The Personal Response System PRS at the University of Rochester

1
The Personal Response System (PRS) at the
University of Rochester

• Frank L. H. Wolfs
• Department of Physics and Astronomy
• Institute of Optics
• December 15, 2005

2
Outline.

• The PRS system.
• How did we get started and how are we doing?
• Examples of the use of the PRS system in Physics
  121 (including a demo of the PRS system with
  actual questions used in Physics 121).
• Issues with the PRS system from the instructor's
  point of view.
• Summary.

3
The Personal Response System (PRS).

• The personal response system (PRS) was introduced
  in our large lecture courses to increase the
  involvement of the students in these courses.
• Faculty can pose questions, students submit their
  answers using wireless transmitters, and the data
  are collected using a set of receivers connected
  to a computer running the PRS software which
  provides an immediate analysis of the results.

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The Personal Response System.The components.

• Each student uses a transmitter to submit his/her
  answers.
• The answers can be
• Multiple-choice answers (up to 9 possible
  answers).
• Numerical answers (integers only).
• Each student can indicate his/her level of
  confidence by pressing the H key (high
  confidence) or L key (low confidence) before
  submitting their answer. The default confident
  level is M (medium confidence).

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The Personal Response System.The components.

• The signals from the transmitters are received by
  several receivers.
• The signals are infra-red signals and require
  line of sight.
• The required processing time limits the number of
  users to about 40 per receiver (many receivers
  can be daisy chained).
• Note the use of RF technology would increase the
  cost by an order to magnitude.

6
The Personal Response System.How did we get
started?

• The impact of PRS is well established, but cost
  has been the main reason not to adopt it.
• In October 2003 I attended an AAPT meeting about
  the introductory Physics course curriculum, and
  found out that Prentice Hall offered the
  possibility of bundling the PRS units with their
  text book (the cost per book increased by 15).
  In addition, for every 40 text books sold, I
  would receive one receiver.
• Since we already use books from Prentice Hall in
  our introductory physics courses, I decided to
  order the bundled version for Physics 121 for
  spring 2004, and Prof. Manly decided to do the
  same thing for Physics 114.
• I received 8 receivers from the PRS company at no
  charge.

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The Personal Response System.How did we get
started?

• In January 2004 four receivers were installed in
  Hoyt hall and connected to the built-in PC.
• The system was used successfully in both Physics
  121 and Physics 114 during the spring semester of
  2004 (more details about the use in Physics 121
  will be provided momentarily).
• The success in these courses resulted in the
  interest of other faculty in other courses. But
  ..
• The cost of the PRS transmitter for students who
  did not buy it bundled was significant (35 - 40
  per unit).
• The tie to Prentice Hall to reduce the cost of
  the transmitters is not a good thing.
• Is there a market for used transmitters?

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The Personal Response System.How do we continue?

• Usage of PRS for the fall semester, starting in
  fall 2004 (700 students)
• Astronomy 102
• Biology 110
• Physics 113
• Physics 122
• Physics 141
• I made an arrangement with the bookstore to have
  them purchase PRS transmitters. The students can
  rent the transmitters at a cost of 10 (a 23
  deposit is required).
• The PRS company delivered 16 receivers which were
  installed in Dewey, Hubbell, and BL 106. Note
  facilities completed the installation during the
  second week of classes in fall 2004 only after I
  threatened to do it myself.

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The Personal Response System.How do we continue?

• Everything seemed to be working fine.
• Some initial problems were caused by the use of
  csv files and the fact that Microsoft messes
  these up when you try to modify them using Excel.
• Many problems with managing class files were
  resolved in recent versions of the PRS software
  (we started with 2.91 and are now using
  3.20.0015).
• Documentation about the use of the PRS at the U
  of R can be found at
• http//teacher.pas.rochester.edu/PRSatUofR/PRSInf
  o.html

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The Personal Response System,Examples of its use
in Physics 121.

• In Physics 121 I have used the PRS in many
  different ways
• Daily quizzes at the start of lecture (more
  details on the next slide).
• Surveys.
• Discussion provoking concept tests (more details
  on the next slide).
• Attendance.
• The PRS software collects information about
  information send by each student. But, if you
  give credit for participation and/or quizzes,
  students need to know for sure their answer was
  accepted.

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Personal Response SystemThe questions

• The Physics 121 quizzes are used to ensure that
  students read the material to be covered in class
  before coming to class.
• The Physics 121 concept tests are used to focus
  on difficult concepts in the material being
  discussed and provides immediate feedback on the
  misconceptions of the students.
• Rather than reinventing the wheel, most of the
  quizzes and concept tests were taken from Peer
  Instruction by Eric Mazur.

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Personal Response SystemExamples of its use in
Physics 121.

• Quiz at the beginning of class (based on the
  reading assignment)
• 3 - 4 multiple-choice questions.
• Part of the course grade.
• A group of people always leaves right after the
  quiz. But . I know who they are!

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The Personal Response System,Examples of its use
in Physics 121.

• Sorry, you will have to do some work.
• You will be asked to answer 4 concept-test
  questions that have been used as Concept Tests in
  Physics 121.

14
Examples of PRS data.Peer Instruction Correct
Answer 3.

15
Examples of PRS data.Peer Instruction Correct
Answer 3.

16
Examples of PRS data.Peer Instruction Correct
Answer 5.

17
Examples of PRS data.Peer Instruction Correct
Answer 1.

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The Personal Response System,Examples of its use
in Physics 121.

• Since the PRS system records the ID of the
  transmitters being used by the students, I have
  good records of class attendance, which my be a
  factor taken into consideration when final grades
  are assigned.
• The attendance information also allows a study of
  the correlation between lecture attendance and
  grades.
• But it requires you to collected PRS ID
  information (there are different ways to collect
  this information).

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Usage of attendance.Effect of attendance on
pre-final course grade.
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Usage of attendance.Is it workshops or lectures?

• Attendance information can be used for other
  studies.
• For example, students who go to workshops are
  also more likely to go to lecture. Do they get
  better grades because of the workshop or because
  they come to lecture?
• There is a lot of information available . A lot
  to learn from it.

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What did the students think?

• In general the in-class concept test were
  received well. The in-class discussion changed
  the class atmosphere .. but the instructor must
  be willing to change focus on a moments notice
  based on the feedback from the students.
• Quizzes were not well received, but this is
  always true, independent of the method of
  delivery. But, forcing student to come to
  class lowers your course opinion ratings!
• Main initial complaints came from students who
  purchased the PRS transmitters separately
  (expensive) but having the bookstore deal with
  the transmitters has resolved most problems.

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Impact on Faculty's Workload.

• The success of the system depends on the quality
  of the questions being used. Developing good
  questions requires a significant effort.
• The Faculty can setup the PRS session in advance
  (this is highly recommended) on their computer
  (Windows or Mac OS X) and transfer files to a USB
  keychain storage device. Note
• You will need to determine how you will display
  the questions include them in the PRS system
  (OK, but graphics causes problems on windows
  machines - bug when path changes) or display them
  on an overhead projector.
• Decide how much time you will give the students
  to think, whether or not you want to see the
  graph with the results automatically, etc.
• You will need to make sure you collect PRS ID
  numbers if you are going to give credit for
  participation.
• Run the PRS system from the USB device connected
  to the machine running the PRS software.

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Impact on Faculty's Workload.

• Biggest initial stumbling blocks (all related to
  those applications where students receive credit
  for participation)
• Collect PRD ID information for students enrolled
  in the course. In Physics we collect this
  information as part of the recitation signup
  process. There is a WEB-based tool, provided by
  GTCO CalComp, that collects this information and
  I plan to evaluate this tool in the next few
  weeks.
• Class list
• // Roster, DateTime 407292204, Version
  3.00.0025, CID 5y?YGCCF, OS Windows XP Version
  5.1, Class Name NOT USED zs 0 dups 0,,
• TransId, Group Id, Last Name, First Name, Middle
  Initial, Student ID, Nickname, Net ID
• 152904,0,Baker,Kim,-,444-33-2222,KB,-
• 152990,0,Smith,Fred,-,505123,FedX,-
• 152985,0,Dickenson,Emily,M,345-22-2345,Poet,-
• 154110,0,Tucker,Christopher,-,T01-43879,Chris,-

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Impact on Faculty's Workload.

• Problems identified in the current version of the
  software
• Use of graphics in the the PRS questions (when
  the path of the graphics folder changes, the
  graphics will not show up .. it looks like the
  software uses absolute paths instead of relative
  paths).
• There are bugs with the grade book feature (I
  will see if they are resolved in the latest
  version of the software). In my Physics 141
  class, the first student is not included.
• The inability to show two graphs at the same time
  (in the current version) is a step backwards in
  my opinion.

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Impact on Faculty's Workload.

• Let's demonstrate some of the "faculty" features
• Defining a class.
• Defining a seat map.
• Defining a lesson.
• Grading a quiz.
• Updating a grade book.

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Summary

• The use of PRS has been successfully introduced
  at the U of R.
• The simulating discussions that evolve as a
  result of the PRS system are a result of the
  questions being used. These discussions can take
  place in the recitation environment without
  having to rely on PRS hardware/software.
• Anything that will increase the involvement of
  the students in lecture/recitation/workshop will
  increase their impact.