A multidisciplinary application of handheld computers to enhance student learning
Supported by UNCW, Pearson Education, and HyperCube
The problem of how to engage students in a large classroom setting has been a challenge to educators for many years. Project Numina was originally developed at UNCW to address this problem by using handheld computers and allowing students to respond to instructor questions anonymously.
A web-based student response system has been developed at UNCW that provides large classes with the ability to interact with the instructor using a variety of different interfaces. With wireless internet access, students interact with each other and the instructor without being anchored to a network port. This system radically alters the way students interact with instructors in different classroom settings across different disciplines.
Multimedia has been used in science and math lectures and labs 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 is used to teach concepts are rarely used to test those concepts. In large classrooms, typically several hundred students, computers are rarely available for student use. Project Numina is a multidisciplinary effort to address these problems.
