Universities across the country are offering timid students a lifeline by introducing audience response systems into large lecture classes.
Similar to the "ask the audience" option on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?," the audience response system (ARS) - also known as the student or personal response system - allows professors to pose a question to the class and receive immediate feedback. The answers, submitted by the students using individual wireless keypads, are then tabulated and presented on PowerPoint for the class and professor to see.
Columbia University's Center for Education Research and Evaluation website argues ARS "can substantially improve the effectiveness of learning and retention of concepts presented in lectures," and says that the anonymity of ARS allows professors to evaluate the level of understanding of their students without singling out those who are intimidated to raise their hands.
Junior Ilan Behm, a double major in electrical and biomedical engineering, believes that this function of the system is important because it gives a voice to the many students who do not participate in class.
"Especially at a school like this, students are sometimes overly conscious," he said. "Many have come from high schools where everything was very competitive. ARS would afford students the opportunity to 'raise their hands' without actually having to speak."
Behm believes that the ARS would be most beneficial to first-year students who "don't know one another or where everyone is skill-wise. I think a lot of people have the same questions and misconceptions about the material, but don't know how to go about seeking an answer," he said.
Junior Mete Atamel, the TA for an introductory computer science class, also believes that using ARS would benefit freshmen. "Some [students] are very shy, especially first-year students," he said. "So I can imagine a first-year student feeling intimidated to ask questions, especially in a big class."
While Atamel sees the pros of introducing this new technology into the classroom, he also sees the cons. "There's no way for a student to stop the course and ask a question using this tool, so in that sense it's passive and not that helpful," he said.
Computer Science Lecturer Bil Lewis, who teaches the class that Atamel TAs, has similar concerns. "Do I want student feedback? Yes," he said. "Do I think a technological artifice is the best way to achieve it? No."
For Lewis, the anonymity of the system is not a benefit, but rather a disadvantage. "Students will become more involved in their class and their own lives if they're not anonymous," he said.
In order to increase communication within his own class, Lewis organized short meetings with each student to find out what aspects of the material people were having difficulty with. But in many Tufts classes, meetings with the professor are not arranged for the student; he or she must it initiate interactions for him or herself.
This is the case in freshman Susie Hammar's chemistry class. Hammar believes that her professor has a good pulse on the mastery level of his students, even without advanced technology like ARS, and she attributes his understanding of which topics the
students find particularly difficult to his many years of teaching experience.
Even with an experienced professor, students are sometimes still lost, and may not feel comfortable asking the professor to clarify. Hammar has noticed, however, that most students seem to feel comfortable asking the TA for help. "We have a very good TA that helps us and can speak on the same wavelength as us," she said.
Behm recalls there being a similar situation in Engineering One and Two [EN1 and EN2], the introductory engineering courses. "In EN1 and EN2, the class doesn't grasp the material as quickly as the professor would like," Behm said. "I think that professors should have a gauge on where their class stands in terms of comprehension, and should set up an environment where no one feels ashamed to ask if they don't understand."
According to Behm, making students feel comfortable should be every teacher's goal. But he points out that there is more than one way of doing so, because "every teacher has a different style."
Hammar, too, thinks that ARS would work well in certain situations, but not others. "Some of the elder professors may not like the idea so much, as it would change their style of teaching," she said.
So would Tufts students be happy if the University hooked up large lecture classes with ARS? We may need to ask the audience to find out: both Hammar and Behm believe that asking the professor or a TA for help in person is always the best solution, but they see the merit of ARS for the times when the faculty is unavailable or for immediate help during class time.
"It is impossible in a huge lecture class, such as Physics 11 or Physics 12 - where you have upwards of 100 students in the class - for there to be private meetings between the student and teacher all the time," said Behm, who believes that the technology could in such cases be a time saver.
