| Abstract: | This paper discusses a teaching methodology to improve the retention of lecture material through peer collaboration among students. The methods introduced also help measure a student's comprehension of class material. In addition, the techniques allow the instructor to obtain continuous feedback on areas that students have difficulty grasping. The instructor can also observe students interpretation of concepts and their written communication skills. The entire process was conducted through the Internet using Athenium's TEAMThink® software. The TEAMThink® software is a professional product developed by Athenium and was developed primarily as a training tool for corporations. This is the first time an educational institution has used it as part of the curriculum. The experiences presented here were conducted on an Operating Systems course at Tufts University's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science consisting of 36 seniors and 4 graduate students and a second year Introduction to Digital Logic Circuits course consisting of 100 undergraduate students. The TEAMThink® learning process features a quiz making and quiz taking game, where students collaborate in teams to create multiple‐choice quiz questions which challenge the learning of other students. The experiences reported in this paper discuss the benefits of this approach from the student and the instructor perspectives. The unexpected outcomes such as the feedback provided to the developers of the TEAMThink® software are also discussed . |
