An Evaluation of UniDoodle – A Highly Effective Student Response System for the STEM Disciplines

Existing student response systems, such as Clickers, have limited input capabilities and lack the necessary features to gather the insightful and necessary information that is relevant in STEM-based disciplines, where the methodology is often more important than the final answer itself. Here, we propose the use of a new student response system, called UniDoodle, which uses tablets and smartphones to deliver a system that captures an extensive range of information in the form of sketches and annotations. Thus, information relating to equation solving, graph sketching, and diagram annotations can now be obtained in large classes in a quick, convenient and user-friendly manner. This information is obtained in real-time allowing for teachers to respond immediately to any issues that may arise in their students’ understanding of material. In this paper, we summarise the key features of the UniDoodle system and we carry out an extensive evaluation of its use in a live classroom environment. The context of the evaluation and the feedback obtained are presented within.