Last week at the e-Learning Practitioners Forum, Gemma Cranston and I presented a brief introduction to Audience Response Systems (ARS). As a lecturer in the Department of Mechanical Engineering who had used the ARS in her lecturers, Gemma was able to give a brief, but exceptionally useful, insight into how the technology added real value to a particular lecture within the context of the unit, ME30219 Aircraft Performance and Design.

Those present were interested in how one of the questions was delivered [slide 10 in the presentation below – use the arrow eyes in the window to navigate through the slideshow] and, in particular, how this question assessed whether the students had been learning solely at a surface level, or at a deeper one.

Given this interest, Gemma has answered a few questions about her and her students’ experiences below.

  • Question: Put these aircraft in order of maximum range (longest range first)

1. How was the question deployed? Did you encourage students to talk this through before answering?

The question was put up first as a non-interactive slide so they could see much later pictures of the different aircraft. It also gave me an opportunity to highlight what the aircraft were, but without giving too much away. The students were encouraged to discuss their thoughts with each other, and there was quite a lively debate throughout the class.

2. How much of the course does this draw upon?

This type of question was very useful as it drew up on a lot of different aspects of the course. Students needed to identify the differences between piston (propeller) powered aircraft, and jet powered aircraft with respect to their range capabilities. Many of the aircraft in the question have specific applications, such as the A400M military aircraft was developed for it’s endurance as well as aspects like field performance. This aircraft had been discussed throughout the lecture course and students were required to draw upon this knowledge and use it to compare each type of aircraft performance. The long distance aircraft such as A380 and B777 are frequently referred to in lectures and the type of journeys they make affects their range (hub-to-hub and point-to-point). These were all considerations to be made in answering this question. The JSF aircraft has different design parameters which have been discussed in lectures, so students were aware that range was not the most crucial performance criteria.

3. What types of skills are you drawing upon? For instance, could students simply answer the question from pure knowledge or are they needing to do other activities such as knowledge application, analysis and synthesis?

This question really requires students to consider the overview of the course and apply a variety of different pieces of information. They have learnt about different aero engines and a variety of aircraft types and should be able to apply this knowledge to the set of aircraft presented to them to make an appropriate judgement on the order of their maximum range capabilities.

4. How did you respond to the answer?

69% of the students got the answer correct, and I was able to discuss with them where they had gone wrong and why. The correct answer was explained with reference to the theory that had been presented to them in previous lectures.

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Perhaps what is most revealing about this particular example is not only the added value given to the exercise via the peer discussion prior to answering the question, but importantly the number of different strands of the course that this single question draws upon. It is by using question design approaches such as these, can practitioners really begin to engage students in their learning at a deeper level.

Indeed the was an element of debate prior to the vote, and then a wide-ranging discussion about the question following the responses being displayed. Through this, we see a number of peer assessment and feedback loops being undertaken in quick succession requiring higher order skills. This reminds me of some work undertaken by Crouch and Mazur (2001), which I explored in a blog post elsewhere. Steve Draper from the University of Glasgow talks about this further on his EVS-related website.

Should you wish to consider embedding this or similar approaches to question design into your own ARS-related activities, or would just like some ideas on how to get started, please get in touch with me at e-learning@bath.ac.uk.

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