BACKGROUND

John Fallon has been the Choral Director at Walhalla High School in Walhalla, South Carolina for the past 27 years. During that time, he has also taught Band, Theatre, Broadcast Journalism and Public Speaking. John has numerous software certifications, professional memberships and has participated in many additional professional activities. His educational includes a BA in Music Education from Long Island University, a Masters in Educational Administration and Supervision from Clemson University and a Masters of Choral Arts from Western Carolina University.

John is an avid PowerPoint® user. He incorporates PowerPoint as a classroom instructional tool in both his Music Theory and Music History classes. He has also assisted in designing various PowerPoint presentations for the school and the Oconee County School District. John has over 10 years of PowerPoint experience and continues to expand his knowledge of the software. He applies these news skills into his music classes by combining music study with cutting edge technology.

THE CHALLENGE

John wanted to be able to receive answers to questions he posed during music classes, but he also needed a non-threatening environment that would encourage student response. John thought, “Students would be more at ease responding with some anonymity.” He realized that in this age of interactivity, incorporating a remote keypad response system would help keep students focused on his presentation and the delivery of class material.

THE SOLUTION

When John attended the Presentations Conference and Expo in Atlanta, Georgia in both 2003 and 2004, he discovered the hardware and software options from Turning Technologies, LLC. To learn more, he spoke with a Turning staff member and participated in a TurningPoint demonstration. He received additional information about Turning’s remote keypad response system and TurningPoint to review after the expo. “From that point, I knew that I could incorporate TurningPoint into instructional design since it’s an add-on for PowerPoint,” John stated. TurningPoint seamlessly integrates into Microsoft® Office products, eliminating any learning curve. Since John was an experienced PowerPoint, Excel and Word user, he was able to create interactive PowerPoint presentations quickly and easily for his classroom lectures.

The first semester John implemented his 32-seat student response system using IR ResponseCards® in his classroom he realized the power of TurningPoint. In his music theory classes, he was able to receive quick assessments of the students’ understanding his presented material. During a lecture if the results showed low scores on initial assessment, John was able to re-teach the content or overcome the learning difficulty. Using this instructional approach his students were soon on the right track to success. In addition, John’s expectation that TurningPoint would elicit more truthful responses from students was correct. The Turning Technologies’ student response system allowed students to respond without any perceived peer pressure.

One example of John’s application of TurningPoint is testing students’ knowledge of prior class material. When teaching key signatures, John wanted to assess whether students were able to determine the correct keys. Using a TurningPoint slide, John presented the class images of various key signatures. His students demonstrated competency rate of 85% accurate when given a 5 second time limit to name the correct key using a ResponseCard keypad.

John’s students loved working with the TurningPoint student response system. “I was able to keep classroom engagement high due to the interactivity,” he stated. Student became excited when they saw John take out the keypads, and the class had a more positive attitude concerning the learning material. For John, TurningPoint made his presentations and lectures a lot easier and a lot more interesting; not just for the students but for himself as well. “To me, it’s exciting to do something different. After 27 years in the classroom and teaching the same basic information, it’s great to employ a different method for delivery. By using technology, it only sweetens the end result.”

CONCLUSION

Using the TurningPoint remote keypad response system in the Choral classes at Walhalla High School has improved classroom performance in a number of areas. John has turned his music classes into true interactive learning environments. Students are more intrigued by the lectures and want to use the remote keypad response system when learning. The quick assessment of student comprehension has helped John better instruct his classes when he knows what information the students do and don’t understand. Also, the amount of time required for John to teach and assess his classes were significantly less when he used the remote keypad response system versus traditional lecture methods.