Personal Response Personal Response SystemsSystems

(PRS)(PRS)

EngagingEngaging with with Students in Large Students in Large

LecturesLectures Mary Masson, ChemistryMary Masson, Chemistry

4 June 20044 June 2004

What is PRS?

• PRS stands for Personal Response System©. It literally means privately responding or selecting

• One of the possible commercial systems

• Handsets are like TV changers• Ideally, each student gets a handset• For the students, I called it PRS Voting

The Equipment

Overview

How does it work

• Each handset has a number, which it transmits as well as the number of the key pressed

• One or more sensors are connected to the computer

• Each handset is aimed towards one of the sensors

• Hits are registered on the screen• At the end of the allocated time, a graph of

the responses appears

Operation of Handsets

What appears on the screen

Alternative forms of graph

Why use PRS?

The Lecturer’s View

The Student’s View

Why Use PRS in Large Lectures?

• To get responses from the class

• To encourage engagement with the lecture material

• To find out if concepts have been understood

Why Use PRS in Tutorial Groups?

• To encourage active participation by all students, especially those who lack confidence and are reluctant to speak, even in a small group situation

PRS and Peer Instruction• Lectures are interspersed with conceptual questions, called

ConcepTests, designed to expose common difficulties in understanding the material.

• The students are given one to two minutes to think about the question and formulate their own answers, then a preliminary vote is taken.

• They then spend two to three minutes discussing their answers in groups of three to four, attempting to reach consensus on the correct answer before a second vote.

• This process forces the students to think through the arguments being developed, and enables them (as well as the instructor) to assess their understanding of the concepts even before they leave the classroom.

CHAOS IN THE CLASSROOM?

It's the middle of a class period and two hundred students aren't listening to the instructor. Instead, they're engaged in over fifty simultaneous conversations with their neighbors. This probably sounds like a disaster to many teachers. But it's actually a rousing success: the students are discussing a question which challenges them to think about the material and justify their reasoning to their classmates.

Newspaper Report

Trial with CM1506 class

• The first attempt had to be abandoned because the computer was not sending a strong enough signal to the data projector

• The second attempt still required some time for setting up and allowing students to practice using the handsets

• But our immediate impression was that the students seemed to be enjoying taking part

OH

NH3

COO

1 1 2 8 3 9 4 10

How many carbons are in tyrosine?

Examples of ConcepTest Questions

and how many hydrogens?

OH

NH3

COO

1 4 2 9 3 10 4 11

How many moles of ions are there per mole of Al2(SO4)3?

The identity of an element is determined by the number of which particle?

1 protons 2 neutrons 3 electrons

If a blue Cu2+ solution cuts the amount of red laser light reaching detector in half...

...what will happen if a second solution is added?

1 0.25 2 0.0

Which structure does not have an error?

1 A 2 B 3 C 4 D

Which of the following represents a correct ground state?

Question 2 68.6% correct

What change will be caused by addition of a small amount of HCl to a solution containing fluoride ions and hydrogen fluoride?

1. The concentration of hydronium ions will increase significantly. 2. The concentration of fluoride ions will increase as will the concentration of

hydronium ions. 3. The concentration of hydrogen fluoride will decrease and the concentration of

fluoride ions will increase. 4. The concentration of fluoride ion will decrease and the concentration of hydrogen

fluoride will increase. 5. The fluoride ions will precipitate out of solution as its acid salt.

Question 6 19.5% correct

Which of the following could be added to a solution of sodium acetate to produce a buffer?

 1. acetic acid only 2. acetic acid or hydrochloric acid 3. hydrochloric acid only 4. potassium acetate only 5. sodium chloride or potassium acetate

Question 27 56.6% correct

The molecular weight of a gas is __________ g/mol if 3.5 g of the gas occupies 2.1 L at STP.

1. 41 2. 5.5 102 3. 37 4. 4.6 103

5. 2.7 10–2

Question 33 32.1% correct

A sample of oxygen gas was found to effuse at a rate equal to two times that of an unknown gas. The molecular weight of the unknown gas is __________ g/mol.

1. 64 2. 128 3. 8 4. 16 5. 8.0

Response rate

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

50 55 60 65 70 75 80 More

% successful responses

Fre

qu

en

cy

Successful “hits” with the hand-sets

EvaluationThe class were asked:

• Did you enjoy using the PRS voting system? Would it be a good idea if the class had a revision and tutorial session with the PRS voting system every two weeks or so?

• The answers were collected by email and by a paper questionnaire distributed in the lab class in the week after the trial.

•Yes I thought it was great!! Must do it again.

•I felt it was much more interesting and would look forward to doing it again.

•Yes. Good to have some interaction with lecturer.

•I was there on Friday and think it’s a really good idea. It works really well as you get instant feedback from the question and you told us what we were doing wrong and how to get the right answer. It’s a very useful revision technique and should be used more often.

•Yes, the class was very stimulating. Yes, it would be good to have such tutorials throughout the course.

Responses

•I did enjoy use of it. I think it would be very useful if used on a regular basis – to reinforce and to highlight areas requiring more attention for both student and lecturer. It encourages participation in every question whereas during lecture it’s easy to switch off.

•Yes, I enjoyed using it and think a revision or tutorial session with this would be effective because people enjoy using it and it can give the lecturers a more accurate idea of people’s weak areas.

•Yes. I enjoyed the system and would enjoy such opportunities to be tested on material already covered.

Reservations• I think the PRS voting system would be a useful method for

revision before exams . I don’t think it would be a good idea however to have them every fortnight as less time would be spent on getting lecture notes which are more valuable when it comes to the exam.

• Red background on screen was hard to see if computer had received your answer

• Yes, it was good. Although it was sometimes hard to see if my number had come up on the screen after I pressed it

• A lot of the time was spent setting it up and its reliability has a way to go. Also there needs to be more time to answer each question.

Acknowledgements

• Phil Marston, LTU

• David Walton, AV Unit

• Professor Jim Boyle, Strathclyde (talk)

• Steve Draper, Glasgow (DVD)

• The CM1506 class