In her sociology classes at
Indiana University
(USA),
professor Melissa Wilde uses a small wireless keypad linked to a
computer to enable students to answer questions not by raising
their hands but by pressing buttons, with the results appearing
on a screen in the front of the room.
Wilde has her students answer multiple-choice questions to
see whether they understand her lecture points and to make
necessary adjustments. “I can instantly see that three-quarters
of the class doesn’t get it,” she says. She also uses the
technology to get students to answer questions about
themselves—race, income, political affiliation—skewed, for
example, toward wealthier or poorer students, an event that
fired up a half hour of excited class discussion