Polling in classrooms gives students the opportunity to actively participate in class and allows the instructor to gauge students' understanding in the midst of a lecture. When polling is done electronically, students can answer questions anonymously and the feedback to the instructor is real time. Polling has had a long history at Cornell -- one of the first hard-wired personal response systems was installed for physics classes in 1972 -- and in recent years it has garnered considerable attention at educational institutions nationwide. Besides its obvious use to get student feedback and gauge comprehension, when used effectively polling can transform lecture halls to an environment that promotes active learning and effectively engages students from diverse backgrounds. A remaining challenge is to adapt these ideas for interactive lecturing, many of which have originated in physics education at research universities, to a wider spectrum of subject areas and teaching environments.
 

Three Cornell faculty members, Daisy Fan from Computer Science, Chris Schaffer from Biomedical Engineering, and Robert Thorne from Physics, will discuss the use of polling in their classrooms. Topics range from the broad concept of engaging students in the classrooms to the nuts-and-bolts of creating good questions that promote learning and discussion. Polling with a personal response system, or "clickers," will be demonstrated.