May is National Mental Health Awareness Month and we’ve created a deck of iClicker activities instructors can use with their students to discuss healthy coping mechanisms, campus resources and more! Download the Activity Deck ... View more

Students with a Growth Mindset believe that skills can be developed with the investment of time and energy and welcome challenge as an opportunity to grow. While failure is scary, it is necessary for success.  What can you do to help your students develop a growth mindset?  Actively work to dismantle "fixed mindsets" in your course Be explicit about the level of effort required to succeed in your course Include challenging questions in your exams, assignments, and in-class discussions Normalize failure in your course and emphasize failure as an opportunity to grow Learn more from our experts on how to use iClicker to help your students develop a growth mindset.  ... View more

Colleges and universities know that spring traditions are more than just spring break. Explore springtime traditions from a variety of institutions in this month’s trivia deck. ... View more

iClicker gives you the freedom to ask questions whenever and wherever you need. You’re not limited to preset questions-and-answers, and if your lesson demands it, you can ask an iClicker question with no advanced notice. In this month’s blog post, we show you how to ask questions “on the fly” and give you ideas for how to use this feature in class. Take the “Temperature” of Your Classroom Not entirely sure what your class is thinking? Perhaps you explained a concept quickly or you are lingering over details. Use an on-the-fly iClicker question to see where students are and what they may need. You can set iClicker to multiple choice and ask them to hit A if they want more detail, or B if they are ready to move on. This quick step also re-engages every student quickly, encouraging self-reflection. Use iClicker to Make Classroom Decisions The best laid plans of mice and college professors often go awry. Deadlines need to shift or a new groups need to be formed. Use iClicker when these situations present themselves in class. You can open a word processing document, write out the choices, then use a target question to let students record their choices. Using iClicker ensures every student has a say in their classroom community and not just the more dominant voices. You also get an easy record of what students decided. End Class with a Minute Paper Sometimes the last minute of class zooms up without warning. Use iClicker on-the-fly to collect the last precious thoughts you students want to share. Simply set your iClicker poll to short answer and verbally ask students to spend the last minute of class time sharing their ideas in the iClicker student app. You can use the ideas from those Minute Papers when you meet as a class again, jump-starting discussion in an organic way. Replace Images After Class When asking questions on-the-fly, you might not have a screenshot ready to share with students. You can ask a question orally, then replace the image of your question after class by going to iClicker.com and logging in as an instructor. Once there, just click on the name of your course, then the polling session you wish to edit.  ... View more

In the Fall of 2021, we had a webinar on Engagement as a Matter of Equity with Emily Ravenwood (University of Michigan) and Edna Ross (University of Louisville). When implemented with intentionality, instructional technology can be used to support your institution’s equity and inclusion initiatives in meaningful ways. If you don't have time to watch the webinar, here are tips from Dr. Ross to help you create and deliver more inclusive and equitable learning experiences for every student. (We'll have tips from Emily Ravenwood in a later post.)    ... View more

On-Demand Calling all administrators! An iClicker site license easily and economically scales student engagement and success across your institution. All iClicker site-licensed schools can also enjoy the benefits of federated single-sign-on. Check out this discussion of benefits, best practices, and robust Q&A! View the Recording Here! View the Recording ... View more

With add/drop period behind us, it’s time for spring cleaning for your iClicker roster and gradebook. It’s helpful to know how to remove a student (or yourself, if you joined your own course as a student) from your roster or delete an activity from your gradebook.   Check out our best practices below for keeping your iClicker Cloud or iClicker Classic roster and gradebook clean and tidy.     iClicker Cloud - Roster How to Manage Your Roster in iClicker Cloud Manage Roster & Grade Sync: Blackboard Brightspace by D2L Canvas How to Block or Remove a Student from Your Course (Tip: Remember to remove yourself if you had joined as a student. You may need to remove co-instructors and TAs, too, if you are using Brightspace by D2L.) Re-Enroll Students Receiving "Course Access Is Blocked" Message How to Resolve Multiple iClicker Accounts for the Same Student   iClicker Cloud - Grades How to Use the Gradebook on the iClicker Cloud Instructor Website Manage Roster & Grade Sync: Blackboard Brightspace by D2L Canvas How to View and Edit Student Scores How to View and Manage Attendance Data How to Export Grades for All Activities from iClicker Cloud Overview: How to Add Grades from iClicker Cloud to Your LMS     iClicker Classic - Roster How to Sync Your iClicker Classic Roster with Student App Accounts How to Delete a Student from Your iClicker Classic Roster (Tip: Remember to remove yourself if you had joined as a student. You may need to remove co-instructors and TAs, too, if you are using Brightspace by D2L.) How to Manage Students with Multiple Registered Devices in iClicker Classic   iClicker Classic - Grades How to Use the iClicker Classic Gradebook How to Sync Grades with Your LMS How to Manually Upload Grades to Your LMS How to Export Grades from iClicker Classic ... View more

With iClicker Study Tools, students are able to take your iClicker polling questions and make them into flashcard packs and practice tests. Let your students know this feature is included with iClicker and read on for more ways you can create iClicker questions worth studying. Make sure your iClicker questions connect clearly to formal assessments.  Students enthusiastically review their iClicker questions when they know they are inspired by the ones they will encounter on their quizzes and exams. Your past formal assessments are also great places to find potential polling questions. What questions did students miss the most on your midterm last semester? Be sure to ask iClicker questions that are at the same difficulty level and the same question type they’ll meet on your quizzes and exams. Keep some slide design principles in mind. There’s a lot of overlap between a well-designed presentation slide and a well-designed flash card. Use a large, clear font and make sure it contrasts well with your background. You’ll also want to think about what your slides will look like on students’ phones, since that’s where they’ll review your questions. You should also try to include simple graphics when appropriate to trigger the picture superiority effect. Ask a variety of question types. The type of question you ask your students impacts how they’ll interact with them through Study Tools. If you ask a multiple choice question, flashcards will show a simple A-E response on the back of the card. If you ask students short answer, numeric and target questions, your students will see much more detail on the back of their flashcards. Introducing a variety of question types also takes advantage of interleaving, a method where instructors mix topics and question types to improve learning outcomes. ... View more

International Women’s Day is March 8th. This month’s trivia gives students a chance to test what they know about the century-old celebration. ... View more

On-Demand Your students have learned so much from your iClicker sessions - now it's your turn! Check out our discussion of ways you can take your iClicker sessions and turn them into actionable feedback. We explored how you can use your iClicker Attendance, Polling and Exit Poll data to help yourself teach smarter, not harder. Watch the Recording Here! View the Recording ... View more

Thursday, April 21, 2021, at 1:00 PM ET Calling all administrators! An iClicker site license easily and economically scales student engagement and success across your institution. All iClicker site-licensed schools can also enjoy the benefits of federated single sign-on. Join us for a discussion of benefits, best practices, and robust Q&A! Register for the Webinar Here! Register ... View more

On-Demand Habits can make or break a student's education. Some cultivate habits that keep them on a steady track towards success, while others fight against their habits as they try to learn. Join us for our latest webinar where we explore how you can use iClicker with your students in a way that helps them improve their habits both in and out of the classroom. Watch the Recording Here! Watch the Recording ... View more

On-Demand The sooner your students come together as a community, the sooner they can get to the serious work of learning. iClicker democratizes the classroom, raising all voices to the same level, allowing every student to participate in class discussion. Catch up on this webinar where we discuss ways instructors can use iClicker in their classroom to bring their students together easily and effectively. View the Recording Here! View the Recording ... View more

      iClicker’s new Confidence Rating feature encourages students to reflect on their learning in class and provides instructors additional real-time insight into student understanding. Here’s how it works and some best practices for using it!   Instructors Turn on the Confidence setting from the More button of your toolbar anytime during an active class session, before running a poll in which you wish to gauge student confidence. Keep in mind the following tips:  You can’t turn Confidence on after starting a Polling question (you also can’t turn it on outside of an active class session) Once you turn Confidence on, it stays on for the rest of the class session, until you return to the More menu and turn it off. If you’re familiar with Anonymous mode, Confidence Rating functions in the same way To avoid student burnout with Confidence Rating, we recommend asking Confidence Ratings strategically rather than including with every single polling question  After you stop the Polling question, students receive a five-second grace period  to finish submitting their Confidence Rating. During this time, students can’t answer or change their response to the poll question itself, and you can’t grade students’ responses using the Results chart Students’ individual confidence ratings are anonymized, but you can view aggregate confidence ratings using the Results chart in class You can also view aggregate confidence ratings using the Class History section of the iClicker Cloud instructor website after class. If you ask multiple questions with Confidence Rating enabled, you’ll see which question in the class session had the highest Confidence Rating and which had the lowest   Students Students can rate their confidence in their Polling responses: Very confident, Confident, Somewhat confident, Not confident.  Students won’t see Confidence Rating until after they have responded to the Polling question After you stop the Polling question, students have a five-second grace period to finish submitting their Confidence Rating   Software updates to support Confidence Rating  Instructors Cloud 5.2.1 was released to support Confidence Rating. This is an optional update, but you must update your desktop software if you plan to use Confidence Rating. To update, follow the in-app prompt to update your desktop software, use the iClicker Cloud menu option to 'Check for Updates', or visit the iClicker Downloads page.   Students Version 6.3 of the iOS and Android apps was released to support Confidence Rating. The iClicker student web app was updated automatically. This is an optional update, but students must update their mobile apps or participate with the web app to use Confidence Rating. ... View more

  We’ve long recommended that instructors run a few practice activities in a separate sandbox course before going live with iClicker in a real class, with real students. Students often get concerned when they see they’ve “missed” a few activities, and they don’t know you were just practicing before the term started.   Now that we’ve released our unlisted course feature, instructors can create a practice course that is truly hidden from students. When you limit course enrollment to only invited students, students will not be able to find it among the searchable courses associated with your institution in the student app. They can join an unlisted course by invitation only, whether it’s via roster sync, Quick Join, or an LTI link.   To set a course as unlisted, select the option that Students must be invited to this course under your Enrollment settings. You can do this as you’re creating a new course in iClicker Cloud or anytime after, through the Course Details page of your course settings. Learn more about creating a course and managing your settings. Then, you’re ready to start practicing on your own or with a colleague or two! Remember that you can use your instructor credentials to sign in to the iClicker student mobile or web app for free. Contact tech support if you need a student subscription extension. Learn more about running practice iClicker sessions. Interested in setting your real, live course as unlisted? Simply follow the steps to create a new unlisted course or modify an existing course, then add students to your course. ... View more