Clickers work extremely well in class when incorporated properly. The ability for something so simple to increase attendance, increase grade scores, increase student retention, and allow for an instructor to have a better understanding of where the class is at should always be implemented. However, I do have one concern with clickers.
I hate multiple choice questions. My experience has been that they are not testing whether the correct answer is known, rather that the incorrect ones can be identified. In my opinion, that is one limitation to the clickers. I posted for Jeff about using an iPad or something of the sorts as a clicker replacement. If a program could be written that recognizes certain key feature to problems, I think that would be even more useful. Have something that would identify a picture being drawn and certain equations being used. This would allow for the instructor to see what approaches students are applying to problems and where they begin tailing off in the wrong direction. This would require the students to show their work on the whatever it is that is responding and then discussing. Maybe certain peoples' work could be projected also so that the method they chose can be analyzed.
This is almost like a hybrid of using clickers and what Dr. Christensen did when I watched his class. He would have the students working on problems and would constantly take someone's work and post it for all to see. This would contain that with the file but also evaluate what steps students did and what answer they obtain in the end.
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