Fingertip feedback sparks up engineering tutorials

Published by the Communications and Development Department

 

2 August 2004

 

Technology more familiar to game show audiences is pushing all the right buttons with electrical engineering students at the University of Canterbury.

Canterbury is the first university in the country to introduce eInstruction's Classroom Performance System (CPS) into the lecture theatre.

Armed with infrared keypads, students are able to answer multiple-choice questions at the touch of a button.

Dr Steve Durbin introduced the technology to students at the beginning of the semester. He can view student feedback in real-time, allowing him to modify material being taught based on individual student or group responses. The responses are logged automatically by a laptop computer and the statistics can be viewed by the instructor and students at the end of each question.

“It is a revolution in how we teach tutorials,” Dr Durbin says.

That view is shared by colleague Dr Wade Enright who says it is probably the biggest change in the tutorial format in decades.

“Previously the class was split into four or five parallel tutorials and students were typically reluctant to speak up,” says Dr Durbin. “The only way for us to know what they understood was by tests — and by then it was a little too late to realise they didn’t understand everything.

“The benefit with this new technology is that we can get the students back into one room and they can anonymously tell us whether they understand what is going on.”

Dr Durbin says the keypads seem to be a big hit with the students.

“It was a livelier class. They were laughing and having fun. There was definitely a novelty factor.”

 

For further information please contact:

John MacDonald
Communications Manager
University of Canterbury

Tel: +64-3-364 2910
Fax: +64-3-364 2679
Mob: +64-27-441 7280
john.macdonald@canterbury.ac.nz