An Interactive Student Participation System

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We propose major changes in the typical undergraduate science curriculum by drastically changing the large lecture format. We plan to use new technology to allow the interactive participation of students in the lecture. At the same time our plans also include the use of peer instruction during the lecture. The economics of today and projections for the future suggest that lecture classes can only increase in size and that revitalization of the large lecture is a necessity. Revitalization is also necessary since large scale dropouts are a problem which plague introductory science (especially physics) courses, and these dropouts have a large, usually minority, student component. IIT has a strong representation of students from Chicago high schools. The poor preparation (by no means limited to Chicago) adds to the urgency of the problem. We have initiated an experiment using commercial wireless keypads and software during the Spring semester 1995 to make a large lecture class feel smaller, to provide on-line feedback to the lecturer and to provide motivation for students in a large class (greater than 40) to actively participate in the learning process. While our experiment has been not quite a semester in length in several different classes, its promise suggests further trials and improvements. Since much of our equipment was borrowed we are requesting funding to pursue the development and assessment of this program for a two year period. We plan to monitor our progress and describe the results at major American Association of Physics Teachers meetings as well as local meetings which are to be followed by written reports. Preliminary results of our work were presented at the AAPT meeting in Spokane in August, 1995. This project is being carried out by two experienced teachers; the PI of this project has been teaching introductory physics for over 30 years.