Volume Two - Academic Conferences

Koos Winnips et al.
order to make a choice between these tools, it was necessary to know what students have available.
Earlier studies (Winnips & Thlaoele, 2010, Brakel, 2011) showed that about 50% of students at
University currently have a smartphone available. Further, with Gartner’s hype cycle (Gartner, 2010)
predicting a rise in popularity of low-range to mid-range handsets (i.e. handsets with increasing
opportunities for mobile Internet access) this will certainly be an area of development over the next
five years. Comparing this to handing out 722 clickers (and getting them back…), using what students
already have in their pockets (i.e. their phones) seemed like a good idea.
For this study, a tool called Shakespeak was used (http://www.shakespeak.com/). Students can send
in reactions via SMS, mobile Internet or Twitter. Students send their reactions to a moderator screen
on the lecturers computer. The lecturer decides to show relevant reactions in Powerpoint. In a pilot
study (Winnips & Thlaoele, 2010) we used this tool to regain attention using multiple choice
questions.
Based on an overview of Atkinson (2010) Table 1 gives a number of expected student reactions.
Table 1: Expected backchannel reactions of students and lecturer
Student reaction Example Reaction of lecturer
Minute paper Writing a “minute paper” at the end of a lecture,
summarizing the most important point of the
lecture.
Sharing sources A student pointing out that information can be
found in an earlier course, or from a different
source (television, Youtube)
Commenting Discussion amongst students (agree, disagree,
arguments)
Feedback to the lecturer
on what was learned
Lecturer can check
correctness of source, or
compare viewpoint
Checking arguments
Making linkages Linking concepts to concepts of an earlier course Placing link in context of
current course
Reinforcement/moderation This is interesting! / We’ve covered that before Continuation with the topic,
or moving on to next
Selftesting So, this concept is comparable to …? State correct/incorrect
Asking for clarification Could you give an example of this concept? Give the explanation, or
point out source
Helping each other Student explaining concept to other student None
Opinion/emotion Asking the lecturer for opinion on a topic Provide well grounded
opinion, connect to course
Suggestion to the lecturer Asking to provide the importance of the topic (Is
this covered in the exam?), asking for an
overview, technical problems (lighting in room,
talking to fast, sheets not readable, etc.)
“Community building” Students joking about course content, sharing
personal experiences
Opening up the classroom Enabling ill students to get a touch of the “live”
lecture, asking outside experts to react
content
Address in next lecture,
answer, solve directly
None
Lecturer can initiate
contact
With students giving reactions as given above, the questions we had were:
Would students learn better in a reactionlecture than in a traditional lecture?
What are the opinions of students on giving direct reactions during a lecture?
What forms of providing open comments during lectures can be used?
To answer these questions, a study was set up in the context of the second year Bachelor’s course
Brain & Behaviour (722 students enrolled).
2. Design
The reactionlectures were done in the second, fourth, and sixth lecture of the course, with regular
lectures in between, in order to make a comparison. These lectures were provided by the same
lecturer. Student responses during the reactionlecture were voluntary and anonymous.
The reactionlecture differed from the regular lecture as students could give reactions to the lecturer,
using the Shakespeak software. In the beginning of each lecture, explanation was given about the
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