Students in these days are extrinsic. In other word, students are seeking their grades or marks only. Achieving a good academic performance is more likely associated with intrinsic learning (seeking intellectual stimulation from their studies). Thus, how to guide students to be intrinsic is key issue to have a better academic performance.
Student’ motivation is one of the key elements to have intrinsic motivation (Farmer and Eastcott, 1995). The strategy to develop a good motivation is following. First, lecturer needs to discuss with students about learning nature of the subject and assessment criteria clearly. Second, it needs to encourage student through learning activities and provide an appropriate feedback. Finally, it should be group work that encourages to help each other.
More important part is the attitude of lecturer. Lecturer should treat students as individuals, allowing individuality, originality and creativity, providing opportunity for self and linking to the personal development.
Thus, these strategies will increase level of students’ self-esteem. High self-esteem increases the intrinsic motivation (Murphy and Roopchand, 2003).
Based on these, I create following framework:
Students’ academic performance can be enhanced with high level of self-esteem. Level of self-esteem is determined by the assessment setting and valuable feedback. For assessment, validity needs to have clear purpose of setting and outline. Reliability should clearly define learning outcomes and tasks and consistent marking criteria. For valuable feedback, it must be delivered timely, paying attention to future assessment task. High level of self-esteem encourages students to have intrinsic motivation to learn that leads high academic performance.
Famer, B. & Eastcott, D. (1995) Making assessment a positive experience, in: P. Knight, (Ed.) Assessment for learning in higher education. London: Kogan Page.
Murphy, H. and Roopchand, N. (2003) Intrinsic motivation and self-esteem in traditional and mature students at a post-1992 University in the Northeast of England. Educational Studies, 29(2-3) 243-259.
Sungkyu Lim
Open-space learning (OSL) is a pedagogy model that emphasises the interplay between space and performance. It has been argued that OSL could transform the learning condition within the Higher Education by creating a learning environment that encourages the students to take on a lead role, promotes creative thinking and harnesses peer bonding within the learning practices (Monk et al, 2011). Research has shown that OSL model is effective in building students’ confidence as they take their own responsibility towards their learning as well as enhancing students’ ability to work in teams (Monk et al, 2011).
As part of my teaching observation, I was given the opportunity to observe two OSL seminars for undergraduate students in a Digital Marketing module. It was the first time that the students were exposed to this pedagogical approach. The idea of this unusual seminar formulation is to develop an intervention that is both fun and insightful. The students were not given any pre-session tasks and were only given an instruction when they arrive. In the sessions that I observed, the students were given a range of cut-out images taken from various social media platforms that have been trending over the year. The students were asked to put together a series of images to create a narrative.
From the two observations, I noticed the importance of physical space in OSL. In the session where the venue was set up in a conventional classroom format, the OSL seminar was not as dynamic, energetic and creative compared to the session where the venue was flexibly furnished. This shows that OSL seminars may be more suited in open spaces that permit a learning condition that is also social, such as the library (Crook and Mitchell, 2012). Since OSL is a pedagogy that is student-driven, it allows those who are quiet in the lecture to speak up and contribute their thoughts to the session (Monk et al, 2011). OSL seems highly relevant for Management studies especially in Digital Marketing module. As I have observed, OSL facilitates a dynamic seminar that fosters creative thinking, active listening, visual analysis and storytelling.
References:
Crook, C. and Mitchell, G., 2012. Ambience in social learning: Student engagement with new designs for learning spaces. Cambridge Journal of Education, 42(2), pp.121-139.
Monk, N., Rutter, C.C., Neelands, J. and Heron, J., 2011. Open-space learning: A study in transdisciplinary pedagogy. A&C Black.
Prepared by
Amalina Zakariah, May 2018
Problem Solving method is a widely-recognised tool for learning, and due to its ability to encourage creativity and logical reasoning, it is recommended by leading educators for use in classroom teaching (Funkhouse and Dennis, 1992). I have been research methods course to postgraduate students using this technique in some of my lectures. After going through the literature concerning the topic of study in the class, for instance qualitative tools of data collection, I gave them a problem/ case to solve using their own design of inquiry. This was done by dividing the group of students into smaller teams and then assigning the case questions. The group was given time to discuss, analyse and solve the case problem. I encouraged participation in the teams by continuously offering help in understanding the case. Some of the benefits that this technique had brought in my class include enhanced communication amongst the students, creative problem solving techniques by using charts, notes and other visuals, and an enhanced positivity of the overall classroom environment.
Though problem solving is widely appreciated for its use in enabling cognitive development and collaborative learning amongst students, the researchers criticise its overuse in delivering knowledge in classroom setting (Ellis, 2005; Carson, 2007; Lang and Evans, 2006). Carson (2007) asserts that problem solving method cannot be applied to the whole curriculum of teaching, and should remain limited to important problems linked to the significant course contents. It is an effective way to achieve the objective of enabling students to apply theoretical knowledge to deal with problems in a variety of ways, however content-less heuristics can lead to ineffective learning. Thus, I suggest first introducing the students with literature and knowledge relevant to area of study and then using problem solving to reinforce the concepts and encourage critical reasoning. Doing this will ensure that the knowledge base of students is developed and then the knowledge is transferred to problem solving situations, and will eliminate the issue of content-less heuristic.
Have others implemented problem solving as a teaching method? Is there any advice or comments you want to share?
References:
Funkhouser, C., & Dennis, J. (1992) ‘The effects of problem-solving software on problem-solving ability’. Journal of Research on Computing in Education, 24 (3), 338-347.
Carson, J. (2007) ‘A Problem with Problem Solving: Teaching Thinking Without Teaching Knowledge’. The Mathematics Educator, 17(2), 7–14
Ellis, A. K. (2005) Research on educational innovations. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education
Lang, H. R. and Evans, D. N. (2006) Models, strategies, and methods for effective teaching. Boston: Pearson Education
By Kuziwakwashe Zigomo
Student diversity has been one of the greatest challenges I have encountered when teaching and leading discussions in small group settings in Higher Education (HE) particularly when confronted with a diverse range of students from different cultural backgrounds. Brookfield and Preskill (1999: 101)argue that ‘race, culture, and class frame the ways in which people interpret, understand and explain others words and actions’. Many times discussion has stalled in the classroom due to a lack of rapport between my local and international students. I have often also found the international students to be quieter as they participate less in group discussions. McKee and Scandrett (2016: 132) argue that curricula and teaching across HE in all mainstream education across the UK is largely constructed from a western worldview, as such international students may withdraw their participation in the classroom due to their inability to fully relate to the course curricula and design as well as the teaching and learning approaches of their educators.
As the United Kingdom is one of the world’s most popular destinations for international students (Barker 2012: 199), I do still wonder whether we as teachers are doing enough towards embracing the diversity that our international students bring to the classroom and whether we are encouraging our other local students to do the same?
McKee and Scandrett (2016: 128) further argue that teaching in such international contexts needs to be more inclusive, as such due to the diversity of my students, I have therefore had to incorporate a more culturally-sensitive approach in my teaching in order to cater to and accommodate the needs of the diverse range of students within my classes. I have often tried to do this by making a conscious effort to include more international examples, scenarios and case studies in my explanations when teaching in order to make the course material more relatable to international students. As an international student myself, I enjoy drawing on some examples from my home country in Zimbabwe.
I also enjoy having my local and international students work together collaboratively in groups to learn from each other and glean from each other’s experiences and diverse cultural backgrounds (McKee and Scandrett 2016: 130). Such activities have been helpful in integrating my local and international students and in making my international students feel more at home in my classes.
In future I may also incorporate Brookfield and Preskill’s (1999: 104) technique of ’circle of objects’ where every student brings an artefact to class that represents some aspect of their culture and ancestry, in order to explain its meaning to the other students in the class as this could be another way of deepening students’ knowledge of one another’s backgrounds.
As recommended by Brookfield and Preskill, I have also often encouraged students not to say anything in class that may be rude or offensive to others, hence making them steer away from any potentially racist speech or comments.
References:
Barker, M. 2012. Teaching International Students. University Teaching in Focus, 199-213.
Brookfield, S and Preskill, S. 1999. Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for University Teachers. The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press: Buckingham.
McKee, S and Scandrett, M. 2016. “Embracing Student Diversity”. In Enhancing Teaching Practice in Higher Education. H. Pokorny and D. Warren (Eds.). SAGE: London.
by Anastasia Alexeeva
Collaborative learning is one of the teaching techniques that I use in my classes. At its core, collaborative learning moves away from a tutor dominated learning environment to a class that encourages students teaching one another under the guidance of a workshop leader who provides materials in an effort to facilitate exchange of ideas and knowledge (Loes et al., 2018). There are a number of ways how I encourage collaborative learning in my workshops. For example, during the seminars students work on questions and exercises as teams, where each member has individual responsibility though interdependent work with other team members. This facilitates small-group discussion, where groups usually contain 2-6 members. According to Barkley et al. (2014) this is a good group composition to maximize student interaction and involvement. Also I try to divide students into groups myself or allocate them randomly, as student-chosen teams tend to be homogenous and fail to achieve many of the goals of collaborative learning (Fiechtner and Davis, 2016). In addition, I encourage students to form study groups outside class.
Learning collaboratively has a number of benefits that I noticed in my classes. First, it encourages interaction between students, as it becomes part of the ‘requirement’ to complete a particular exercise. Also it promotes critical thinking and more positive attitude towards the material studied. Indeed, research links collaborative learning to outcomes such as better communication and teamwork (Terenzini et al., 2001), critical thinking skills (Schamber and Mahoney, 2006), student engagement (Bruffee, 2003), academic achievement (Springer, Stanne and Donovan, 1999) and better psychological adjustment (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). I also noticed that this approach to teaching is linked to more creative and novel ways of answering questions. Overall, this teaching method proved to be very fruitful and beneficial for my teaching.
Have others implemented collaborative learning in their classes? Do you want to share your experience and comments?
P.S. For those of you interested in the topic I would also recommend looking at the article by Loes et al. (2016) “Does Collaborative Learning Influence Persistence to the Second Year of College?” which I particularly liked.
References:
Barkley, E. F., Cross, K. P., & Major, C. H. (2014). Collaborative learning techniques: A handbook for college faculty. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Bruffee, K. A. (1995). Sharing our toys: Cooperative learning versus collaborative learning. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 27(1), pp.12–18.
Fiechtner, S. B., and Davis, E. A. (2016). Republication of ‘Why Some Groups Fail: A Survey of Students’ Experiences With Learning Groups.’ Journal of Management Education, 40, pp. 12– 29.
Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1989). Cooperation and competition: Theory and research. Edina, MN: Interaction Book.
Loes, C., N., Culver, K., C., and Trolian, T., L., 2018. How Collaborative Learning Enhances Students’ Openness to Diversity. The Journal of Higher Education.
Schamber, J. F., & Mahoney, S. L. (2006). Assessing and improving the quality of group critical thinking exhibited in the final projects of collaborative learning groups. Journal of General Education, 55, pp. 103–137.
Springer, L., Stanne, M. E., & Donovan, S. S. (1999). Effects of small-group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering and technology: A meta-analysis. Review of Educational Research, 69, pp. 21–52.
Terenzini, P. T., Cabrera, A. F., Colbeck, C. L., Bjorklund, S. A., & Parente, J. M. (2001). Collaborative learning vs. lecture/discussion: Students’ reported learning gains. Journal of Engineering Education, 90, pp. 123–130.
I do appreciate your implementation of collaborative learning approach. I personally think the individual responsibility of each student in the group should also be carefully defined, since it can be as important as the division of students into groups.
Jie Xiao
By: Evronia Azer
Student participation in the classroom and getting students to read the pre-sessional readings have been two challenges I have faced with undergraduate Management students. In an inSTIL session, one of the colleagues attending, a librarian herself, had us play a game about referencing, on a platform called Kahoot. I have enjoyed the experience a lot myself and thought that I want to design a classroom game using that tool to engage students more and make learning fun for them, which eventually increases their motivation for learning.
I believe that gaming activity can help increase interactivity among students, reflect on the way they work in groups, and improve their practices. The competitive nature of the activity should encourage students to do the readings, especially if they get points (or even little prizes) when they win. Research asserts the effectiveness of games in learning, such that students potentially learn more through games than other learning tools. Kahoot’s experience can also increase students’ focus and excitement in the classroom.
Management theories can be too complicated to grasp at times, therefore, using games can help students grasp complex concepts through the competition aspect. With Kahoot in specific, the platform allows the tutors to see real-time feedback, so tutors can adapt instructions based on how students are answering the quizzes. Students can participate in the platform anonymously (in surveys) or using nicknames.
For trial purposes, while writing this post I have created a demo on Kahoot for a session about “Business Canvas Model” for the course MN3925 Leadership and Innovation. The game can be played here. Students should watch a video about the Canvas Model, and then play the simple game that is meant to test their understanding of the basic key components of the Model. In the future, I plan to use Kahoot to create more complicated quizzes related to pre-sessional readings and theoretical concepts and how they map to examples from real life.
References
Coldham, S. and Armsby, P. (2016) Work-Related and Professional Learning. In: Pokorny, H. & Warren, D. (eds.) Enhancing Teaching Practice in Higher Education. London: Sage, pp.186-205.
Plump, C. M. and LaRosa, J. (2017) Using Kahoot! in the Classroom to Create Engagement and Active Learning: A Game-Based Technology Solution for eLearning Novices. Management Teaching Review, 2017, pp.1-8.
As someone who has also faced difficulties with student participation and preparation, I think the incorporation of games is an excellent potential means of tackling this issue. The following article by Bohyun Kim (2012) may be of interest 'Harnessing the power of game dynamics: Why, how and how not to gamify the library experience' - it details the advantages of gaming in a library setting and gives insights into the best means of doing so. The concept of 'levelling up' in learning particularly strikes me as a method which could effectively motivate students in their preparation and participation.
Jessica Barber
Kahoot certainly is a great way of getting students to engage with course materials and participate in class. I would imagine other additional benefits of using gaming as a teaching and learning tool. For instance, in addition to helping students embrace technology in their learning, it is fun. I can imagine students playing the game on their mobile devices, which allows them to learn in a kind of informal way! There is a substantial body of literature emphasising the pedagogical benefits (and pitfalls) of gaming in teaching and learning.
by Vera Hoelscher
I will dedicate this wiki entry to teaching practices in online environments. As an instructor for online MBA modules external to this university, I have had to navigate teaching in online-only environments. Due to the nature of cyberspace, some experiential qualities associated with teaching cannot be accessed. For instance, the instructor is very limited in using body language. Further, the instructor cannot glean visual feedback from students to gage their learning progress and level of engagement.
To circumvent these pitfalls, I sought for advice from the literature on teaching in online environments. One of the central theories is Rovai's (2001) notion of sense of community. Aragon (2003: 58) elaborates that ‘social presence, social quality, small-group activities’, among other factors, have a positive correlation to achieving learning outcomes.
For my webinars, I focused on small-group activities to allow students to interact and thus also improve other aspects mentioned above. Using the platform Adobe Connect allowed me to utilise digital breakout sessions via which students are divided into small groups. In these breakout rooms, students could speak (microphones were disabled in the classroom setting), share their screens, and use whiteboards to visualise ideas. These groups could then participate in workshop tasks such as discussing ethical issues in fieldwork. As an instructor, I could drop into different breakout sessions to give feedback and encourage them to focus on their tasks.
Interaction levels within groups would vary. While some groups had lively, productive discussions, others stagnated. Encouraging the latter to keep going by asking probing questions was the most challenging part of online teaching. Particularly since, again, I was not able to use body language.
Nonetheless, the most frequent feedback was that students enjoyed being able to hear each other’s voices and get to know one another better. With the major part of online courses lacking this level of interaction, students were looking forward to these digital workshop sessions. This encouraged them to learn from each another and engage with ideas brought up by other group members.
How have others experienced online-only teaching? Is there any advice you want to share?
Aragon, S.R., 2003. Creating Social Presence in Online Environments. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2003(100), pp.57–68.
Rovai, A.P., 2001. Building classroom community at a distance: A case study. Educational Technology Research and Development, 49(4), pp.33–48.
I've also had similar experiences while teaching in an online environment. However, this sort of problem can be reduced to some extent by using multiple sources of computer-mediated communication. Wang, Pan and Zheng, (2012) suggest that the use of VPN can help to overcome the problems of practical teaching.
One of the difficulties that I faced during online teaching was keeping the students motivated throughout the session and maintaining high energy during the lesion. A helpful technique I have used to overcome this difficulty is ‘chunking’ lessons through combining audio teaching with video, reading, activities, and questions and answers sessions and switching gears between these tools of learning to keep the classroom environment fresh.
If suitable, perhaps you could also incorporate some elements of “Open-space Learning” (OSL) in your teaching. At the time when you notice students are getting tired or seem absent, try an OSL approach. Give the students an abstract instruction or a theme with a lot of visual or video materials to create a narrative. This way, the task seems less stressful and it allows the students to take the lead. When sharing their narratives, the students would enjoy listening to their peers and you could tie it back to your teaching objectives.
HJR: I have personally not taught online courses but have participated in a few. The lack of the social aspect of collaboration is palpable and does affect (at least my own) engagement with the material. Therefore, having platforms that can emulate a tutorial group or classroom is beneficial. It would be interesting to know more about what the challenging aspects of the question probing was, and how you tackled those in the virtual environment.
By CupOfCoffee
Through this post, I would like to discuss ‘role play’ as a strategy used in my class for group and class discussions. According to Kolb (2015)’s experiential learning cycle, learning processes draw essentially on forms of direct experience, and role play can serve as a technique of it. This strategy was inspired by a commonality of the pre-seminar readings of the module. The majority of the readings involves empirical studies and empirical materials that shed a light on different ways and roles people undertake in their organizational lives. It offers detailed and particular contexts and information for students to bring the different roles ‘back to life’ in the class.
For example, one of the readings focuses on the effectiveness of management practices, and involves a case study of two managers and one subordinate who worked for both of them at different periods of time. I divided the class of 12 students into three groups and asked each of the groups to choose a role they would like to play in the class. The case study was reconstructed as one-to-one conversations between the subordinate and one of the managers, which leaves the third group as an observer of the conversations. After a conversation, each group expressed their opinions about a particular style of management and answered two questions: how effective is this sort of management practice; and what would you do differently as a manager/what would you suggest the manager to do differently as a subordinate.
This strategy had several benefits, in particular: it encouraged students to be involved in understanding the readings and to interact with others in the class. Interactions between different roles help students to concentrate on the class. Therefore, instead of simply reading the case studies, students themselves are participating in the case studies for a more situated understanding.
You can divide your class into different groups and assign each group a role prior to the class. Alternatively, you can use this strategy as an emergency method in the class when only a few students have undertaken the pre-reading(s).
Reference:
Kolb, D. A. (2015) Experiential Learning: Experience as the source of learning and development, 2nd edition. Upper Saddler River, NJ: Pearson Education.
As someone who has experience of role-plays, I can definitely say that it is an excellent teaching tool, which facilitates ‘direct experience’. For example, in one of my seminars we had a similar activity. One of the students played a role of an employee, who was expecting to get promoted, and another was a manager, who was about to fire that employee. Students were asked to interact with each other in accordance to their roles. This exercise provoked interaction between students, understanding of conflict in the workplace and critical evaluation of the motives of certain employee/employer behaviours.
~Anastasia Alexeeva
By Narayan2018
Diversity is considered the beauty of modern classroom as it helps to germinate innovative ideas from different perspectives. However, sometimes I feel the difficulty in handling differences in terms of delivering intended learning objectives in the classroom. For instance, heterogeneity in a level of understanding languages, cultural differences, physical situation, psychological disposition, learning style and prior knowledge that vary among students.
Because of these differences, a similar type of teaching approach may not work for all. Ikwumelu, Oyibe and Oketa (2015) suggest that adopting an adaptive teaching approach is helpful in taking care of students’ individual differences through remediation and compensatory approaches. In order for each of the students to contribute equally, I used the adaptive learning approach to encourage students to work collaboratively. I have been trying the same techniques many times, but some students were still left behind and therefore underperformed.
However, interestingly, few of the individual students who have previously underperformed, performed very well during one-to-one sessions as opposed to while working in a group. In this regard, would any of you be interested in sharing your experiences of a similar situation?
Reference:
Ikwumelu, S.N., Oyibe, O.A. and Oketa, E.C., 2015. Adaptive Teaching: An Invaluable Pedagogic Practice in Social Studies Education. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(33), pp.140-144.
International students often do not have good communication skills and understanding of education system. Thus, it is necessary to adjust for fitting into the academic environment. Students face some difficulties that they cannot ask to their friends and family. It is often serious problem for them. I ask students to have a personal meeting. Talking in person was effective to build their confidence and feeling of belonging.
Sungkyu Lim