How the IRS system works?

IRS consists of two parts: hardware and software. The hardware part mainly includes a set of student keypads/clickers and a signal receiver, and is paired with the existing computers and large displays in the classroom (a projector, interactive whiteboard, or touchscreen). The software part is HiTeach 5. Teachers can ask questions at any time and guide students to press the button of the keypads/clickers to choose an answer. The system can collect all students' answers simultaneously and present the answer results in a visual chart or display all the answers at the same time.
   

  Why do I need to build an IRS Smarter Classroom?

Can implementing the IRS system enhance the effectiveness of learning? Just look at the progress of students' grades! 

According to many international research papers and reports on teaching achievements, it is proved that IRS can significantly improve students' learning achievement! For example, West Virginia University's report on the use of the IRS system in classrooms. In addition, with the trend of global competency-oriented teaching, teacher-student interaction mechanisms, students' instant feedback data, and expressions and sharing are all important aspects. If students have the simplest IRS devices in their hands, then competency-oriented classrooms will be a common sight on campus.
 

  Simple ⦁ Durable ⦁ Effective

The IRS Smarter Classroom allows students to use keypads/clickers to interact and give feedback, which can save the investment of tablets, laptops, etc. on the student side! In addition, the design of the remote control is sturdy and durable, so there is no need to worry about students' damage, and the function is simple. The new version of IRS, RF-09A, added an LCD panel display, allowing students to see their answering situation while using it, and it also added the function of answering multiple answers questions. It is more intuitive and easier to use.    

  Synchronous Interaction (Synchronized Activity):

Students are focused and teachers track learning status precisely

Can you believe it? You can ask student questions in class at any time without preparation in advance, and keep track of student learning status and statistics in real-time! With the new synchronous interaction features of HiTeach 5, you can perform synchronous feedback, real-time statistics, data utilization, and other high-performance synchronous interaction modes anytime to fully track the learning status of each student.

The synchronous interaction function of HiTeach 5 includes single answer question, multiple answers question, true-false question, and Buzz-in. These are the teaching questioning strategies that teachers are familiar with in the classroom. By pressing the function button, students can answer with IRS, and HiTeach will automatically collect data from the entire class. When the teachers press the statistic buttons, various feedback data and charts are presented, which can then be used for further discussion or follow-up questions.

1. Single Answer Question

2. Multiple Answers Question

3. True-False Question

4. Buzz-in Interaction

 

  Synchronous Test (Synchronized Assessment):

Effective analysis ⦁ Double the effect

Tests are great ways to summarize the learning results and to know the strengths and weaknesses. Before, paper tests are used mainly, but the process was complicated and time-consuming. Now, after teachers design test questions on IES Cloud, they can use them with HiTeach's SelfPace Test mode function, and students can answer through IRS. After the test, visual grade results will be displayed immediately, allowing teachers to do interactive reviews in real-time. Also, these data will be simultaneously uploaded to the cloud, which is extremely helpful for teachers to track student learning situations and for students to do remedial learning on their own.

Synchronous testing and quick automatic correction

When starting SelfPace Test mode, teachers will select an exam file and the whole class can answer the questions synchronously, or each student can be given a paper copy of the test papers and control their own answering progress. During the process of answering, the progress of each student's answer will be displayed on the HiTeach. When the teacher ends the test, HiTeach will automatically correct and calculate the score of each question (including single answer, multiple answers, and true-false questions) and the total scores, and immediately display the correct rate of each question, the student total score, the grade analysis graph, and the test data for each question required for interactive review.

Interactive Review: Enhanced absorption

After the test is finished, the test results are immediately displayed, including the correct percentage, distribution charts, and score tables, as well as an interactive page for each question, which includes the test question, answering data, pie charts, and bar charts. Teachers can browse through the statistics and test difficulty to select the questions needed to be reviewed and do interactive review by using functions like SMART Pick-out, Flip Cards, or do differentiated teaching by sending different materials to students based on their learning status. This is a very efficient way to review tests.

Learning status analysis ⦁ Teaching students according to their aptitude

HiTeach will automatically upload all test data to the Team Model Cloud after the tests are completed, and the assessment data support the PLAYTOL Dynamic Assessment Analytics (an optional feature of the Team Model Cloud), allowing teachers to access test question analysis, score analysis, diagnostic analysis, and remediation planning. Teachers can fully grasp the data and charts that are useful for understanding learning status analysis by each subject, all subjects, school year, and each test.

For more teaching features please refer to HiTeach 5 (pro. authorization)

The overall benefits of IRS Smarter Classroom

Research on the application of the IRS system in classrooms has found that it helps students stay focused and motivate active learning. Many studies have shown that in classroom teaching activities, IRS has extremely positive help and effectiveness for teacher teaching and student learning.

The main effects on students are as follows:

1. Promote students' motivation to actively participate: Provide immediate graphical feedback to enable students to respond to problems and further strengthen students' motivation to actively participate in discussions.
2. Encourage students to focus and devote themselves to the learning content: Students must choose an answer to the teacher's questions, prompting students to think about the problem.
3. Assist students with deeper conceptual understanding: Students must further explain the reason behind their answer, so this can encourage students to explore their inner thinking.

For teachers, it helps mainly in the following ways:

1. Assist teachers in diagnosing learning status and provide decision-making references: The system can collect students' answers and assist teachers in finding students' learning problems from the answers immediately. It fully assists teachers in assessing the situation, effectively clarifies misconceptions, and inspires follow-up discussions
2. Improve the interaction mode between teachers and students: Assist teachers in effectively mastering the fairness in interaction, so that all students have equal opportunities for learning and expression.
3. Improve the fluency of teaching: The system encourages students to focus on the key points of learning, saving teaching time, and making classroom context interesting without losing control.
4. Convenient for teachers to use: The system is simple to operate, so that teachers can focus on teaching, and teaching thoughts are not easily interfered by technological tools.

Students think fully and grades improve by 5-10 points

West Virginia University in the United States used IRS to conduct a two-year teaching research in the courses of the medical school, and found that IRS can significantly improve students' academic performance (about an average improvement of 5-10 points). An experimental study on elementary science teaching at the National Central University in Taiwan also showed that the average performance of students in the IRS class was also better than that of the control group (about 7 points). It was also found that the standard deviation of the experimental group’s performance was significantly smaller than that of the control group’s students. (It means that there are more students in the control group with low learning effectiveness).

Successful Case

Where can I refer to actual teaching cases?

Purchase & Set Up Information Procurement Scenario Description:
Example: To set up a class with 30 students and each student has an IRS response device (model RF-09A) that can interact with HiTeach, you need to purchase 1 set of HiTeach 5 professional version authorization and a set of 30 IRS keypads/clickers (including connection authorization with HiTeach).

**Based on the authorized student connection number, HiTeach serial number license or account license will be provided (please refer to: The difference between HiTeach 5 serial number license and account license, and how to check the content of license?)

Item Name	Quantity	MSRP
Perpetual License:
IRS Smarter Classroom 30 Clients Pack	1	USD$2,614

*After purchasing, the following items can be used for more applications for free: HiTA Teacher app, IES Smarter Teaching Service (Personal), and AClass ONE Learning Companion (For IES Personal courses).
 

For Teacher	• Install on computer: HiTeach 5 (pro. authorization)    (The package comes with a free IRS dongle receiver) • Install on smartphone: HiTA 5 TEAM Model Teacher APP  • Cloud Service: IES 5 Smarter Teaching Service
For Students	• IRS Interactive Response System keypad/clicker   RF-09A (The standard purchase quantity is 20/30/40/50/60) • AClass ONE Learning Companion   (For students to use before and after class) • Do online learning, homework, assessments, surveys, and polls.
Touch Device	It is recommended to install a touch device (such as Haboard IWB (101 inches)) for teachers to operate intuitively, and use HiTeach 5's powerful IWB tools to operate/write/mark with their hands.