Hi

The low-tech / no-budget version of clickers is to use coloured cards that students can hold up. (A really almost no budget sample is attached with 4 colours per card / 4 cards per sheet.)  Means you can ask multiple choice questions and get a quick response.

For the more technically minded with some budget, there are more and more examples of using SMS in the classroom, often to help students in big halls ask questions.  (Think www.molenet.og.uk and www.futurelab.org.uk were the last places I saw interesting stuff, or http://www.m-learning.org/ for the hard commercial push from one provider.)  Big advantage is that you've pushed the cost of purchasing the hardware (and sending texts) on to the student (though with some hardware / front-end costs retained; possibly also providing free-to-text numbers); big disadvantage is that you're not sure that everyone is adequately equipped.

As an aside, we've got a bid in for funding as part of a local partnership looking at using bluetooth to 'push' content as part of a widening participation project, and I'm thinking about follow-on applications to encourage / nag / cajole / interest students into thinking more (and more actively) about how they approach their studies.  The hardware is relatively cheap - about £30 for a bluetooth 'dongle' and a medium-grade laptop.  I'm reassured by colleagues on the project who know what they're talking about that content development isn't so technically complicated to be punishingly expensive.  What you end up with is a mobile set-up that can be relocated quickly and easily around the campus (eg in people's offices) and which buzzes a phone with bluetooth switched on to accept content - something straightforward such as text and audio, or something more interactive such as a quiz or game.  The big challenge for us on the current project is possibly going to be to persuade enough people to switch on their bluetooth and accept our content.

Yours

Jonathan



-----Original Message-----
From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Christine Pickering
Sent: 06, October, 2008 10:48
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Teaching large groups

Likewise Phil Race has a great system of holding up one or two hands depending upon the level of agreement of the audience. 

Interactivity in a tiered lecture theatre is always a challenge, so if the groups are so constrained I try and put in a 'talk to the person next to you' activity.

Neither are rocket science!

Chris

Student Development Officer
Skills@Library (formerly Skills Centre)
University of Leeds
15 Blenheim Terrace
LEEDS
LS2 9JT
0113 343 2333
[log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Martin Hampton
Sent: 06 October 2008 09:53
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Teaching large groups

Chris - a very very tiny thing that I often do is to use 'fist-to-five'
as a feedback method - like 'hands up if...' only everyone has to indicate a score - clenched fist for zero through to all fingers extended for five-out-of-five. Every member of the group can also look around to get the same evaluative snapshot as the lecturer. Quite often I then ask students to tell each other why they gave the score they did
- a lovely way to get some student-to-student interaction going.

I'm not claiming that this could be lebelled "very good practice" or indeed especially "innovative", and perhaps it is already widespread, but if there's anyone who doesn't use it, I'd thoroughly recommmend the technique.

Martin Hampton
ASK
University of Portsmouth



>>> Christine Keenan <[log in to unmask]> 06/10/2008 09:33 >>>
Dear colleagues

Here at Bournemouth University, we are now in a phase where we are faced with teaching very large groups, for example, 250+ students at a time in large lecture theatres with the obvious knock on issues relating to seminars and marking.

Does anyone on the list have any examples of really good practice in their own institutions where people are using interesting and innovative ways of working with such large groups?  We do have some lecture theatres set up with the personal response systems, so that is one way of getting every student involved, but, I am wondering if people have other ideas that they'd be willing to share with us.

Best wishes

Chris

Christine Keenan
Learning and Teaching Fellow
School of Design, Engineering & Computing Bournemouth University Poole House Fern Barrow Poole  Dorset
BH12 5BB

Tel:  01202  965307





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