Complete Coverage

Technology Helps Teachers Home In on Student Needs

Test scores have risen since middle schools started using system.

Canton, Ohio

Like many teachers, Jim Pukys is accustomed to posing a fundamental question to students at the end of each algebra lesson: Did you understand?

Unlike most teachers, though, he believes he has a reliable way of knowing whether his students are telling him the truth. It begins when he writes out a function and asks students to find its value. He then collects their answers, which they send electronically from calculators at their desks. Within seconds, an image appears on a screen at the front of the class, showing how many students picked the right answer: about two-thirds of them on one recent occasion.

Not good enough, he decides. He goes over the problem...