Assignment 4 - Lecture Experience

For the fourth assignment, we were asked to investigate some possible ways as to improve the learning experience in Lecture Theatres (LTs). In order to accomplish this, Jeremy and I used these nifty methods:

• Ethnography - sneaking into the crowd and observing silently


• Laddering - repeated questioning to find out the most important factor

• Survey - general polling and simple questions

We based our study from foundations taken from the study of student Learning Styles, which is defined as “the way each learner begins to concentrate, process, and retain new and difficult information.” The existence of learning styles means that there are different learning preferences between different people, and that justify this study, as we embark to find some conditions in which most people would prefer, or not-prefer rather, in light of the laddering technique; but either way, by examining these preferences we would be able to do a survey study and then suggest improvements.

We based the possible factors of learning on the Dunn & Dunn Learning Style model, which sums up an individual's learning style based on a combination of affective, cognitive, environmental and physiological factors. The factors in the learning style model are as follows:


With these factors in mind, we seek to investigate the possible reasons that account for the different students behaviour and experience in different lecture theatres. In the end, we decided to short-list two factors: 1) Seats (Technological) 2) Time of day (Cultural)

For Seats, we surveyed different LTs with different type of seats. It was observed that most of the LTs house seats with foldable tables. Survey and laddering shows that the seats with foldable tables are too cramp and not user friendly.

We also did a survey (20 students and 5 questions) and concluded that:

• Most students hate the seats with foldable tables
  
• They prefer to have a more comfortable seat with a bigger table space
• Students feel that the chairs might be too close to each other
  

Thus we suggest that

• Cushion the seats to ensure comfort
  
• Increase the seats spacing so that students would not feel cramped together.
  
• Instead of foldable tables, install tables in front of the chairs.
  

For Time of Day , we attended different lecture slots at different times of the day, to gauge the behaviour of students, and it was discovered that in 8am lectures, students are either late, sleeping, or not even present in the first place, as reflected by the poor attendance. This observation is reflected and supported in Andre's and Chee Kit's group as well, in which they plotted a chart to trace the rate at which the students entered the LT during an 8am lecture. The laddering process revealed this:

We also did a survey (30 students and 5 questions) and concluded that:

• Most students don’t like lectures that are too early (before 10am) or too late (after 6pm).
• Students dislike early lectures more than late lectures.
• Most students admit to being unproductive /falling asleep during 8am lectures.
• Most students are occasionally late for morning lectures.
• Students are more likely to skip lectures that are too early or too late.
• Students claim to be productive in lectures that fall between 10am – 4pm.
  

Thus, in light of morning lectures, here is what we suggest:

• ABOLISH 8am lectures (lessons) and after 6pm lectures. (As if that would be possible).
• Try to schedule lectures between 10am-4pm.
• Schedule tutorials at “unwanted” timings instead of lectures.
• Lecturers can start a bit later for morning lectures, to accommodate to late-comers.
• Give breaks during lectures (for better student concentration, studies have shown this).
• TRY to keep content and delivery interesting.

In conclusion, learning preferences are very subjective to the individual and there might not be a conclusive set of factors affecting learning experience in LTs, since everyone has different personalities and different style of learning. Overall, it is quite hard to pinpoint one particular factor as being the cause for a bad learning experience in LTs since numerous factors are at play at once. The 2 factors that we highlight (seats and time of the day) might not be the only reasons affecting learning experience although our studies show that majority of the students are affected by them. So, the bottomline is, more in-depth study would probably be needed if we were to study any of the factors of improving learning experiences.