Improving Learning Environment in LTs... the NIGHTMARE ASSIGNMENT

I was warned beforehand that this would be a nightmare assignment (damn right it is). but get this - the nightmare didn't come so much from the actual assignment, but from DOCUMENTING AND BLOGGING (which is this part of the whole thing).

So if you're wondering how my group did it, we used a mixture of 2 methods: laddering and enthographics (through observation and interviews).

if you want to see the laddering technique in action for my group's assignment, click here.

To put it simply, what happened is we went to go and observe what happened in lectures and what conditions there were like (seems rather simple, no?). We then took down our observations and put them in a cross-comparison table just to see how they would rate against one another in terms of the various aspects.

So here's some details about the modules we used in this assignment:

NM2219 Principles of Communication Management Wednesday 10am-12pm


NM3217 Publications, Graphics & Design Tuesday 12pm-2pm

SS2229 Nation Building in Singapore Monday 12pm-2pm

GEM2003/EU2219/HY2241 Why History? The Turbulent 20th Friday 4pm-6pm

LSM1301 General Biology Friday 2pm-4pm

CS3242S Hypermedia Technologies Thursday 8am-10am

So here's some of the cross- reference data from our slides:







The next thing was the interviews (because you need something to confirm your data against after all). Interestingly enough they brought up some issues that we might not have considered before (as well as providing greater detail and explanation for others).

So since this is about improving lecture styles (and its being improved for student's benefit) then it's important to find out what the students want, because that would make lectures more appealing to them (on top of that it would probably let us draw conclusions about the way they think. and when we know the way they think, maybe we can cater to them better).

Some hypotheses (resulting from information collection):

Handouts are very important to students, students want handouts that are handed out early and well presented/logical (easily digestible); -- Students are pragmatic

Lecturers who do not follow power-slides/handouts closely in their lectures, are less popular -- Students have rigid learning styles

Student goal in going to lectures revolve around exam specific issues (perceive note-taking as key to exam success); lectures where lecturers drop hints about exams tend to be more popular – Students are goal-oriented

Other suggestions / conclusions

Well obviously my group would only approach this situation from our own point of view. and its very obvious that others, though generally having the same point of view, may have alternative and addition viewpoints which could help us get a better understanding (in short: check out their blogs).

I have to agree with most of them - except the one about feng shui (sorry Chung Hau). Though most of us perhaps got around the same kind of responses (or the general feel of the situation), on our own perhaps we need to gather more data, if only for the fact that small sample sizes are rarely representative of the entire population.

I guess while we can rant and make suggestions about how to make LTs better, there're definitely limitations (some of which are beyond our control, others within our control but we refuse to follow through for various reasons - like... who wants to pay more school fees? surely not EVERYBODY... even if it means LT upgrading).

So maybe the disclaimer right at the start of the assignment was right - don't expect to be able to change things.