| The problem of how
to engage students in large classroom settings has been a
challenge to educators for many years. Integrating multimedia
in science and math lectures and labs to assist with student
engagement has been a typical practice at UNCW for nearly 10
years. However, most applications of media in large classrooms
result in the students' role becoming more passive. In
addition, the media that are used to teach concepts are rarely
used to test the concepts due to the lack of computers
available to students during large, typically hundreds of
students, lecture sessions. The Numina project is a
multidisciplinary effort to address these issues. |
Numina was conceived and developed
at UNCW by a multidisciplinary team to address the
pedagogical issues mentioned above. Students are able to
respond to instructor questions anonymously through the use
of wireless technology and the SWATT system (now
referred to as SRS). The
web-based Student Response System (SRS)
provides classes and labs with the ability to interact with
the instructor using a variety of different interfaces. |
|
Back (L-R): Dick Ward, Russ
Herman, Ron Vetter.
Front (L-R): Barbara Heath, Jimmy Reeves, Gabriel Lugo.
|
Numina continues to develop and is now in its second phase,
Numina II. The hardware used for the system has migrated to
PocketPCs, although the system continues to be successfully
used with both desktop and handheld computers.
The current research team continues to work with
undergraduate programmers on the development of software
applications for use with the SRS system. Current avenues of
development include using Flash as a means for collecting
student responses. The team also works with graduate teaching
assistants to collect classroom application data which drives
the educational research portion of the project. |
Initial
financial support for the project was provided by UNCW,
Pearson Education, and HyperCube. Funding for Numina II was
provided through a UNCW technology grant. Future funding is
pending. |
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