Higher Education Case Study

Leeward Community College, Educational Media Center

BACKGROUND

The University of Hawaii–Leeward Community College's Educational Media Center (EMC) supports teaching and learning through the integration and use of technology. Its strategic objective is to encourage the application of technology and enhance the quality of instruction and services delivered to students both on and off campus. Leanne Chun serves as both the EMC Coordinator and the Educational Technology Developer at Leeward Community College. As the EMC Coordinator, she oversees the operations, personnel, budgets and programs of the department. In her role as the Educational Technology Developer she provides direct support to faculty and staff in the use of technology through workshops, material development, mentoring and consultations. Leanne spoke at the 5th Annual WebCT Conference on "Instructional Support on a Limited Budget" in 2003. Her education includes a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a Masters in Education Technology from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

THE CHALLENGE

"Initially, when we bought this technology we were interested in increasing student interaction in our classes," Leanne stated. Large-group lectures are typically a one-way method of teaching that tends to be unaccompanied by dialogue, questions or practice for students. These students eventually start to lack concentration after long lectures and are less likely to recall as many facts. Leanne was in search of tools that would not only promote active learning and discussion in the classroom but also have the ability to enhance student retention of information.

THE SOLUTION

At the 2003 EDUCAUSE Conference and Expo Leanne and her supervisor, Mike Pesok, Dean of Academic Services, had the opportunity to see a variety of wireless audience response system exhibits. After attending a TurningPoint demonstration at the Turning Technologies, LLC booth and receiving more information on this wireless audience response system, Leanne felt she'd found the best solution for Leeward Community College. The ability to ask questions, gather responses, and immediately assess student comprehension using TurningPoint could solve their challenges and increase student interaction in the classroom.

Leanne initially purchased TurningPoint with a 32-ResponseCard® system and soon added two additional systems. The EMC currently has three TurningPoint 32-ResponseCard systems, which instructors signout for use in their lectures. Using a wireless audience response system helps instructors increase the effectiveness of both learning and retention during lectures. In addition, interactive PowerPoint® presentations result in greater student satisfaction. Students embrace the polling and immediate results available through TurningPoint and wireless ResponseCards. Turning Technologies' audience response system increased the classroom dialogue and interaction at Leeward Community College to nearly 100 percent involvement, successfully enhancing the worth and development of each class.

TurningPoint seamlessly integrates into Microsoft® Office products, nearly eliminating the learning curve for users already knowledgeable in PowerPoint®, Excel and Word. TurningPoint software installs as a toolbar within PowerPoint. This integration allowed Leanne to create interactive PowerPoint presentations quickly and easily and for her to assist other professors in their use of TurningPoint.

Leeward Community College has incorporated Turning Technologies' wireless audience response system in many ways with a variety of students. Leanne uses TurningPoint for student icebreakers and for chapter reviews in her computer science classes. Other instructors use the audience response systems for student polling and chapter reviews in classes such as biology, business and computer science. The students using the ResponseCard keypads range dramatically from "traditional freshmen and sophomores (18 – 20 year-olds) to graduate level (20 – 50 year-olds) and even community members (up to 80 year-olds)."

Students enjoy using the ResponseCards. When Leanne asked if students would like to use TurningPoint again, they "were 100% in agreement that they would like to have more exercises with keypads." Unlike many types of computer hardware, students have not had any trouble operating the ResponseCard keypads. Class participation continues to rise and all of Leanne's students pay more attention with the wireless audience response systems. "It was obvious that class participation went up and everyone was paying attention," she said.

Leanne believes that regardless of the setting, even in classes where she is the student, TurningPoint engages everyone. "I just used it for a grad school class I am taking, and they absolutely loved the keypads. It made my presentation less boring!"

Leanne and other professors plan to continue using TurningPoint software and the wireless response pads. She is currently scheduling numerous TurningPoint workshops for Leeward Community College professors and staff to assist the faculty with integrating the system into their classes.

THE RESULTS

TurningPoint and the ResponseCard keypads have transformed classroom lectures at Leeward Community College into interactive learning sessions. Both passive and active learners now have the ability to be more involved in the learning process of a traditional lecture.

In addition, Leanne recently stated that "several of our instructors are currently using it for course assessment, required as part of the accreditation process by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges. The Computer Science department has been the first to use TurningPoint to gather data for accreditation. I expect many other departments will soon follow because this system allows anonymous capturing of data in a short amount of time (one class period). The data can be captured in Excel and massaged into a format for accreditation. TurningPoint is a great tool for measuring student learning at LCC."