Technology Spurs Classroom Interest

Look out Regis: Paul Thibado wants your job.

Using a Personal Response System, a wireless remote control answering package, Thibado has applied a “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” format to transform college physics from loathed into loved classes.

Fayetteville’s University of Arkansas campus hosts hundreds of classes every semester, and a few required courses are known to be treacherous. Before a research grant and the physics department chipped in to buy the $8,000 PRS, Thibado was doomed to give the difficult and despised physics lectures that were guaranteed to garner rotten evaluations from the students.

Because the two-part course serves non-physics majors, mostly pre-med students, the physics department couldn’t afford smaller classes. Lumped together in the biggest classroom on campus, 200 students were enrolled in Part 1 in the fall and Part 2 in the spring.

In the pre-PRS days, only half the students bothered to show up for the lectures, Thibado said, and the average score in the class was 50 percent. The grades frustrated even the best students, despite curves to save most from failing, and interest in the class would plummet as each semester wore on.

Now, with the PRS in place, the auditorium lights dim and students crowd in to the room with pencils and calculators ready. Attendance for the 50-minute lectures has jumped to almost 100 percent, and the average grade for the class has risen to 78 percent. More than 65 students are sporting A’s, and 35 received perfect scores on a major test — something that never happened before the PRS technology arrived.

Results from the classroom have been so positive that the instructor stopped using the two graduate students who were grading papers and offering drill sessions.

Thibado made the difference by creating an interactive situation. When enrolling in the class, each student buys a small remote control unit for about $50 — less than many textbooks, and the bookstore will buy back undamaged units for $30. Each remote sends a signal to receivers mounted in the classroom. While displaying composite answers on a large projected screen at the front of the class, the computer also tracks individual answers.

Before PRS, Thi-bado said, he never knew how the students were grasping the concepts until the first of five tests was complete. And then, even if the majority of the class flunked, the course had to move on with new material to stay on schedule.

Now, students must answer questions during each class, and the in-class answers make up 20 percent of their final grades. Even wrong answers receive some credit to encourage attendance.

With the new method, Thibado can monitor the students’ understanding of concepts as the course progresses, taking time to work out troubled areas. Thibado said he and the students can communicate about missed concepts because the PRS has helped eliminate intimidation in the class. Sometimes he, like “Millionaire” host Regis Philbin, offers “lifelines” such as eliminating half of the incorrect multiple-choice answers to give the students a 50-50 chance.

The PRS also allows students to evaluate the class while remaining anonymous.

The UA purchased the wall-mounted receivers from Educue, a PRS distributor that targets educational applications. Professor David Gay of the Sam M. Walton College of Business Administration also employs the PRS in the classroom.