When they arrive, students in Markus Boettcher's lecture classes are given their own personal remote. Using PowerPoint, Boettcher projects the day's quiz up on a screen and the entire class presses their answers into their remotes. The answers are picked up by the desktop receiver and within seconds the correct answer is displayed.
Boettcher is just one of the professors using a Personal Response System, which he said increases participation and provides for a better understanding of curriculum.
Before this
it was very difficult to make large classes interactive he said.
The system allows for more interactive feedback and student involvement, Boettcher said.
It helps me to say 'Maybe I should add a few more words here' Boettcher said - in the instance that a majority of his students mark an incorrect answer.
Boettcher was one of the first professors to use the Educue system in the Winter Quarter of 2003. It has been his choice to use the system in his lectures ever since, he said.
He uses it not only for preparing short quizzes before the lecture, but as a transition between course topics.
Justin Kirk, a freshman in Boettcher's astronomy class, said that it helps greatly with participation. Although they are frustrating when they do not work, they are successful overall.
It makes you have to pay attention
said Chris Slusser, a freshman also in the class.
The response has been generally positive
said Mark Lucas, a physics and astronomy assistant professor and one of the original proponents of bringing the system to Ohio University.
The hope is that this is something that will catch on across the larger lectures of campus
Lucas said.
Through funding from the physics and astronomy department, a tester set of 180 remotes was ordered at $42 a piece, said Lucas. Because of their success in various lecture classes, the department ordered another 250 at $30 a piece.
The departments of physics and astronomy, osteopathic medicine and introductory and plant biology all currently use the system.
With the potential of ordering more systems, economics and political science courses are planning on using the system in the future, Lucas said.
Boettcher and Lucas said professors and students take a little time to learn how to use the system.
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