SERIOUS LECTURE VS. ENTERTAINING GAME SHOW - WHY WE NEED A COMBINATION FOR IMPROVING TEACHING PERFORMANCE AND HOW TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP
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SERIOUS LECTURE VS. ENTERTAINING GAME SHOW – WHY WE NEED A COMBINATION FOR IMPROVING TEACHING PERFORMANCE AND HOW TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP Manfred Meyer1, Thomas Müller1, Andrea Niemann2 1 Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering (GERMANY) 2 Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, Dept. of Business Administration, Economics and Information Technology (GERMANY) Abstract It has been observed since many years now that traditional lectures in the sense that the lecturer is presenting the topic to a mostly passive audience do not work well as regards teaching performance. Thus, classes need to become more interactive, students need to get invited or activated to take part in the show, to remain or get back in the driver’s seat as regards lecturing speed, feedback on under- standing and applying what has been introduced by the lecturer and discussed in class. Depending on the cultural background, even running team competitions in classroom can serve well for activating students and motivating them to work on the topic discussed. Since many years, interactive voting systems, e.g. small radio-equipped hand-held devices, are on the market that can well serve for the purposes of getting immediate feedback from students about their learning progress, but also for class evaluation (of lectures and lecturers) and even for running team competitions like in a game show on TV. While this helps activating the students, experiences from using such systems over almost ten years now have shown that this also helps driving the focus of students’ attention to the content of the lecture itself. Beside such dedicated hardware solutions (specific devices, so called “clickers”), the omnipresence of smartphones in students’ pockets has also led to the development of a diverse number of software solutions (apps or browser-based tools) which promise lower cost and better scalability but may lack the trust in a truly anonymous and thereby hopefully honest feedback from the students. Therefore, we present an overview of various hardware- as well as software-based audience response systems (ARS) which are systematically reviewed, their pros and cons revealed, and recommendations derived for different use cases. Keywords: Audience response systems, interactive voting systems, clickers, active learning, teaching performance, digitalization. 1 INTRODUCTION Looking back at more than twenty years teaching experience in undergraduate computer science and business classes, we recognized that student activation and participation has become a major issue for teaching and learning performance. Classroom discussions of practical examples, exercises or case studies often attract only a very limited number of students in class while others stay passive and follow the discussions from outside only – in best case. Many of the students, if they show up in class at all, just consume lectures like at a cinema and hope to really learn and understand the topic afterwards – or “just in time” when preparing for the exams. While this may eventually work for more “textbook-oriented” classes and exams covering mostly factual knowledge, it is almost sure to fail for those classes where continuous reflection, practical application to exercises or case studies, and discussion of alternatives becomes inevitable. Referring to the stereotypes introduced by John Biggs in his work on constructive alignment [1], there are simply too many “Non-Academic Roberts” and too few “Academic Susans” in most of today’s undergraduate classes. Thus, we need to activate the many Roberts in our classes to take part in the show, previously called a lecture. Many authors have demonstrated the effectiveness of active learning in small group sessions, particularly in the enhancement of student learning and performance [2]. However, promoting active learning in large classes is more challenging, so many instructors end up delivering information with
minimal student interactions within a traditional lecture format. As such, students may focus on information and favour memory retention rather than thinking, understanding, and solving problems [3]. When classes have limited opportunities for students to respond, participation can be unbalanced in favour of the most knowledgeable students who are most willing to respond in front of their peers. Questions posed to students in lectures may stimulate active learning, but only low response rates are possible within large audiences. Engaging small groups within a lecture may be a more effective means of promoting active learning. However, without significant time conveying information back to the lecturer it is difficult to accurately gauge student engagement. Students can also display color-coded cards in response to a lecturer’s question as has been proposed by Prather in [4]. However, when they can view each other’s responses, active learning and critical thinking may be inhibited as they may have less confidence in their own answer or can simply copy the most popular response. In contrast, electronic response systems may provide accurate and rapid feedback on students’ understanding or misconceptions during lectures. Audience response systems (ARS) allow students to give an immediate response to a question posed by the instructor. Question styles can include multiple-choice quizzes and text or numeric responses, and individual responses remain anonymous to the audience. Students’ responses can be promptly graphically displayed e.g. in a PowerPoint presentation, or responses can be withheld until further discussions ensue with revised answers sought for comparison with previous responses. Collective responses allow students to relate their performance to the rest of the class. Such systems offer new ways and possibilities of interacting with students during lectures and thus different styles of lecturing with ARSs evolved, e.g. peer instruction [5] and technology enhanced formative assessment (TEFA) [6]. Audience response systems are not only offering an alternative, but an engaging and effective pedagogical approach to high school, undergraduate, and postgraduate education. Potential improvements to learning and teaching have been repeatedly cited in the literature, e.g. [7], [8], [9], and include the following: • Providing reflective reactive and anonymous student feedback; • Providing an indication of students’ knowledge gaps; • Reinforcing and linking concepts, theories and factual information; • Allowing for increased interactive engagement and involvement; • Increasing student participation and discourse in learning groups; • Provide a medium for all students to voice an opinion; • Provide quality assurance of conceptual understanding during lectures/tutorials; and • Offer students the capacity to reflect in lectures/tutorials in a non-threatening manner. 1.1 Hardware-Based electronic response systems (“clickers”) Since many years, hardware-based audience response systems, e.g. small radio-equipped handheld devices, are on the market that can well serve for the purposes of getting immediate feedback from students about their learning progress, but also for class evaluation (of lectures and lecturers) and even for running team competitions as we have shown in [10]. For more than eight years now we are using a commercial system which consists of a set of handheld devices and a receiver to be connected to the instructor’s computer (see Figure 1). Figure 1. Interactive Voting System® - Handheld Devices and Receiver for the Instructor’s Computer
While these devices may appear to be quite bulky, they are also available in sizes as small as just a credit card. However, over all the years of using this system only one device has been lost. Figure 2 shows some handheld devices from other vendors with different sizes and offering different kinds of responses from Yes/No-answers to numerical responses. Figure 2. Various Keypads from PowerVote®, InfoWhyse®, and SunVote® 1.2 Software-Based Audience Response Systems Over the last years, the usage of mobile internet devices such as smart phones, tablets, and laptops has increased considerably. Students bring their own devices to lectures - this policy is also known as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) [11]. Despite the risks of BYOD, it seems to be obvious to use the devices of the students as input devices for Audience Response Systems. Thus, these systems just provide a software solution that can either be used through a standard web-browser or by installing a specific app on the student’s smartphone or tablet. These software-based ARSs also provide students a way of interaction in massive courses where hardware-based systems would come too expensive simply due to the number of devices needed. 2 REVIEW OF AUDIENCE RESPONSE SYSTEMS In this paper we investigate how various Audience Response Systems can support active learning. Therefore, we first gathered the requirements for such systems both from a lecturer’s and student’s perspective. We then reviewed a total number of 66 ARSs available according to the most important criteria before we finally evaluated a selection of four ARSs in more detail and derived recommendations for deciding which system to use. 2.1 Criteria From discussions with lecturers we derived the following criteria for the selection of Audience Response Systems: Hardware- or software-based (Browser or App): While hardware-based ARSs naturally limit the number of students that can use the system at a time, software-based ARSs require the students to at least bring their own device to class or also install a specific App on their device. Cost: While obviously all hardware-based ARSs incur cost for buying or renting the handheld devices and licensing the overall system, some – but by far not all – software-based systems can be used for free at least in a basic version. Question types: ARSs typically offer one or more of the following question types: multiple/single choice questions, yes/no questions, open questions with free text answer, sorting problems, matching problems, and image quizzes. Question features: ARSs offer various features like hiding votes until the voting is finished, showing results in total numbers and percentage, defining the correct answer, and allowing to enter math equations. Integration with standard presentation software: Some of the systems can be integrated with PowerPoint such that questions can be launched from within a normal PowerPoint presentation. Visualization: ARSs provide different types of visualizations both for the lecturer as well as for the students. For systems supporting integration to presentation software, the visualization of results within the presentation is a valuable feature too. Reporting and statistics: Some of the systems provide very detailed reports for the lecturer whereas others provide no reports or statistics at all. Data export to e.g. Excel is also a valuable feature offered by some of the systems reviewed.
Anonymous feedback: From a student’s perspective and in order to obtain honest feedback it is important that students can give their feedback in a truly anonymous manner. While with hardware-based systems this can easily be achieved by letting the students randomly select their keypad to use, for software-based systems this maybe an issue as web-browser or app may transmit data that allows to relate individual answers to each other or even to identify the student. 2.2 Market Overview In a first step we analysed a total number of 66 different audience response systems currently available according to the criteria derived before. Table 1 lists all systems reviewed with the respective link to the product/vendor website for detailed information, whether it can be used for free – completely or in a basic version only – the type of system (hardware- or Web/App-based) and whether it can be integrated with PowerPoint or Moodle and data be exported to Excel. Table 1. Audience response systems reviewed. System Link Cost Remarks AnswerQwik http://answerqwik.com/static/home.html yes ARSnova http://arsnova.eu/mobile/ free Backchannel http://backchannel.cnc.io/ free ClassMarker http://www.classmarker.com basic version free ClassPager http://www.classpager.com/ basic version free Clicker School http://www.clickerschool.com yes or ContentGenerator http://www.contentgenerator.net/multiplechoice/ free EasyLMS http://www.onlinequizcreator.com/ free EasyTestMaker http://www.easytestmaker.com/ basic version free Echo360 http://www.lecturetools.com/ yes eduVote http://www.eduvote.de/index.html yes feedbackr http://www.feedbackr.io/de/education/ demo version free FreeMobilePolls http://www.freemobilepolls.com/ free FreeQuizDome http://freequizdome.com/index.htm free Glisser http://www.glisser.com/ yes GoFormative http://goformative.com/ basic version free GoSoapBox http://www.gosoapbox.com/ basic version free http://www.h-itt.com/higher-education/student- free or H-ITT response-systems.htm iClicker http://www.iclicker.com/ yes InfoWhyse http://www.infowhyse.com/ yes Interactive Voting or http://www.ivsystem.de/ yes System Invote http://invote.de/ free IPAL http://www.compadre.org/ipal/ free Kahoot http://kahoot.com/ free Learnclick http://www.learnclick.com/ yes http://www.pearson.com/us/higher- learning-catalytics education/products-services-teaching/learning- yes engagement-tools/learning-catalytics.html letsfeedback http://letsfeedback.com/de/home/ free Mentimeter http://www.mentimeter.com/ basic version free Mobile Clicker http://www.mobileclicker.de/ free Ombea http://www.ombea.com/de yes or
OnlineTED http://www.onlineted.de/index.php basic version free https://www.optiontechnologies.com/optionpow OptionPower yes er-voting-software Pingo http://trypingo.com/de/ free Pinnion http://www.pinnion.com yes Plickers https://www.plickers.com/ free Poll Everywhere https://www.polleverywhere.com/ yes Polldaddy https://polldaddy.com/ basic version free PowerVote https://www.powervote.de/ yes ProProfs https://www.proprofs.com/ basic version free (Quiz only) QuestBase http://www.questbase.com/ basic version free QuestionPress http://www.questionpress.com/ yes Quia https://www.quia.com/web yes QuizSlides https://quizslides.com yes QuizStar http://quizstar.4teachers.org/ free Qwizdom https://qwizdom.com/education yes or Respondus 4.0 http://www.respondus.com/products/respondus/ yes SurveyAnyplace https://surveyanyplace.com/ basic version free sli.do https://www.sli.do/ basic version free SMS Poll http://www.smspoll.net/ basic version free Socrative https://www.socrative.com/ basic version free StuReSy https://sourceforge.net/projects/sturesy/ free SunVote http://www.sunvote.com.cn/ yes Synap https://synap.ac/ basic version free td:wrk https://www.tdwrk.de/ yes TED https://www.ted-mieten.de/ yes Tedme https://tedme.com/home/voting basic version free Todays Meet https://todaysmeet.com/ yes Top Hat https://tophat.com/ yes TurningPoint http://www.turningtechnologies.com/ yes or twtpoll http://www.twtpoll.com/ yes UniDoodle http://www.unidoodle.com/ free Verso http://versolearning.com/ yes Voting Partner http://www.voting-partner.de/ yes Votingtech https://www.votingtech.de/ yes or Voxr https://voxr.org/de/ yes http://www.voxvote.com/free-audience- VoxVote basic version free response-system/de/voxvote-mobile-voting-app Remarks – Explanation of symbols: The system can be used by the students on their smartphone/tablet through a web browser. The system requires the use of a dedicated mobile device that needs to be bought or rented from the provider. The system can be used by the students on their smartphone/tablet through an Android App. The system can be used by the students on their smartphone/tablet through an iOS App.
The system supports the download of session data (answers to questions etc.) to be further processed and analysed using Microsoft Excel. The system supports the integration with Microsoft PowerPoint through a specific Add-In such that questions can be launched from and results can be shown and stored within PowerPoint presentations. The system supports the integration with the Moodle learn management platform such that questions can be launched from and results can be shown and processed within Moodle. The system is not being reviewed any further as only little information is available (ContentGenerator, EasyLMS, UniDoodle, twtpoll, Verso) or the information or system itself is outdated/no longer supported (StuReSy). 2.3 Detailed Review of selected Audience Response Systems From the first review of audience response systems, the six most interesting or prominent systems have been selected for an in-depth review. These are also marked in Table 1. 2.3.1 ArsNova ArsNova is a very powerful and free web-based ARS. Students get access through a specific code or direct link; lecturers can register on the arsnova.eu website or login using their Google+ or Facebook accounts. An Add-In for PowerPoint is available on GitHub and has been tested for Windows10 and PowerPoint 2016. Sessions can be exported as CSV or JSON files and further processed and analysed using e.g. Excel. Anonymous feedback is granted as no registration or installation is required. ArsNova supports multiple- and single-choice questions, yes/no-questions, evaluation questions using a 5-level-Likert-type scale as well as image-based questions, live feedback, two-cycle-voting and the inclusion of various multimedia formats like images, YouTube and vimeo. Figure 3 shows the setting-up of a single-choice question and how this question is presented to the audience through a mobile web-browser. Figure 3. ArsNova - Setting up a new question (left) and student’s view (right) Results can be visualized as bar charts or column diagrams; total number of votes and distribution to answer options can also be shown. Figure 4 shows the integration with PowerPoint to setup a new question (left) and showing results as bar charts (right). Figure 4. ArsNova - Integration with PowerPoint: Setting up a new question and showing results Illustrated tutorials, introductory videos and blogs with FAQs are also available.
2.3.2 EduVote EduVote is another powerful web-based ARS but requires purchase of a single- or multiple-users license. Campus licenses are also available. Students can use it through web-browser or download dedicated apps for all current smartphone operating systems. For lecturers it offers installation under Windows and MacOS as well as integration with PowerPoint. Anonymous feedback is granted as no registration is required. Students can access the system via code distributed by the lecturer. Results can be stored within the PowerPoint presentation and can also be exported as xlsx-file for further processing with Excel. XML export is also supported. EduVote offers yes/no-questions as well as single- and multiple-choice questions. Figure 5 shows the setting up of a new question with the EduVote application (left) as well as using the PowerPoint integration (right). Figure 5. EduVote - Setting up a new question directly (left) or via PowerPoint (right) EduVote also offers various visualizations and also reports the total number of votes and their distribution. Figure 6 shows a setup menu (left) where the lecturer can define some settings for the questions, e.g. whether only one vote shall be accepted per device (for single-choice questions), how the question appears to the student through the EduVote app (centre) and finally how the results may be displayed through the EduVote application on the lecturer’s computer. Figure 6. EduVote – Question settings (left), student’s view (centre) and display of results (right) Video tutorials and user’s instructions are available for all system variants. 2.3.3 Kahoot! Kahoot! is a quite prominent game-based learning platform offering multiple-choice quizzes, so called kahoots, that allow user generation and can be accessed via web browser or apps for Android and iOS. Students can access the system using a PIN provided by the lecturer, thus no registration of participants is required. Kahoot! offers multiple-choice questions (as poll or quiz) or sorting exercises of given options. Results can be visualised through column diagrams. The number of votes and their distribution can also be displayed. Users are supported through user’s guides and video tutorials. Kahoot! can be used free of charge with a maximum of 1.000 users at a time.
2.3.4 Letsfeedback Letsfeedback is another simple ARS that can be used through any web-browser. It can be used for free, but using it for more than 250 participants or more than 25 lectures/events requires purchase of an extended license. It offers multiple-choice questions, numerical and free text answers as well as entering questions by the audience. Results can be sent by email or downloaded as PDF-file. As there is no registration or installation of any kind of software required, it’s use is completely anonymous. Results can be visualised through bar charts and the number of votes and their distribution can also be displayed. 2.3.5 MobileClicker MobileClicker is a small ARS developed out of a student’s project at our own university. It can be used free of charge. Lecturers define single-choice questions through the mobileclicker website. These questions can then be answered by students through an Android app. Results can be visualized using various diagrams, the number of votes can be displayed, and the results can be archived as statistics within the application. 2.3.6 Pingo Pingo (short for ”peer instruction for very large groups”) can be used through its website and also through a dedicated Windows application called “Pingo Remote” that can be used as an overlay to a PowerPoint presentation. It can be used for free, and as there is no registration or installation required for the students, it also supports anonymous feedback. Pingo offers single and multiple-choice questions, free-text and numerical answers. Figure 7 shows the setting up of a question and how this question is being presented to the audience. Figure 7. Pingo: Setting up a new question (upper) and student’s view (lower) Results can be visualized by column charts, and number of votes and their distribution can also be shown. They can also be exported as CSV-files for archiving or further processing. New users are supported by a guided tour and illustrated user’s instructions.
3 RESULTS Audience Response Systems are available in huge number and variety. While there are also some hardware-based ARSs, often called ‘clickers’, the majority of systems addresses the use of the students’ own device (BYOD) and works simply through a web-browser and/or offers a dedicated app mostly for Android and iOS to be downloaded and installed by the student [12]. Even the ARS we have been using over many years in our classes (IVS) now also offers an online version that can be used on the students’ own devices. Many of the software-based ARS can be used for free which clearly reduces the overall cost (TCO) of the ARS in class and increases scalability as there is no hard limitation for the number of students to take part in simply by the number of devices available. However, the necessity to use their own devices or even to run a specific app on their smartphones, may limit students trust in a truly anonymous poll. Even if these ARSs do not require any registration or ask for any personal data, answers to various queries could be related to each other and combined with other information available, thus students may hesitate to always give honest and unbiased feedback, a feature that has been claimed to be one of the strongest benefits of ARSs [13], [14]. The ARS that have been reviewed mostly offer similar functionality as regards question types (from yes/no-questions over single/multiple-choice questions to free-text, numerical and other answers), visualization of results including number of votes and distribution among various answer options. Integration with presentation software like PowerPoint and transfer of results to e.g. Excel or a more general XML format, is only provided by very few systems. 4 CONCLUSIONS Audience response systems (ARS) can play an important role for improving teaching and learning performance. While the entertaining aspect of using polls and quizzes in class helps activating students, it also encourages students to think about the ‘serious’ topic of the lecture, apply what they have just learned, even if it’s just for that moment to compete with their peers in class. Although we may not expect to turn many of the ‘Roberts’ into ‘Susans’, the use of ARS can well contribute to activate at least some of the ‘Roberts’ in class and let them take part in discussions about the topic covered. Moreover, ARSs also provide immediate feedback to lectures about their teaching performance and can engage students by giving them some control about the lecture, e.g. the lecturing speed. With the variety of ARSs available, they have now become a common means for activating students and getting immediate feedback in class. They also support new ways of teaching like peer instruction. Beside the dedicated hardware-based ARS, the omnipresence of smartphones in student’s pockets has also led to the development of a diverse number of software solutions (apps or browser-based tools) which promise lower cost and better scalability but lack the trust in a truly anonymous – and thereby hopefully honest – feedback from the students [15]. Also, the integration with standard presentation software like PowerPoint mostly offered by hardware- based ARSs can be an issue; however, the flexibility, richness in interaction, scalability and lower cost are still strong pros for the use of software-based solutions. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research presented in this paper has been carried out as part of an internal project at Westphalian University of Applied Sciences jointly sponsored through central quality improvement funds (ZQV) and additional central funds for digitalization in teaching and learning. The authors are grateful to the University Management and the Deans at Bocholt Campus for their continuous support for this project as well as to all colleagues for sharing their experiences with various audience response systems. We would also like to thank vendors of some commercial systems for offering us a free trial or demo version for our survey. Many thanks finally also to Kira Backes for doing the market research and collecting all the data about the available systems for this paper.
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