USE OF CONCEPTESTS AND A PERSONAL RESPONSE SYSTEM TO PROMOTE PEER INSTRUCTION DURING LECTURE

We incorporated conceptests into two traditional introductory geology classes in an attempt to promote peer instruction during lecture. Conceptests were developed as part of the peer instruction techniques used to teach physics, chemistry and astronomy. Conceptests are comprised of questions specifically designed to assess a student's understanding of the principal concepts underlying lecture material. They are multiple-choice questions that feature one correct answer and reasonable distractor answers that typically reflect student misconceptions. A well-constructed question will generate between 30 and 70 percent correct answers the first time the class is polled. Student responses to the conceptests were collected using a Personal Response System (PRS). A PRS system consists of two receivers that are connected to a computer, software that collects the data and generates a bar graph of student responses after a predetermined amount of time, and handheld transmitters that send signals to the receivers. The students also have the ability to indicate their confidence level in their answer using the transmitter.

One or two conceptests were given during lecture and anonymous responses were collected from the students using the PRS system. Approximately 30 questions were used during the course of the semester. Most questions used during the semester generated between 40 and 70 percent correct responses the first time the class was polled. The class was then instructed to discuss the question with nearby students for several minutes after which the class was polled a second time. In nearly every case the number of students answering the question correctly increased with the second polling of the class. We believe that peer instruction took place during the classroom discussions resulting in more students understanding the underlying concepts needed to correctly answer the question. As measured by comments on student evaluations, approximately 90 percent of the students thought that conceptests were useful as a tool to review main concepts covered during lecture. A similar percentage of students liked the immediate feedback from the Personal Response System.