Engaging Students in Large Section Statistics Classes

• Activity Number: 293
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Lawrence Fulton*+ and Lana Ivanitskaya and Dmitry Erefeev
• Companies: and Central Michigan University and Central Michigan University
• Keywords: Audience Response System ; Hybrid Instruction ; Social Media ; Student Response System ; Business Statistics ; Large Classes

Abstract

A large group of business students (N=199) is currently participating in an innovative statistics course. Because of the class size and educator desire for engagement, classroom instruction leverages the use of a cellular-based Audience Response System (PollEverywhere), an interactive education system (Hawkes Learning System), and social media (Facebook). PollEverywhere allows educators and students to gather real-time, relevant data through cell phones or Internet access and immediately conduct analysis on that data. Hawkes provides a certification component correlated with improved student outcomes. Facebook facilitates communication among all individuals and supports embedded PollEverywhere polls. In a previous large class (N=307), students' comments revealed support for the use of PollEverywhere (84% considered it "valuable"), and a vast majority (88%) reported that Hawkes Learning System facilitated learning. The course innovations represent action research intended to achieve broad student engagement, and results from the current class will be compared with the previous one.