What is a Student Response System (SRS)
SRS have been used for many years, typically in large classes to increase the level of student’s engagement and learning. In literature SRS may have many different names, such as clickers, personal response systems, audience response systems, and classroom response systems. SRS are technology products designed to support communication and interactivity in classes. The technology allows an instructor to present a question or problem to the class, and receive answers from the students through a response device. A summary of all answers is presented to the teacher and the students to see. In other words, SRS is a communication system that allows the teacher to collect and analyze large amount of data and on behalf of these investigate whether learning has taken place. Research shows that’s such systems have the potential to facilitate several classroom processes such as; participation collaboration, physical activity, cognitive involvement, and self-assessment.
A traditional SRS generally include a receiver for instructors, a collection of keypads (transmitters or “clickers”) for students and a dedicated software component. The software application is installed on the instructor’s computer such that the teacher may use it to create interactive presentations. Since the students use their keypads instead of raising hands to submit answers, the individual responses stay confidential from the rest of the students while result overviews are still available on the classroom screen by way of visual technology. There are several commercial systems available on the marked. They provide variations in functionality, and use infrared or radio frequencies to facilitate the methods for communication. Some systems are limited to multiple choice type questions, while other systems include yes or no, thru or false, as well as text and numeric responses. In Europe the price of commercial SRS constitutes one of the main factors that limit the penetration rate in education.
Figure 1. The online SRS Control interface and the mobile device developed in the KA3-ICT EduMecca project (1.1.2009 - 31.12.2010), contract no Contract 143545-2008-LLP-NO-KA3-KA3MP.
Active learning: Response-Communication-Interaction
Existing SRS systems based on clickers require that students receive a small hardware based device. For many educational institutions this become far too expensive, whereby it limits the utilization of new pedagogical methodologies based on anonymous feedback from students during training sessions. The new services uses the existing wireless network inside the institutions, whereby the educational institutions don’t need anymore to invest in expensive equipment dedicated for voting sessions. The mobile computing based SRS system provides an economic or cost effective solution by utilizing widely available mobile, wireless multi touch pressure sensitive hand held devices, e.g. iPod Touch, iPhone or mobile devices, such that students may interact with the teacher through online questionnaires and voting systems. The teacher collects and visualizes the responses from class at the digital blackboard, by utilizing state of the art SRS decision process solutions. SRS mainly supports multiple-choice questions, but teachers can sample extensive data regarding their students' knowledge that is otherwise hard to obtain.
The teacher gives the students a task, for instance a question or a problem. The students solve the task and respond by using the SRS either on their laptop or through their mobile handheld device, e.g. iPhone, as displayed in prototype SRS solution in figure 1.
The results are displayed anonymously on the digital blackboard or by using a projector, whereby the teacher gets a knowledge map of the class.Finally, the teacher must decide how he/she will proceed. The results show if the class struggle with the current part of the curriculum, and he/she must decide the amount of time needed for that part based on the result. Thus, the SRS provides pedagogical methods that enhance interactive teaching models by enhancing communication and instructional feedback loops.
Choice of methods
There are many ways to use a response system, we have essentially separated between two methods, classic and peer instruction.
Figure 2.Use of SRS; Classical (one loop) versus Peer instruction (two loops).The question is posed on the blackboard. After the first or second loop the teacher explains why the correct alternative is correct, and why the incorrect alternatives are incorrect.
The classic methods works as follow:
- During the training session the students are asked a quiz question related to the topic being taught about.
- Students are given a few minutes to discuss the question and its alternatives in small groups (about 3-4 groups per group).
- They vote individually using an iPod
- After the vote is closed, response distribution is shown to the students. The teacher goes through the various alternatives, highlights the correct one and explains why it is correct and why the other alternatives then are less correct or incorrect.
The peer instruction method has the following steps:
- During the training session the students are asked a quiz question related to the topic being taught about.
- Students are given one minute to work with the quiz question individually
- They vote individually using an iPod
- Students are then given a couple of minutes to discuss the quiz question in small groups a few minutes (about 3-4 groups per group).
- Before they vote again
- After the second vote is closed, two response distributions are shown to the students. The teacher goes through the various alternatives, highlights the correct one and explains why it is correct and why the other alternatives then are less correct or incorrect.
Evaluation results obtained when using the system
Graphs from evaluation of the student response system at HiST:
Students think it is fun to be at lectures where SRS is used
Use of SRS in class engage and activate many of the students
Use of SRS aid several students learning of the course curriculum
Students grade the importance of peer learning as large
Teachers explanation after the vote; which alternative is correct, incorrect, and why, is
perceived as very important for students learning experience.
According to the students, use of SRS has a great impact on their teaching:
- They get a chance to participate actively, which increases their involvement
- Through discussing the quiz question with their peers, they get an opportunity to engage in collaborative learning
- They receive an immediate feedback on their learning
- Through a thoroughly explanation from the teacher after the vote, they achieve a greater understanding of the material being thought