaluated.
This misuse is not uncommon, for while some classes, such as one called environmental hazards, have been known to integrate Q&A participation marks into final evaluations, students of organic chemistry classes found that their clicker participation was completely worthless in determining their final marks. For those students, the clicker system was an elaborate gimmick that had pirated them of $30.
Professor Michael Gipp, who teaches the environmental hazards class, noted that “the school likes the clickers, because the cost (of the system) is borne entirely by the students.”
Students undoubtedly benefit from some forms of alternative evaluation, such as tutorials, labs, and minor assignments, but these clickers do not add anything but misery to the learning experience. Answers derived from students during lectures cannot be considered reflective of overall teaching quality, as oftentimes-particularly in lower-level classes-students learn more from their textbooks than from their professors’ ramblings.
Considering all their drawbacks as educational aids, propping up the various wobbly chairs around campus would be a more appropriate use for these clickers.
