• Unit: PH10001/PH10048 Quantum Mechanics
  • Department/School: Physics (and Natural Sciences)
  • Level: First year undergraduate
  • Unit Tutor: W.J.Wadsworth
  • Keywords [pedagogical]: large-group-teaching
  • Keywords [technical]: audience-response-systems, ars

Background

Aims and objectives of the lecture
My first problems class with this group (potentially 118 students but actually 63). The aim was to go through 5 questions that the students had been set and all being well attempted.

What actually took place? What was the role of the technology? What did the technology add?
I aimed to use the ARS system to help to gauge which problems the students had tackled and had had difficulties with, so that I could target the class to the most common problems. I also used the system to show the class their own demographics – degree programme and A-level subjects.

Outcomes

Were the objectives met?
This was my first test of the technology. I was not using it much during the class – 15 mins at the beginning. The overhead of staff time to collect the units from AV and distribute them was quite high, but I feel that the class worked better than similar classes previously. The system is obviously readily suited to answering multiple choice questions. However I did still find it useful in supporting my teaching using existing long answer problems.

How did the students find it?
The students engaged well with the system. I shall get feedback from them once I have tried the system again.

Were there any unexpected outcomes?
More than 80% had actually done the problems before the class. This is much higher than usual and possibly because I had told them that I would be using ARS.

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