This semester I have been using the Interwrite Personal Response System (see http://www.interwritelearning.com/products/prs/radio/detail.html) in the classroom. Instructor using this system prepares questions that will be shown to the students on a video projector screen in the classroom. The questions are multiple choice, and students answer by clickers.

I prepare the questions using PowerPoint. Unfortunately the system does not yet support PowerPoint 2008 for Mac. So I must use an older version. In the class room students know that, in the end of the class, a quiz is coming. That motivates them to focus to what I am saying.

After each question, the system shows the answer distribution, and also the correct answer. The instructor can override this and choose not to show this information. I find the feedback very useful, and I am showing that to the students.

This has the following consequences:

Individual students see that they were not the only ones not to understand the matter. This may encourage them to ask more questions in the classroom.
The instructor gets immediate feedback, and will adjust his or her teaching accordingly.

Yesterday I run a quiz on improper integrals. The feedback that I got was that students had hard time understanding the role of a parameter in an improper integral. I will have to review these topics again when the class meets the next time.

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