Personal Response System
Understanding
is the bottom line in science. The ability to repeat facts (which is often the basis for assessment) does not necessarily
equate with an understanding of the concepts and principles derived from those facts. Consequently, it is basic to our
teaching to pepper students with questions that require understanding to answer.
The model that we use for teaching science involves a dialog between student and teacher rather than the traditional lecture monologue. This approach is sometimes called the Socratic model of teaching.
Our teaching is actually adjusted on the fly based on student responses to questions probing their understanding. If students demonstrate a lack of understanding, additional examples or clarification follow. Questions and their answers are the core to this approach.
Such questioning loses its effectiveness as the class size grows. For large lecture classes, we feel it is necessary to have a means of quickly assessing the understanding of an entire class. To this end we have purchased and installed an interactive quiz system in the main science lecture room. This system will allow each student to answer a question by pressing a button on a wireless device at his desk. The system will tabulate the class responses for the teacher in an instant.
The system we have purchased is the Personal Response System from EduCue (www.educue.com). The wireless handheld student-voting device is shown above (photo used with permission from EduCue). In the fall of 2004 we began using this system in selected classes in the main science lecture room.