Learning Experience

Saturday, March 15, 2008 3:39

For this assignment, my partner (Jianda) and me had to find out some problems that affected the learning experience of students in the lecture theatres of NUS, and suggest ideas for improvement.

We relied on an ethnographic study – observing the activities of students in LT23, as well as laddering – interviewing of 15 students from Business, Arts, Science and Computing.

Ethnographic Study

Sample observation
7.50am – Lecturer arrives. Less than half the LT23 is full.
8.10am – Lecturer decides to wait for another 5 minutes before starting the lecture.
8.15am – Lecturer go ahead to start the lecture with the LT slightly more than half filled.
8.30am – Students start wearing jackets and windbreakers. As late comers arrive, students started looking at them as they come in groups of 3-5.
8.35am – LT23 is almost full as most students arrived.
8.40am – Some students started to slough their back against the seats

Lecture Theatre 23

From the ethnographic study, we observed that:

• Class started very late and ended late
• Temperature was too cold
• Chairs in this LT were uncomfortable
• LT started to smell of food after the break
• A lot of noise created as many students left early

Laddering

For laddering, we started off with the basic question of “Do you like the learning experience in LTs?”

Sample interview
M: Do you like the learning experience in LTs?
S: Yes.
M: How so?
S: I like the mobile, roller chairs in LT31.

Lecture Theatre 31

M: What do you like about them?
S: There is a lot of leg room.
M: Why is leg room important to you?
S: It gives me a sense of freedom and easy movement.
M: Why is the sense of freedom useful to your learning experience?
S: It makes the environment enjoyable, so that I can concentrate on learning and not on discomfort.

Finding-> Comfort aids in concentration during lecture.

Roller chair in LT31

From laddering, we found out that:

• Temperature of LT affects concentration
• Tables are not typically designed for left-handers
• Big lectures are too distracting
• Relevance of module to real-life aids in comprehension
• Shorter lecture hours aid in concentration
• Laptops (and therefore power points) aid comprehension
• Creaky chairs affect concentration
• Intrusive tables affect concentration

Example of intrusive table

We thus concluded that the “learning experience” can be explained by:

• Concentration level during lectures – this can be affected by the physical and emotional condition of the student and includes things like comfort, noise, smell, etc.
• Ability to comprehend what is being taught – this depends on the cognitive aspect of learning and is mainly affected by the way the lecture is conducted and the lecturer’s style

Improvements

Therefore, to get a good “Learning Experience”, we must improve on the level of concentration and ability to comprehend in LTs.

Factors that influence learning experience:

• Environment (architecture, temperature, furniture)
• Time (duration, time of lecture)
• Other people’s interpretation (reviews)
• Conducting of Lectures (lecturer, methodology, size)

We then came up with suggestions for improvement for each factor.

Sample suggestion for Environment - Architecture

Lessons learnt:

• Ethnographic Study produced a range of observations
• Laddering produced both specific experiences in LTs as well as some very good suggestions
• It soon became apparent that many of the experiences were converging and could be categorized
• It seems that all that is needed are small tweaks
• Combination of existing elements from various LTs

Back to Homepage

Comments

Leave A Comment