Giving All Students a Voice in Large Classes: Personal Response Systems Brian White Associate Professor UMB Biology Department

Outline PRS: What is it? –demonstration Different Uses Different Technologies Experience –Mine –Others’ How to get started Questions

PRS: What is it? What is ? –A: 1 –B: 2 –C: 3 –D: 4 –E: 5 Press the button corresponding to your answer.

PRS: What is it? What is 6! ? –A: 6 –B: 21 –C: 720 –D: –E: I don’t know. Press the button corresponding to your answer.

“Clicker” History First used in 1960’s Fixed units Infra-red Radio-Frequency

Different Uses Feedback In lecture: –Assessment of students –Starting point for lecturing –Feedback on lecture –Peer Assessment –Community/Awareness building –Experiments using human responses –Initiation of discussion Draper, Cargill, & Cutts (2002)

Different Technologies I Mode: One-way –Obsolete Two-way –Quicker –Simpler

Different Technologies II Communication Medium: Infra Red (IR) –Line of sight –No inter-class interference Radio Frequency (RF) –No aiming –Fast –Possible inter-class interference

Different Technologies III Response format: Multiple-Choice –Only simple questions –Rapid Numerical and Text Response –Open-ended questions –Wider range of answers –Slow

My Experience I Biology 111 & 112 Version 1.0: PRS (IR) –summary question after lecture –0.5 points (right or wrong) –only 99 clickers for 240 students

My Experience I Fall 2000 Student Feedback: – Plan A: “clicker” – Plan B: Take home problem; discuss next day Clicker Take Home Yes394 No3023 Have clicker? 72% favor “clicker”

My Experience I Fall 2000 Student Feedback: – “can know right away if I got it” – “compare myself to rest of class” – “learn from others’ mistakes” – “apply to a problem right away” – “success motivates further study”

My Experience II Spring 2006 Student Feedback: – 141 students enrolled – 132 had “clickers” (94%) – 116 in class that day (88%) – Should I use the clicker next year? 1 = definitely NOT; 5 = definitely DO 4.33 (90 responses; 78%) YES!

My Experience III Unsatisfied with PRS Investigated several systems Chose i>Clicker –Inexpensive –Easy to use in class –Easy data export

Research Findings “Ultimately, this review of literature points to the pedagogical practices of the instructor, not the incorporation of the technology as being key to student comprehension.” Judson & Sawada (2002), Barnett (2006) Students like it Learning gains only with discussion

Getting Started Order iClickers thru Bookstore Get base-station Make up questions and answers Try it!

Questions?