Peer Instruction and Question-based Technologies

Posted by ilan | | Tuesday 23 September 2014 10:29 am

 

Turning Technologies Manchester User Conference 2014-

Turning Technologies is the leading global partner for learning engagement and assessment services focused on measurably improving teaching and learner success. Our solutions manage, enhance and deliver instructional and assessment content in ways that improve learner success while collecting critical data for use in meaningful ways.

I3 = Inspire * invent * innovate !

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You can see photos and on-the-fly generated statements on Twitter records on https://twitter.com/hashtag/ttucman





device
University of Manchester
46 Grafton Street
Core Technology Facility
Manchester
M13 9NT
United Kingdom

Monday, 22 September 2014 from 09:00 to 16:00 (BST)

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In 22/09/2014, I have been at the UMIC. The University of Manchester Innovation Centre (UMIC) is a market leader in providing high quality state of the art biotech and hi-tech facilities. The Innovation Centre also boasts an exceptional conferencing and events facility in addition to onsite catering. Visit and check it up http://www.umic.co.uk/

 

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The event started with Dr. Eric Mazur, presenting “From Questions to Concepts”.

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Over the years, Dr. Mazur discovered that students in his introductory physics course were passing exams without having understood the fundamental concepts he was trying to teach. In response to this problem, Dr. Mazur developed a variety of interactive techniques linked to each other in ways that help his students learn basic concepts far better than before. He developed a strategy that incorporates “just-in-time” teaching with short lectures punctuated by conceptual questions posed to students, better known as Peer Instruction.

 

He showed at that moment the power of The Peer Instruction. It is a method that engages students through activities that require each learner to apply the concepts being presented. Students then explain those concepts to fellow learners, involving the entire group. Questions had been asked, discussed and then displayed using classroom response technology. Peer Instruction provides continuous assessment and feedback, forcing students to learn from each other while in the classroom. You can forget facts, but you cannot forget understanding!
 

 
After the break I participated in one more brilliant session, provided by Dr. Jill Barber: Turning Point for Pastoral Support of Students. This is quite close to my research. Dr. Barber showed some spreadsheets and the possibility of sending emails and monitoring students performance, by using students devices.

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Turning Point is used routinely in the Manchester Pharmacy School to provide interactive material and to improve student engagement. Students have an individual clicker so the data collected can conveniently be used to monitor student attendance and progress. Although lecture attendance is not compulsory, the attendance data has proved to be a powerful aid to student support. Students missing several classes are contacted by email. Occasionally a reply is received indicating that the student needs to discuss a problem. The fact that they do not need to make the first move is important in encouraging students to come forward.
In the afternoon colleagues from Manchester University exposed successful cases and gave tips about the use of this technology.

Dr Hannah Cobb, Dr Federico Cugurullo, Dr Paul Middleditch, Dr Will Moindrot, Dr Patricia Perlman presented – Dee Vignettes of TurningPoint use within Humanities at University of Manchester.

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The Faculty of Humanities has provided Turning Technologies ResponseCards as a teaching tool since 2009 and ResponseWare since 2010. Since the provision of ResponseWare, ease of use has led to an increase in the number of people taking up this tool and the frequency in its use – leading to a multiplier effect on innovation and teaching impact. This session will highlight the work of faculty users through short ‘PechaKucha’ style presentations, limited by duration and number of slides in order to create short, but poignant stories about TurningPoint use within the Humanities subjects taught at Manchester.

Some more videos from Manchester’s lecturers:

 

After this session, came Dr. Simon Lancaster and presented a question-driven session: Flipping roles Student sourcing of both questions and answers.

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Can we go beyond lecture flipping to flipping roles? Who better to decide what constitutes a challenging question than a student? Where can we be sure to find the hidden misconceptions? We explored how the audience can be called upon to source Question & Answer combinations in the sweet spot for Peer Instruction.

Watch de video:

 

 

Finally, Dr. Josie Fraser & Alison Hartley presented: Using Turning Point to Drive Assessment for Learning Activities in a Team-Based Learning TBL course.

Groups were formed based on our conceptions (we had to agree in some intensity to sentences and from that mixed groups had been formed).

Team Based Learning

TBL

The University of Bradford School of Pharmacy started using Team – Based Learning in 2012. TBL is a refined example of the flipped classroom, applicable to any discipline and stage of education, from schools to higher education. Our session will demonstrate TBL, as this is more effective than describing it. We will demonstrate how frequent, low stakes assessments (a key part of TBL) use TurningPoint and response systems to drive students’ pre-class preparation (an essential in the flipped classroom ). Additionally, using Turning Point eliminates student cheating, and removes the marking burden for teaching staff when doing frequent assessments to drive deep learning.

 

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