Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Koos Winnips et al.
Formative testing: reactions via SMS can be used to carry out testing during lectures for large
groups. For example, Hancock (2010) used personal response systems to write a summative test.
Interactive tutorials: answering questions via SMS or audience response systems can be used in
interactive tutorials (D’Inverno et. al., 2003): a small problem was explained at the start of the
tutorial, after which groups of students would walk through that, answering questions at
intermediate stages. Based on the answers of the questions the contents of the tutorials would be
changed. In this way the answers to questions determine which path through the materials is
followed, and thus which contents within lectures are covered.
Entry testing: getting to know the entry knowledge of students helps better suit course contents to
the level of the students. For students, entry testing can make it clear if they have a gap in their
entry knowledge.
Backchannel: Backchannel tools (Atkinson, 2010) can improve engagement by allowing students
to react during a lecture. A backchannel enables students to input their questions and thoughts
online, while a verbal presentation is going on simultaneously. Currently, on many conferences a
twitter backchannel is opened, giving participants the option to react and interact before, during,
and after the conference.
For this study the backchannel model was chosen. This was based on assumptions that better
connections between the lecturer and students improve learning outcomes (Torenbeek, 2011), and
that use of open comments could improve these connections. Sending in open comments, questions
and thoughts can be used to:
Assist higher order thinking (for example, by stimulating discussion during a lecture).
Adapt to entry-knowledge (by adapting the level or pace of the lecture).
Increase student time-on-task (for example, by posting questions and thoughts on a forum after
the lecture to stimulate discussion there). A discussion started during a lecture can thus be
continued online.
This paper describes a study to try this concept, now called the “reactionlecture” in the setting of a
large classroom at the University of Groningen. The course was a second year Bachelor’s Psychology
course “Brain and Behaviour” (722 students). The course consisted of a series of lectures,
accompanied by a book. At the end of the course a written examination determined the course mark.
Lectures were given in a cinema room (as shown in Figure 1), that could host 600 students. In a
second cinema room the remainder of the students (often the students that arrived late) could attend
the lecture live via a video screen. In cooperation with one of the two lecturers the reactionlectures
were set up.
Figure 1: Lecture in cinema in Groningen, students send in their responses to the lecturer via Mobile
Internet
To implement the backchannel a few options were considered: using audience response systems (or
“clickers” as they are sometimes called), SMS or Mobile Internet (via the students smartphones). In
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