Starting each of your classes with an iClicker entrance ticket helps settle your students into class and frame their brains for learning. An entrance ticket is simply an open-ended iClicker question you ask students at the start of class. We’ve put together a deck of entrance tickets that can be used in any discipline. Simply ask one of these questions using an iClicker short-answer polling question while you and your students get ready for class. Asking questions like, “What was most memorable about our last class meeting?” doesn’t take much effort on your part, but it can have a large impact on your students. These open-ended questions encourage your students to think back and access memories of prior learning experiences, uniquely framing their brains for new learning experiences. Other questions can encourage your students to think about projects outside of class or upcoming exams. The results of these polls will also give you a unique running insight into what your students are learning, remembering and where they may need additional guidance. Habitually using entrance tickets will also help your students check into iClicker and ensure they are counted as present with iClicker Attendance. Lastly, try and end your class with an iClicker Exit Poll to easily bookend your classes with iClicker. With an iClicker Exit Poll, students are asked to rate their understanding of the day’s class. They also are able to ask if there is anything that they would like explained further. And bonus-- adding both of these activities to your lesson plans shouldn’t take away from your time with your students. ... View more

On-Demand iClicker can be a breath of fresh air at the start of a new year. In this webinar, you'll have a chance to see iClicker in action. We’ll review what’s new with iClicker, and also discuss ways you can use iClicker in your classroom, whether it’s a traditional brick-and-mortar classroom or a hybrid approach. Lastly, we'll have some pedagogical iClicker activity ideas you can use with your students right away. View the Recording Here! View Recording ... View more

In a meta-analysis of 225 studies that spanned various class sizes, course levels, disciplines, and pedagogy, our researchers found that active learning has a positive income on student performance. Our research also identified common barriers among professors to implementing these active learning strategies, which we sought to ameliorate in the development of our classroom tools: Achieve & iClicker. Read on to learn more about the research behind positive outcomes in active learning classrooms as well as how to implement active learning techniques in your classroom. Download: Research-Backed Strategies for Implementing Active Learning For Better Student Engagement ... View more

The introduction of a group project assignment can be met with a chorus of groans from your students. Group projects are often necessary for our classes. They’re also good preparation for your students’ futures in the workplace. Most students picture their future work life as highly independent but the truth is, most jobs rely on employees working in groups constantly. Here’s how you can use iClicker to manage group projects more effectively and help your students value the learning experience more. Sorting Into Groups Instructors often turn to group work when they want their students to gain experience collaborating with new people. However, when students self-select their partners, they generally pick the same students with whom they feel most familiar. Using iClicker to form groups can shake up a classroom and inspire new relationships in the classroom. Try an activity where you open a multiple-choice poll and click on the results before your students vote. Challenge your students to “balance the bars” Once the bars are balanced (and this can take a while!) ask all the students who voted A to gather in one spot, all the students who voted B to gather in another spot, and so on. This can break your class up in a new way and easily segue into a more dynamic group. iClicker is Ideal for Groups of Two Peer Instruction (PI) is a proven way to move students from passive observation to active learning. With this student-centered type of instruction, students learn by explaining core concepts to each other under the guidance of their instructor. Encourage students to Think, Pair, Share. First, challenge them to Think with an iClicker question. Instead of revealing the correct answer, ask students to Pair with another student who has a different answer. Challenge students to come to a consensus on the correct answer, then Share their results with the class. When you display the results the first time, instruct your students to find peers who picked a different answer. This enlivens your classrooms and encourages students to make connections with more of their classmates. Managing Polling Activities in Groups Often students work on problem sets or complex challenges in group settings. Unfortunately, some groups see finishing the exercises as the goal instead of exploring the materials deeply and coming to a consensus. On the other hand, some groups dawdle and fail to finish the work due to shyness or other factors. With iClicker, your students work on one question at a time, keeping the class in sync with each other. To keep answers from the same group together, use Short Answer as your response type and ask students to respond with their group name at the start of their response. This will easily group responses together while requiring every student to stay engaged in the group activity. Using Assignments for Group Work iClicker Assignments makes it easy to keep group work separate from the polling questions you’re already asking in your classes. With Assignments, groups of students are able to work through a set of iClicker questions on their devices at their own pace. Students can work through a lab activity, answer a set of discussion questions, or conduct a peer review of course writing and they can do it in groups, no matter where the group is located. iClicker Assignments work for groups in your physical classroom or with breakout groups online! ... View more

October is LGBT History Month. This month's trivia deck gives you and your students the chance to explore some LGBTQ+ champions and moments in history. Download the Trivia Deck ... View more

Finding ways to engage students in online & hybrid environments is more important than ever. And while teaching online offers challenges, active learning and engagement tools like iClicker better support students’ sense of support and collaboration, helping them to be successful and remain invested in learning. Check out this quick guide on how iClicker can foster engagement with your students and hear how it's already impacted other instructors' classrooms! Download the iClicker & Student Engagement for Remote Learning Guide ... View more

iClicker offers student engagement for every scenario, whether you teach in-person, hybrid, or completely virtual classes or are unsure how your term will end up. In-Person If you’re teaching in-person, it may have been a while since you’ve used iClicker in the classroom! Remember that you can enable physical remotes in iClicker Cloud—and new remotes now come with 5-year student app subscriptions for ultimate flexibility. We also offer Attendance with an optional geolocation setting to help get students to class and our Focus feature helps students stay on task once there. Watch our Back to School webinar for a full refresher of what’s new in iClicker Cloud. Hybrid and Virtual iClicker works just as well in hybrid or virtual classes, so in case you have to pivot from in-person learning midway through the term, you can continue to use iClicker Cloud. If you’re using iClicker Classic, you can still use the same instructor software—simply enable the student app in your Mobile settings. Here are some tips for a seamless transition to hybrid or virtual learning: Remember that bases and remotes only work in face-to-face classes. However, even if your students previously used remotes, they should already have their iClicker accounts set up and should already be enrolled in your course. If they purchased a new iClicker remote, they also would have received a five-year digital subscription upon registering their remote in the student app. Students will simply open up your course in the mobile or web app and respond to questions there, whether synchronously or asynchronously. If you had set a location requirement for in-person attendance, you’ll need to turn that off in your settings to let your students join class from wherever they may be. You may also wish to disable Focus, as it tracks the time students spend outside of the iClicker app. This is especially helpful for students who only have one device they are using to both access class via a video conferencing app AND participate in the iClicker student app. iClicker’s new Assignments activity is a great way to engage students as they watch recorded lectures, but it’s also great for pre-class and post-class questions and group work/breakout activities in synchronous classes. Read through our remote instruction checklist or watch our virtual classroom video to learn more about how iClicker works with your video conferencing and presentation tools. Watch our on-demand webinar for more great tips on how to supercharge student engagement in hybrid classes. ... View more

Hispanic Heritage Month starts in the US on September 15th and runs to October 15th. What’s the reason for the unique timing? The month-long observation starts on the 15th to correspond with the anniversary of independence in five Central American countries—Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. More trivia awaits you and your students in this month’s deck!  Download the Slide Deck Here! ... View more

The return to campus is just moments away! We’ve collected our best tried-and-true tips for student onboarding that you’ll want to keep in mind as you welcome students back to the classroom. We’ve also created a deck of icebreaker activities that you can use to get to know your students while they get comfortable with iClicker. Check Out Our Ice-Breaker Deck 1. Message students early (and often!) We’ve created lots of resources that make it easy for you to communicate with your students about how to get ready to use iClicker in your course. These iClicker Cloud Student Registration Overview & Resources include syllabus language and first-day-of-class resources that you can use to set your students up for success. We even have guides for instructors who will be teaching virtually, so be sure to explore! 2. Explain your teaching rationale for using iClicker to your students. Students get more out of iClicker when they know why you’re requiring it in their class. Let students know that iClicker use leads to better classroom engagement, a significant rise in student confidence, and an increase in end-of-class grades. 3. Keep stakes low during your first polling sessions. Students are quick to catch on to how iClicker works on their laptops, tablets or phones. However, the enrollment of your class may shift in the first weeks of class, which can create grading headaches down the line. Students may also need to become familiar with joining the wifi in your classroom, causing them to miss a question or two. Here’s information you can pass along to your students to help them troubleshoot their connection. 4. Using Enhanced Grade Sync? Introducing Roster and Grade Sync! The new Roster and Grade Sync (RGS) is now available for Blackboard, Brightspace, or Canvas once it has been set up by your LMS administrator. With RGS, you can pull your roster into your iClicker Cloud course with no additional linking steps for students. Take a look at our support article on transitioning from iClicker's Enhanced Grade Sync to Roster & Grade Sync for more information. ... View more

We’re making things even simpler! Later this summer, the award-winning mobile student response system, iClicker Reef will be renamed the iClicker student app. Why the change?  Multiple surveys and customer interviews showed that the ‘Reef’ brand name can cause confusion for customers who frequently do not associate Reef with iClicker, or do not readily identify Reef as the student mobile app for iClicker. What does the name change mean for me?  For educators: Over the coming weeks we will be updating all of our customer-facing training and support materials to reflect the name change to the iClicker student app. Any links that currently use iClicker Reef will be re-routed to the appropriate webpage.  For students: The directions for how to download the iClicker student mobile app will be updated to reflect the name change. All of this will be provided over the coming weeks in preparation for fall classes.  When will this change occur? The formal switch is scheduled for early-to-mid August 2021. We will continue to update you as we prepare for this change.  Please let us know if you have any questions. We look forward to continuing to deliver simple, flexible, pedagogically-sound solutions for your fall 2021 classes. This new change to the student mobile app naming is one small piece of our efforts.  Click here to connect with a Student Engagement Specialist to discuss how to make your fall classes as engaging as possible ... View more

The temperatures are rising across the country. As you and your students sweat through the term (if you’re lucky enough to be teaching this summer!), consider treating everyone to some fun iClicker questions about ice cream. Check Out the July Trivia Deck ... View more

On-Demand Are you looking for ways to make your class sessions more interactive but unsure where to find the time? Join Natalie Dougall as she shares ways you can easily incorporate iClicker polling activities into your classroom without sacrificing a lot of valuable class time or wildly altering lesson plans you’ve spent years perfecting. Natalie will also outline Macmillan resources instructors can use to easily turn their students from passive observers into active learners. Access the Webinar Here! Access Webinar On-Demand ... View more

We heard you and we are making things even simpler! We’re pleased to announce that by August 2021 iClicker Reef will be renamed the iClicker student app, helping instructors and students alike to more easily identify iClicker’s mobile/web app for students. The logo above will appear on student app login pages. The ISBNs for your student products will remain the same. Over the next few months, we will be updating all of our instructor- and student-facing training and support materials to reflect the name change to the iClicker student app. Any links that currently use iClicker Reef will be re-routed to the appropriate webpage. If you have created any of your own student-facing materials that mention Reef, replacing the Reef name with “the iClicker student app” will make it easier for your students. We will continue to update you as we prepare for this change— let us know if you have any questions in the meantime! Contact Us ... View more

If you're teaching this summer, we have a special Juneteenth trivia deck you can share with your students. Macmillan began recognizing Juneteenth as an official company holiday in 2020, giving employees a day to reflect, recharge and celebrate. Juneteenth Trivia Deck ... View more

We can't believe it’s been one year since we released Assignments! Our newest iClicker activity has taken student engagement to the next level in fully remote, asynchronous courses—but we’re also hearing from instructors who enjoy using Assignments for in-person and hybrid/flex classes. We've been continuously working to improve Assignments over the past year. Here’s what we’ve added recently for instructors using Assignments: Alt Text Support: We added the ability for instructors to enter and edit alt text for assignment question images. Alt text makes Assignments easier for students to use with screen readers. Learn more about best practices for writing alt text. Copy Assignments: We added an option for instructors to copy an already-built assignment. This will be useful for instructors who wish to assess what students have learned via the same set of pre- and post-class questions, and for instructors who wish to use the same assignment in multiple iClicker Cloud courses. Learn more about copying assignments. Gradebook Integration: Assignment scores appear alongside Polling and Quizzing scores in the iClicker Cloud Gradebook. Instructors are able to modify individual student Assignment scores and export or sync Assignment grades to their LMS. Due Times: Instructors can specify both dates and times for when an assignment becomes available and is due. The following Assignments improvements are now available to students: In-Progress Credit: Students automatically receive credit for all work in progress when an assignment closes. They do not need to click the submit button to receive credit for responses already entered before the due date. Mobile Support: Students can complete assignments via the iOS or Android student apps, in addition to the web app. Wondering how to get started with Assignments? Our Learning Science & Insights team developed a set of pre-built prompts that can help students reflect on their learning before, during, and after class, in any academic discipline. Check out our Assignments page to learn more and download sample slide decks to try out with your own students! ... View more