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On Monday, April 16th, Dr. Dale Havill, Ass’t
Professor in the Dept. of Education in the College
of Arts and Sciences gave a seminar in Ibn Rushd
Hall entitled ‘Using a Personal Response
System to Increase Interactivity in the Classroom’.
He demonstrated the use of a system he is currently
using in his Education classes at Dhofar University
in order to encourage his students to participate
more actively in their own learning process and
interact more effectively with the teacher and
the material. He explained that the system was
composed of a set of ‘hand-held TV-like remote
control units’, that are handed out in class,
a projector to project the material onto a screen,
an infra-red receiver that receives the students’ input
as they operate the remote controls, a laptop computer
to store the program, and a remote control for
the teacher.
Dr. Havill said that he was using the system
for quizzes, exercises and for collecting information
from the students. He said that the beauty of the
system is that it can monitor the responses of
all the students in the class (and of course the
teacher is able to study the responses later, at
his or her leisure); he said that it also gave
students time to think of their own individual
responses, instead of being influenced by students
who manage to get the first word, or come up with
the first answer to a question. Dr. Havill said
that he had been fascinated to hear from students
why they enjoyed using the remote controls. Evidently
they are always interested to see the results,
which can be projected in a number of ways, using
bar charts, for example, and the results are instant,
which make it all the more relevant. They also
like the fact that the results can either be anonymous,
or students can be identified. Dr. Havill said
that it was particularly useful in test situations,
since up to three different versions of the same
test could be offered to students at the same time,
eliminating the possibility of students copying
answers from each other.
There were some weaknesses of the system, Dr.
Havill told the audience, but they were minimal.
He explained that many teachers around the world
are now investing in these systems, and new and
better ones were constantly being invented. He
added that the beauty of using a system like this
at DU is that students are already comfortable
with technology like it, can respond at their own
pace, and are able to have instant feedback on
their responses. In mixed classes sometimes a system
like this is preferable since even the most reticent
students are able to take an active part. It also
means that students give their full attention to
the lesson, since the teacher can monitor which
students have responded and whether or not they
have correct answers. |
