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Developing Engaging Lectures with TurningPointIn a nutshell logo

Audience response systems - TurningPoint (KeePad) software to engage students in lectures  - In a nutshell - 5 minute overview

 

Introduction

There are many types of Audience Response Systems (ARS) available. UniSA has the system sometimes referred to as "TurningPoint", after the company whose software we use, or as "keepads / clickers" which are used by students to respond to questions.

TurningPoint is a combination of hardware and software that integrates seamlessly into PowerPoint and wirelessly connects students to a computer that collates their responses to a question asked in PowerPoint. While it is possible to keep the responses private, the power of this technology to enhance engagement is maximised when it is used to generate discussion and interactivity based on displayed student responses. Data can be saved for comparison and displayed in both graph format and Excel.

Why use an Audience Response System?

Considered and skilful use of this technology has the capacity to:

Typically TurningPoint is used to facilitate learning by:

Alternative Uses:

Ideas and best practice

The ways that TurningPoint can be used are almost limitless but there are some key strategies

Developing questions

What is the purpose of the question?

Countdown timers and other tools can be inserted into your question slide. However, consider whether these will enhance or detract from your purpose.

Questions designed to uncover prior knowledge are ideally short and explicit. These types of questions form lecture branches which direct the lecture, one way or another, depending on the response.

Questions designed to encourage deep engagement with material require appropriate time and discussion to be factored in to the lecture design.

Before and after questions, that is, questions where you would like to know how the lecture material has impacted on students, are more useful when students are required to indicate where and why their thoughts have changed or alternatively been reinforced.

Awareness of ambiguity

The wording of questions is crucial to the successful use of keepads. Ambiguous questions developed intentionally to initiate discussion may be a sound strategy. However, poorly worded questions can hinder learning.

Questions will always be interpreted by the reader and therefore it is important to arrive at a common understanding of what is being asked.  For example:  

“Would you think that the State Government should agree to permanently impose daylight saving?”

Answers were meant to reveal whether someone wanted, or did not want daylight saving. However, the term “permanently” is an absolute that might influence the respondent’s answer, but not directly relate to the subject of daylight saving itself. In other words someone might like daylight saving but not want it "permanently imposed".

Or, from which perspective is one being asked?

Further, there may be cultural issues in this question as members in the audience may have little understanding of daylight saving issues and time zones in Australia.

Higher order thinking questions

These types of questions promote discussion, critical thinking and lead to deeper learning. There are a number of taxonomies, relevant to education that are commonly used to structure the development of higher order questioning.

  1. Utilising a taxonomy of cognitive processes, such Bloom's taxonomy, Anderson's taxonomy or Biggs's Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy. These taxonomies present learning as hierarchical in nature. Anderson's presents learning as active and about doing, hence it uses verbs and aligns strongly with UniSA's Teaching and Learning framework.  
Bloom’s Original Taxonomy Anderson’s Revised Taxonomy  Biggs's Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) Taxonomy
Knowledge  Remembering Pre-structural
Comprehension Understanding Uni-structural
Application  Applying Multi-structural
Analysis  Analysing Relational
Synthesis Evaluating Extended abstract
Evaluation Creating  

 2.  Socratic questioning is about uncovering / de-constructing / revealing what is hidden. The primary goal is not to arrive at a  definitive answer. Rather it is to explore the range of possible responses, and associated foreseeable consequences, to difficult and complex problems.

There are six types of Socratic questions:

  1. Conceptual clarification questions: "Tell me more" and "prove it" type questions
  2. Probing assumptions: What are the unquestioned beliefs?
  3. Probing rationale and viewpoints: Critique the rationale
  4. Question perspective: Look from the perspective of the "other". Challenge power positions and encourage diversity
  5. Probe implications and consequences: Explore logical consequences and possible unintended consequences
  6. Question the question:  Why was the question asked? How might it further your case? What do you hope to learn?

Resources and references

Articles

Latessa, Robyn and Mouw, David (2005), Use of an Audience Response System to Augment Interactive Learning, (PDF 32.09kb) Innovations in family medicine education, 37, 12-14.

Robertson, L. J. (2000), Twelve Tips for using a computerised interactive audience response system (PDF 86.38kb), Medical teacher, 22, 237-239.

Silliman, S. E. and McWilliams, L. (2004) Observations on Benefits/Limitations of an Audience Response System (PDF 244.74kb), In Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for engineering education annual conference and exposition, Vol. Session number 2531 American Society of engineering education, pp. 1-16.

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