TurningPoint Student Response System

Do audience response systems enhance presentations in classrooms and lecture halls? This week’s Opinion comes from the director of Educational Technology Services at the University of California-Berkeley. Victor Edmonds reflects on his experience with the systems.

By Victor Edmonds
University of California-Berkeley

Audience response systems have been around for years but had a reputation for being complex, expensive, and slow. Three years ago, Professor Alex Pines and Mark Kubinec, the teachers of the large introductory chemistry course at Berkeley, were looking for techniques to make their already lively classes more interactive. They found not only that the technology had become more user friendly and could be implemented for not much money, but that it had a surprisingly positive effect on the class environment.

The technology is taking off here on campus. Installation of receivers in classrooms is not difficult, but is best done by or at least in cooperation with the classroom technology people. We ran into trouble with one receiver unit that interfered with our assistive listening system until we moved things around. The tricky part would be the hand held units. How would we get one in the hands of each student in a large lecture hall? Permanently mounted units would get destroyed and passing them out and collecting them would take up class time. We settled on selling them to each student through the bookstore, and bundled them with the textbook. The students, used to the high prices, took it in stride. Some sold back the unit at the end of the semester; some kept it for use in another class. I have heard reports that some students have reused their units for two more classes.
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