At the college level, students often participate in introductory courses with large class enrollments that tend to produce many challenges to effective teaching and learning. Many teachers are concerned that this class environment fails to accommodate higher-level thinking and learning. I offer a brief rationale for why a student-response system (a computer-assisted polling tool), when well incorporated into lectures, can effectively address the basis of some of these concerns and should improve teaching and learning. An empirical assessment reveals that when used to engage students in lecture, this technology can help many of them achieve higher test scores.