The Study
To improve learning experiences in LTs, our group (me, Jialin, Junhao) decided to find out what exactly needs improving for learning experiences. Thus we decided to use the observational method and chose to crash a friend's lecture. We choose only one lecture because as students ourselves, and having attended so many lectures before, we have a rough idea of how learning experiences in LTs is like. The one lecture crashed is to increase our insights from an observer point of view rather than as students. We didn't want to observe students from our own classes as we thought we might have more insights simply concentrating on observing students from other lectures, rather than have to split our concentration observing and trying to pay attention. Being students ourselves, we are able to merge into the crowd easily and using the technologies of a webcam and laptop, we are able to do a non-invasive study.
The Lecture
CS3253 Management of IS lecture in LT34 at Monday morning 10am to 12nn was the lecture we crashed.
Right from the start of the lecture, the students were restless. With technical glitches to start off the lecture, it seem like a bad omen. Well maybe it was not due to the technical glitches, maybe its just the lecturer. Could she be more interesting? I hear noises - doors are slamming with students coming in 30 minutes late, students talking about the latest gossips, the rustling of plastic bags. I see distractions - handphones and laptops. Ooh look at the whole lecture. So many students are falling asleep! 1..2..3...6..7... Hmm what are those words on the lecture slides? Look so small and there are so many words! Silence. Nobody is answering her question. Ah when is the break going to come? This lecture is getting way too long!
The observations
Disturbances
- Students talking at the back [What are they gossiping about? Let's hear it!]
- Students sms-ing [Even in silent mode I can also hear the soft tapping of keyboard, better check my handphone if there is any sms too.]
- Students still streaming in 30 minutes into the lecture [The door slams again, the guy is sure taking his own sweet time to sit and settle down, moving persons is more interesting than the lecture.. ]
- Students eating in lectures – rustling of plastic wrapper [What is he eating? I feel hungry too!]
- Students doing other things on their laptops [Let's see what are they doing on the laptop!]
People falling asleep
- Limited attention span [How long more before the break?]
- Too early in the morning [Yawns.. I need more sleep]
Technical glitches (Interrupted flow of lecture)
- Projector turning on and off [The entertainment factor out of this was that when the technician came in, the projector behaved well and stopped turning off by itself]
Monotonous lecturer
- Drones on and on [ZzzzZzz..]
- Little interaction with the students [When she tried, she failed quite miserably. It is hard to get students to participate in such a large LT.]
Lecture was not engaging
- Too many points on one slide [The word so tiny, what if I did not have lecture notes?!]
- Not much pictures used [All words! Groans!]
Non-participative students
- No response from the floor when a question is posed from the lecturer [Sometimes it feels like the lecturer is only entertaining herself]
The suggestions
Give a break near the one hour mark
- A limit to the attention span of the students.
Engage with the students in meaningful discussions
- Instead of just throwing a question to them.
Give out small goodies to those who answer the questions
- Encourage participation
Slides and presentation design
- Less points on one slide
- More pictures instead of all words
- Use of multimedia teaching material
Leave blanks in lecture handouts
- So that students have to pay attention to take notes.
Other Presentations
I think most students in the class would have the most impression on the group which did the Feng Shui study, an alternate and rather amusing point of view on this topic. I wonder how true really is 8am, the so called hour of the Rat, the most conducive time for study. Of course, with regards to Feng Shui, my belief is to rather believe that it might be true than to believe that it is not true.
Most groups did the observational and interview methods for this topic. The laddering concept was used in most interviews. The other groups chose to use more than one lectures to observe in, a point different from our group.
The Review
After seeing the other students presentations, I find that there are some things our group could learn from. We did a rather narrow study using only one observation, thus we might not have reached the scope for improving learning experiences in LTs in general. Also, since we did only one observation, we cannot do a effective comparison of how learning experiences differ with regards to elements such as time, size of class, types of table and chairs used and environmental factors like air-con temperature. Of course we have our own experiences to compare from, but that is not really conclusive as really observing all types of LTs environment.
The Conclusion
Many factors affect the learning experiences in LTs, from the environment right down to the size of tables, we see that even minute things affect the quality of learning. Also different students have different perspective of how the learning experiences can be best in LTs. Thus, it is hard to find the best solution to the topic. The very most we can do is the change some of the things which affect most students like types of tables and chairs, but it is hard to do so for certain elements like time as time is limited. Also, there will be budget constraints.
Our group believe that as long as a student is willing to study, he will pay attention no matter what and is oblivious to all external factors. Of course that is not to say that learning experiences cannot be improved, but the most important thing to learning is to have the heart and mind to study.
