Letter: Math teacher commends foundation on clickers

TO THE EDITOR: I want to take a moment to commend the Ellsworth Community School District Foundation in providing my high school math classes a set of Smart Response clickers.

(I waited to express my appreciation until the end of the first quarter, so that I could honestly tell you some examples of what I’ve used them for. It has been one of those learning curves again that I am now feeling comfortable adding to my daily classroom.)

In the first quarter, I sporadically used these clickers to assess how students were currently doing in the curriculum: open-ended assessments, multiple choice assessments, midterms and finals. The data was instantly calculated and a visual circle graph was shown as to percentages of the students that answered each question correctly. By looking at this data, I would then know whether moving on was feasible, what should be emphasized, and what was not needed to be talked about.

In the testing situations, the graphs not only show who answered the problems correctly, but what they thought were the correct answers—which was very useful. These clickers would also give a total score for each person on each quiz that was given, and would keep that in a “grade book” of sorts.

As I have become more proficient, I am trying to use them for practice ACT questions and other initiatives daily, also. I very much appreciate the support that the community’s foundation has shown to our educational process. You make our ever-changing technologically advanced world possible in our classrooms through these grants.

Tags: opinion, letters, school, ellsworth, k12