Classroom response system

Draft

Definition

• Classroom response systems, also called electronic student response systems, clickers, personal response system, student response system, or audience response system are interactive remote answering devices that offer instructors a means to gain some simple real-time feedback from the audience.

A classroom response system (sometimes called a personal response system, student response system, or audience response system) is a set of hardware and software that facilitates teaching activities such as the following.

• A teacher poses a multiple-choice question to his or her students via an overhead or computer projector, perhaps using PowerPoint to do so.
• Each student submits his or her answer to the question using a handheld transmitter (often called a "clicker") that beams an infrared or radio-frequency signal to a receiver attached to the teacher's computer.
• Software on the teacher's computer collects the students' answers and produces a histogram showing how many students chose each of the answer choices.

(Derek Bruff, Vanderbilt, retrieved 09:46, 21 August 2008 (UTC))

Use cases

(this is just a stub, see http://www.vanderbilt.edu/cft/resources/teaching_resources/technology/crs.htm Derek Bruff]'s piece for more.)

Assessing student comprehension

“Accurately assessing student comprehension of material in the classroom has always been a challenge for educators. Methods historically used by instructors have included calling on a broad range of students to answer questions, having the entire class answer questions through visible means, or using volunteers. Although these methods have merit in moving toward a more active classroom learning environment, they all fail to truly give the instructor an accurate picture of how well or how poorly all students have grasped recently taught concepts.” (Czekanski & Roux, 2008).

Voting to engage students in knowledge construction

Typically, a lecturer may ask students to vote in order to engage them later in discussion.

Template:Quote (Beatty et al., 2006).

Data gathering

E.g. lecturers can ask to students to fill in short questionnaires (or just a single multiple choice question) in order to create real data to process in order to illustrate a method or a theory.

Technologies

• There exist several vendors that sell specialized hardware
• One also may use cell phones (via SMS), other mobile devices or even computers (e.g. Awwad et al., 2008).

Links

• Classroom Response Systems ("Clickers"). Good introduction by Derek Bruff, Assistant Director, Vanderbilt Center for Teaching.

Bibliography

• Awwad, Yousef Lin, Hsien Tang Yuan, Shyan Ming (2007). Multimedia Workshops, 2007. ISMW '07. Ninth IEEE International Symposium,

Abstract. PDF (Access restricted).

• Beatty. I.D, "Transforming student learning with classroom communication systems," Research Bulletin ERB0403, Educause Center for Applied Research (2004).

• Beatty, Ian D.; William J. Gerace, William J. Leonard, and Robert J. Dufresne (2006). Designing effective questions for classroom response system teaching, American Journal of Physics 74 (1), pp. 31-39 http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.2121753 doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.2121753] (Abstract, HTML, PDF).

• Caldwell, J. (2007). Clickers in the Large Classroom: Current Research and Best-Practice Tips. Life Sciences

Education, 6, 9-20.

• Czekanski, A.J. and Roux, D.M.P. (????), The Use of Clicker Technology to Evaluate Short-and Long-Term Concept Retention, ASEE PDF

• DeBourgh, G. (2007). Use of Classroom "Clickers" to Promote Acquisition of Advanced Reasoning Skills. Nurse Education in Practice, in press.

• R. J. Dufresne, W. J. Gerace, W. J. Leonard, J. P. Mestre, and L. Wenk, (1996). "Classtalk: A classroom communication system for active learning," J. Comput. High. Educ. 7, 3-7.

• Petr, D. (2005). Experience with a Multiple-Choice Audience Response System in an Engineering Classroom. Proceedings of the 35th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 19-22 October 2005, Indianapolis,

Indiana.

• Siau, K., Sheng, H., and Nah, F. (2006). Use of a Classroom Response System to Enhance Classroom Interactivity. IEEE Transactions on Education, 49(3), 398-403.

• Siegel, J., Schmidt, K., Cone, J. (2004). INTICE - Interactive Technology to Improve the Classroom Experience. Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, 20-23. June 2004, Salt Lake City, Utah.