Management

Innovative ways to teach business for students [Fiona ed: to whoever posted this, please review the task which asks for an idea you have used to share with others]

Business education is seen as an important role in today’s era, students don't rely only on the knowledge received from the teacher but also into the attitudes and the approaches, methods that are used by the teacher. (kshetra, 2013). By keeping an eye on business education, a question arises that if it is this much important, then why this subject is founded by students at senior level, kept dry and boring and reflected of not having any insights into the real world. Traditional ways of teaching I see it nowadays it's only a way to introduce the concepts in a logical way but at the same time, these methods should involve practical implications and understanding. 

In my teaching role, I am thinking to adopt innovative methods which are up to date with the student's generation, it should be acceptable by them in order to deliver the knowledge and not to feel bored during the lecture. 

Some ways would be practical methods of teaching business studies courses to enhance the experiences of learning for students. These include; Role plays, case studies, projects based on Research, learning in teams, group discussions, visits to industries, audio-visual aids, and problem-based methods of learning, seminars and workshops, PowerPoint presentations, written exercises. 

And I might sometimes use short quizzes as refreshing starting in order to encourage the students to prepare for the lecture and to make the session more interactive from the beginning.   

References:

Albaqami, T. (2016). Mentoring As Performance Management Tool. Int J Sci Eng Res, 7(4), 627-31. 

Brown, Roediger and McDaniel, 2014, make it stick: The Science of Successful Learning, Massachusetts: The Belknap of Harvard Univerity Press

Encouraging Learner Engagement through having fun (Vinod Kaushal)

It’s no surprise to say that student/learner engagement is one of the key challenges for any teacher. There are many reasons why students don’t engage such as shyness, apathy, language proficiency,  etc. Factors such as online learning, cultural bias, audience numbers can compound that lack of interactiveness.

I found a really useful simple short summary to encourage interactivity entitled ‘10 Reasons Students Don’t Participate in Online Discussions How to Remedy Each’  (Debbie Morrison, Online Learning Insights). It gave me a good overall understanding, how to potentially explain and remedy lack of participation (in this case in an online setting).  I tried to utilise some of its teachings for my inSTIL sessions. It’s worth a read.

On student engagement, I’m not the most experienced of formal academic teachers but I have had a lot of experiences in educating and motivating people to get involved in my business work-life and I have been involved in activities such as professional educational training. I wanted to use one of my experiences as an example to highlight how enjoyable and fun that interactive experience can and should be in the learning process - although this one was not online. Early in my business career, I was both a Medical Sales Manager and then a Brand Marketing Manager in a large international pharmaceutical company, in the UK. Formal education and medical training is a mandatory requirement and depending on the country can be anywhere from 3 to 9 months duration for a Graduate recruit, in the Industry. External professional/education certifications are required in order to work, thereafter. 

Recalling one initiative which I subsequently used many times as an educator myself was called a ‘Mayhem Session’. In terms of Bloom’s Taxonomy (2), the activity was at an early stage;  Remembering, Understanding and Applying.  Learners were taught the basics of the Science, the medicine and then how to sell. The session was a distillation of the medical selling techniques taught addressing the key selling points of the product/brand. A group of students/learners (around 10) sat opposite around a rectangular table. Each took in turns to sell from a ‘hymn-sheet’ to the other and then moved one seat along, alternating again and again  – each time, the time allocation went down incrementally from 10 minutes to eventually 60 seconds. They were observed by both the organiser/facilitator and the recipients with notes/check-lists taken so there was a degree of different lenses in play. In a very supportive environment, the cacophony of sound was immense with much laughter and engagement. The proficiency shown by the learners improved to the point that they could give a ‘60 second elevator pitch’ on the product delivering all the essentials. Everyone learnt from each other including the teacher/organiser - sometimes learning how to do things better. I used this initiative several times when I trained new people into my organisation(s) – there was never any room for non-participation and having fun became part of the process as its a way of encouraging real engagement.

References 

1)    Debbie Morrison, Online Learning Insights

https://onlinelearninginsights.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/online_dicussions_facilitator_resource.pdf

2)    Bloom, B.S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational      

goals. New York, NY: Longmans, Green.

Response (Courtney Rada, Management)

This is a great example of creating a fun learning environment and one that provided a positive outcome. Often times I feel education naturally draws on a serious side and shows little expectation to making learning fun due to its importance and cost. Taking a step back and realising that creating a safe and relaxed environment can produce a better outcome than a stuffy intense experience.  

Tackling time management issues in workshops (Saffet Aras Uygur)

One of the biggest challenges I had during lecturing in workshops was time management. The workshop both involved providing time for the students to solve the problems themselves and then solving the question together on the board. I understood that I have to reassess the time management issue in order to both let the students solve the problems themselves, answer their questions in the meantime and then explain the solutions to the students on the board. 

Therefore, I skimmed the literature in order to find recommendations to tackle the time management issue. One of the sources that I benefited from for time management was Ailamaki and Gehrke’s (2003) article. They elaborate on different methods to be used for new faculty members in overcoming the obstacles they face because of not being able to manage their time. Along with other topics they cover in the article such as scheduling meetings and organising e-mails, they also discuss time management issues encountered while teaching. They briefly suggest focusing on each task piece by piece and not on the whole task at first. They argue that allocating the time for each slide before presenting them will ease the problems of time management. Cummings and Holmes (2009) also discuss the benefit of time management. They suggest that ordering a task in periods will enhance the feasibility of that task. 

I found it to be helpful and effective to allocate a specific time for each question and slide. This allocation prevented focusing on a specific question more than necessary and being able to answer all of the questions that the students ask. Of course, the allocation was flexible in order to allow students to fully grasp and understand better the topic. Time management allowed me to get things done in an ordered fashion and I believe it is necessary in every part of  life. 

References: 

AILAMAKI, A. & GEHRKE, J., 2003. Time management for new faculty. ACM SIGMOD Record, 32(2), pp.102-106. 

CUMMINGS, R.G. & HOLMES, L.E., 2009. Business Faculty Time Management: Lessons Learned from the Trenches. American Journal of Business Education, 2(1), pp.25-30.

Response: 

It is common to see junior teachers struggling with time management. I had the same problem and was advised to narrow down the range of discussion by a senior academic who observed my teaching. It is wise to allocate time for each question and slide as it gives you a rough idea on how deep you can go into the subject. It may also help to rehearse beforehand so that you can reflect on your own teaching critically. (Tianyu Zhang aka Sophia, Media Arts)

Tackling time management issues in workshops (Saffet Aras Uygur, Management) 

Alongside allocating time for each slide, I’ve found it helpful to question the depth of material I’m covering during session planning. What can most effectively be communicated by your session, as opposed to another learning opportunity? What details could be left to their own independent study, and/or resources you provide through Moodle, reading lists etc.? (Jack Lowe, Media Arts)

As a new visiting lecturer teaching hefty three-hour lectures, I also found time management to be an issue! I tried to ensure there was something different about every 15 minutes, whether that be a discussion in pairs, a video or a group activity. (When it was a video, I would ask a question at the beginning and have a discussion of that question at the end, to ensure active listening.) The agenda was discussed at the beginning and a coffee break clearly labelled, with an estimated time given. However, in future, I think I would go further, ensuring the agenda shows the 15-minute segments to fit attention spans. I may even set a timer as per Francesco Cirillo’s time management tool, the Pomodoro technique, which I personally use in work (although sticking to 15 minutes rather than its suggested 25). (Suzanne Locke, Media Arts)

Response:

I wholly agree that time keeping during workshops is a problem and your blog is hugely insightful into some of the key scholarship. I don’t know why, but I find myself extremely anxious when academic events of any sort run-over time or stray from the times set in the agenda. (Anonymous, Classics)

Metacognition and reflexivity (Alex Atanasova)

I recently stumbled upon an article in popular media with a title I couldn’t resist but clicking on: “A Stanford researcher’s 15-minute study hack lifts B+ students into the As” (Anderson, 2017 in Quartz). While a lift from B+ to As might not seem like an accomplishment of great magnitude, as a future teaching practitioner I was intrigued by the promise for this miraculous hack that can so effortlessly (arguably) improve students’ performance. The novel solution described in the article entailed getting students to think about how they think and strategize how they study. In two field experiments, university students were offered prompts to help them think carefully about how they studied, and how they might study more effectively for an introductory statistics class exam; in contrast, a control group simply received a reminder that their exam was coming up and that they should prepare. The results showed that those who received the intervention prompts twice did better than those who received them once, and even those who received only one prompt outperformed those who did not, by an average of one-third of a letter grade. 

The described process is, of course, that of metacognition — the act of thinking about one’s own thought processes (Flavell, 1976). Within the academic community, metacognition and reflexivity are constructs we engage with on a continuous basis in our own work as researchers. This article reminded me of the often overlooked importance of teaching metacognitive knowledge to students. Indeed, we know that students learn better when they revisit concepts and are exposed to information several times (Nuthall, 2007) or when they engage with practical examples when engaging with new concepts (Brookfield, 2015); however, it is equally important that we equip students with strategies to engage reflexively and intentionally with the intellectual process of acquiring new knowledge. Risking stating the obvious, the importance of teaching students how to internalize the higher-order advantages of deep learning cannot be overstated: learners would be much better at learning when they have been thought how to learn most efficiently. 

In my future teaching practice, I would like to incorporate teaching metacognitive strategies to students at the start of each course. I would be curious to hear their feedback on whether reflexivity alongside their intellectual journeys helps them yield greater benefit from the learning process. Indeed, the benefits span beyond the learning episode — as elaborated by Nilson (2013) metacognitive skills translate into intellectual character traits such as self-discipline, motivation and perseverance, among many others: qualities from which students can surely benefit in many different aspects of life. 

References

Anderson, J. (2017). A Stanford researcher’s 15-minute study hack lifts B+ students into the As. Access at: https://qz.com/978273/a-stanford-professors-15-minute-study-hack-improves-test-grades-by-a-third-of-a-grade/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=qz-organicarchive

Brookfield, S. D. (2015). The skillful teacher: On technique, trust, and responsiveness in the classroom. John Wiley & Sons.

Flavell, J. H. (1976). Metacognitive aspects of problem solving. The nature of intelligence, 12, 231-235

Nilson, L. B. (2013). Creating Self-regulated Learners: Strategies to Strengthen Students' Self-awareness and Learning Skills. Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Nuthall, G. (2007). The hidden lives of learners. Wellington: Nzcer Press.

Response:   Alex, this is a helpful insight relating to the need to generate some elements of participation in, rather than just reception of, learning. In the example you recounted from the article, the students in the treatment group simply received nudges to reflect on their approach and strategy to the task; that seemed to create a measurable effect.  I am new to academic teaching, but in extended training instruction in corporate settings, I developed low-'ask' participation techniques that aimed to generate a sense of self-directed inquiry (inspired by e.g. John Dewey's 'The Relation of Theory to Practice in Education - 1904 ['https://archive.org/details/relationoftheory00dewe/page/n6/mode/2up]) -- the core assumption being that, if a learner feels they have the tools to enable some type of control over what they do next, they may discover more inner motivation to take on that auto-didactic responsibility. 

One quick example:  I wanted students to each 'sum up' a takeaway and a next-step from each session of a multi-step programme; polling them at the end of the session tended to gso I left Post-It notes for them to (anonymously) post a thought or request on the wall as they walked out for coffee-break or lunch. Over 2/3 of participants typically made multiple inputs - and most were curious to scan them on their return, creating a linkage between session content and also a sense of group self-direction as I made some real-time adjustments to reflect some emerging points of emphasis in the designed curriculum.  

(John Tull, International Relations 2023)

Classroom Quizzes (Ian McDonald, Management)

Two problematic issues I’ve found with teaching management theory to first year undergraduates are the difficulty in gauging levels of background knowledge and managing fluctuating levels of engagement during workshops. 

One simple method I’ve used a couple of times is to run short class-room quizzes. I ran one at the beginning of a session where it was helpful to gauge levels of basic knowledge of the NHS. I ran a second mid-way through a workshop as way of testing and learning a management mnemonic. In both instances, I felt the energy levels in the room raised, and the competitive element generated a fun and relaxed atmosphere. It helped me to assess levels of knowledge, and the act of many individuals’ guessing meant that wrong answers weren’t embarrassing or shaming. In other classroom situations, it’s clear that, not surprisingly, few students feel comfortable admitting to not knowing something. Quick-fire quizzes can be helpful here. 

I also think as we generally - and rightly - move ever further away from behaviourist methods associated with rote learning as a standard mode of teaching (Stewart, 2012), the occasional use of quizzes can help communicate some basic factual information. 

As a laggard with regard to digital technologies, I’ve run both my quizzes as ‘shout outs’ in plenary, but see that there are some online tools such as Mentimeter, which may be worth exploring. 

Reference 

Stewart, M. (2012) “Understanding learning: theories and critique” in University Teaching in Focus: A learning-centred approach, pp. 3-20.

Response:

I agree that gauging students’ knowledge level and managing students’ engagement are important in all classrooms and you offered some useful suggestions. The idea of running two short quizzes is definitely what I would love to try next time. What I did was to run a quiz before the end of class as a quick summary of the section to test and reinforce students’ learning. Also, I’m happy to see some students can answer the quiz confidently while others help each other to answer. (Andrew Lo, Politics & International Relations) 

I appreciate the efforts you made to gauge students’ knowledge level by running quizzes at the beginning of the term. It would be very useful for teachers to construct an inclusive environment in classes and provide equal opportunities for students. I also used a very well-designed online quizzing tool, named “Quizlet”, which is easy to use. It has been widely used in studying languages. Teachers ran quizzes on “Quizlet” by checking students’ memories of vocabularies. I used the tool in my class to review students’ understanding of the key knowledge of the previous week. I often conducted quizzes at the beginning of a class. It helped students to recall what they had learned and reflected on, so that they could get better engaged with the class thereafter. By analysing students’ answers, I was also able to check students understanding of key concepts. (Xunnan Li, Dance, Drama and Theatre Department)

Response: 

I totally agree with the quizzes methods, I have read a lot about how it's will impact the business learning positively especially that the students are learning, and its facilitate knowledge delivery since they already have some concepts and understanding of the new lecture.  

Countering Media Multitasking in Courses on Management Theory (Sarah Salahuddin) 

Student disengagement is now increasingly evidenced by students using smartphones or laptops for purposes unrelated to the current lecture. Previous studies have shown that students may spend 63% of their time “off-task” activities such as using social media, browsing or gaming in university classrooms (Wammes et al., 2019). Rather than external distractions, it appears that students tend to be self-distracted through the use of technology (Unsworth & McMillan, 2017). Research has shown a negative impact of unstructured technology use in the class on learning but a complete restriction on personal technology use may not be the way to address it (Schneider, 2018). 

While conducting workshops for courses in Organisational theory, I noticed that although students would have the required reading for a session open on their devices, they tended to spend more time staring at the screen rather than participating in the class discussion. One way of countering this was that I made an active effort to set down boundaries for phone and laptop usage in class after the first couple of weeks. I would make it a point of switching off my phone and putting it away and wait for the students to follow suit. Laptop usage was restricted to the first 20 minutes of the class for review and students would not be allowed to use their laptops once the discussion started. 

Although this “enforced” disconnect did initially get some comments about being back in the stone-age, overall the approach appeared to work. By the end of term, I noticed students engaging more actively with each other and with the content. The removal of the devices also tended to support more vocal communication in the classroom and actual attention to the course material. Students were also more inclined to ask questions about the overall course and material both during the workshop and afterwards. 

Have you observed instances of media-multitasking resulting in student disengagement? How did you manage it? 

References 

Schneider, D.E., 2018. Unstructured Personal Technology Use in the Classroom and College Student Learning: A Literature Review. The Community College Enterprise, 24(2), pp.10-20. 

Unsworth, N. and McMillan, B.D., 2013. Mind wandering and reading comprehension: Examining the roles of working memory capacity, interest, motivation, and topic experience. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39(3), p.832. 

Wammes, J.D., Ralph, B.C., Mills, C., Bosch, N., Duncan, T.L. and Smilek, D., 2019. Disengagement during lectures: Media multitasking and mind wandering in university classrooms. Computers & Education, 132, pp.76-89.

Response:

I think the topic you discuss does provide a real and under-reported threat to the quality of teaching, particularly at university level. As you mention, discouraging the use of technology can be seen as a backward step and no doubt will incur increased paper usage, which is discouraged these days. Potentially structuring your classes so they culminate in some kind of quiz or discussion which is mandatory may increase the attention the class pay as a whole? Maybe a frank discussion on why the class are distracted and what effects this could have on their learning and grades could help too? A final thing to note would be that international students often need tech to translate parts of the seminar, without their tech they could become more isolated. (Harvey Moyne, Management)

Chinese social media Wechat supervisory tutorial (Jieya Lyu)

Recently, I have accepted a part-time job to supervise a management Master student for his PhD application proposal. I was quite interested in this job, which does not only increase my teaching experience but also help other students to achieve their academic dreams. Since the student is living in Glasgow, which is quite far away from Egham, I decided to try a modern teaching method: remote Wechat online tutorial. Wechat is a commonly-used social media in China, just like Twitter in the UK. Teaching and learning are becoming improved by Internet-based technologies (Jahnke & Koch, 2009). The internet generation makes the online social networks accessible anywhere and anytime, which makes the modern learning system more flexible, and adaptable to different existing learning strategies (Collins & Halverson, 2018). Usually, we would arrange a time in advance and take a Wechat online supervisory tutorial later. He would send me his work, and after reviewing it, we would communicate through the Wechat. On the one hand, I benefited from the high-tech learning method; on the other hand, I also came across many difficulties of remote teaching due to the long distance between us and slow response from my student, since we are living in different cities, and we never meet in reality. Sometimes I feel that I do not feel like a real person in his life, and I do not have the authority as a lecturer for him in real life. He sometimes responds to me very late, and does not accept my advice as valuable. And most importantly, our process is very slow. I feel that it is time to set up an effective supervision and evaluation system mentioned by Jahnke, Terkowsky, Pleul, & Tekkaya (2010). I need to make a detailed plan for him, and at every stage, we need to stop and discuss what results we have achieved during the recent period, what his feedback is towards the recent period of learning, which difficulties he had, and what future plan we will have. I hope, with more interaction, reflection and evaluation, my remote Wechat supervisory tutorial will be more effective.

References

Collins, A., & Halverson, R. (2018). Rethinking education in the age of technology: The digital revolution and schooling in America, USA: Teachers College Press. 

Jahnke, I., & Koch, M. (2009). Web 2.0 goes academia: does Web 2.0 make a difference? Int. J. Web Based Communities, 5(4), 484-500. 

Jahnke, I., Terkowsky, C., Pleul, C., & Tekkaya, A. E. (2010). Online learning with remote-configured experiments. DeLFI- e-Learning Fachtagung Informatik. Available online: https://dl.gi.de/handle/20.500.12116/4730 [ 23th May 2019]

Response

I strongly agree with your strategy. Though you have done this before the suspension of face to face teaching, as mentioned in my post you have to get familiar of the online teaching platform. In your case you used wechat and mentioned its demerit as it did not fulfil your requirement. Though I believe we should all be familiar with online teaching platform that gives best interaction while maintaining the quality of the course. Also the tool should be good enough to cater the whole class and a good way to interact with each other. I like your initiative of going for online teaching. I have adopted online teaching approach using two different online teaching platform in my sessions and as a result I'm having a good learning experience online teaching . (Muhammad A K)

Using Mobile Phones in Lectures (Ayomikun Idowu)

The use of mobile phones by students in lectures has raised a series of controversies among stakeholders. It is a predicament that is difficult for lecturers to curtail, especially among students in universities. A lot of debates have taken place in support of and against this issue, particularly among parents. While mobile phones are sources of distractions in the classrooms when students are messaging, taking photographs and playing games, there have been different interventions in proffering solutions to this menace. Some schools have restricted the use of mobile phones by students. It is also possible to use software to monitor and confine the use of mobile phones by students in schools. However, this has raised the issue of privacy violation as well as possible misuse of power. Besides, university students are adults and are much more challenging to monitor or restrict; hence, we need to come up with new ways of handling this problem. 

As a teacher, I firmly believe that mobile phones and other personal IT tools that could potentially be a distraction can be integrated into the teaching system to take advantage of them. I give my students questions in the classroom and ask them to use their mobile phones, laptops or other IT tools to solve them. This way, students can see the phones as part of the learning tools, and they will be encouraged always to make positive use of them. In one of my classes on social media analysis, I had students go through their social media to study patterns and reflect on their use of these platforms. My teaching involved using tools like ideagarden and online quizzes that would require the students to use their mobile phone for activities in class, and this was my way of improving students’ participation in class by using tools that they enjoy. While this method was successful for a course on social media and IT, it may not be successful for other modules. 

Response : 

In my classes I always prohibit the usage of mobile phones. I allow students to use their mobiles only if they not do have a laptop and he/she needs to read something on it. In this case, I limit their mobile use for a maximum time around 5 minutes, then I ask them to put it away. However, I would definitely consider utilising your methods of mobile usage for quizzes. It is a smart integration of personal technology to students’ engagement in lectures.  (Nolla Haidar, Management)

Response:

I like your innovative approach to using technological devices meaningfully in class. Use of mobile phones can be a distraction while teaching, but if deployed usefully, just like you did, they can stimulate student interests in discussion topics. (Divya Patel, Management)

Response:

This is an interesting issue. I personally find prohibition of using mobile phones a completely wrong direction. Education itself develops slowly and it is always way behind, in relation to the evolution of technology and society. Instead of fighting with the new trends, higher education should adapt and introduce new solutions. Especially that mobile phones gives endless possibilities. In the Media Arts Department we have modules that are focusing on the mobile filmmaking, and that not only was a perfect solution for the time of Covid when the access to equipment was impossible, but it also follows the development of technology and tries to meet the possible future path of filmmaking itself. It is of course easier to adapt this tool to media courses, related to film, coding and games, but I believe other departments could easily find a way to use it successfully for their purposes.

Intercultural Training/Orientation/Sensitisation in Undergraduate Education (Sara Bakr)

As a non-native English speaker, I feel a lot of empathy with international students and academics who are studying and working in an environment where English is the dominant language. However, more than the language, it is also the difference in cultural values and perceptions of accepted codes of behaviour that cause hindrance in effective classroom teaching and integration. Rubin and Smith (1990, p.351) have suggested using innovative technology and media such as videos to help integrate course content with cultural context. 

Although, management degrees generally involve a course in comparative or international management, it is usually with a strategic orientation, and does not highlight understanding the people or values that may be different to your own. It sometimes leads to stereotyping and may not be the best way to teach students about intercultural harmony. For example, in a session I conducted, rather than talking just about how international food chains like McDonalds® adapted their products to Saudi Arabian market, I played a brief video about daily life in Saudi Arabia, discussing the basic social values important to ordinary people. I found it allowed students to understand and build an affiliation with the Saudi consumer as someone whose needs are similar to their own, even though the underlying values may be different. This allowed me to build a strong basis for further discussion on how the multinationals study different cultures. Cross-cultural orientations are primarily driven through the West’s drive to understand Asian, Arab or other markets. But it is just as relevant for students and academics, such as those in Saudi Arabia to also think about including culturally contextual material on the west beyond stereotypical norms. This will I believe enhance understanding multi-cultural diversity, which is a core need of this time. 

Reference 

Rubin D. L. and Smith, K. A. (1990), Effects of Accent, Ethnicity, and Lecture Topic on Undergraduates' Perceptions Of Non-native English-Speaking Teaching Assistants, International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Volume 14, Issue 3, pp. 337-353.

Response:

I strongly agree with your point. It is of importance that not the strategic orientation alone is taken into account but also political, economic as well as cultural orientation when discussing phenomena within management. I like your idea of showing a video that outlines the daily life in Saudia Arabia. I have adopted a similar approach in one of my sessions and as a result had higher engagement and level of understanding from my students. (anon.)

Thank you for sharing this, Sara. Like the person above, I strongly agree with this point. I was a TA in the course Introduction to World Music, and as the course was about getting to know music from various parts of the world, I took it as my task to guide the students to challenge their modes of listening and thinking about music, especially music with which they are not familiar. Like you, the lecturers of the course almost always directed us in the seminars to watch and discuss a video about the social and cultural life of the people whose music we were learning about. This always generated good engagement from the students. (Aniarani Andita, Music) 

Cultural inclusion to increase engagement  and participation in the classroom (anon.)

National culture as well as organisational culture are important aspects to consider when discussing a variety of phenomena within management. The School of Business and Management has probably the most culturally diverse cohort of students within the University. In my lessons I seek to take advantage of the level of cultural diversity to not only increase engagement and participation but also to explain different phenomenon from a variety of perspectives.

In one of my seminars for example we covered the topic of 'Migrant Workers.' The material and concepts I covered were predominantly based on the UK and European labour market to which many students could not relate to. I therefore tired to include material that highlighted migration within different countries i.e. China, Saudi Arabia and the USA. This inclusion helped students to understand migration and its impact on a global scale. I also asked students to discuss migrant workers within their home countries to further understand motivation and contextual reasons for migration. Through this strategy, the students tried to understand the theoretical concept by applying it to their home country. Moreover, through the exchange of conversations, the students also learnt about migration within other countries adding to their knowledge about migration on an international scale. 

This strategy increased students to be more engaged in the classroom and participate in classroom discussions as they could directly relate to the topic. From this point onwards, I tried more often to use this strategy, especially when engagement and participation is low. 

Response:

I think that the issue you mentioned is increasingly relevant not only for teachers but for all university staff in order to achieve a higher degree of inclusion within the community. However, I think that the inclusion in classrooms couldn't be only explained by the reasons for migration, but bringing other ontologies or theoretical frameworks to academic discussions. Hence, the value of migration, regardless of the sense, could be perceived as worth in terms of opportunities to learn and improve the way the things are done in particular local contexts. (Diego Martinez-Castro)

Blog post (Simon Oldham)

As others have mentioned in previous blog posts, student engagement is perhaps not always as high in tutorials and workshops as we would like. Although I find this frustrating, I can also empathise. I think we can all recall tutorials or lectures in which we have not been fully engaged, have struggled to concentrate or in which we have found ourselves ‘zoning out’. There often appears to be an assumption that students at university level should be able to gain knowledge and stay engaged in a lecture or tutorial where an academic simply stands at the front for up to two hours, despite the fact that research suggests that student concentration drops between 10 and 30 minutes into lecture style sessions (Young and Robinson, 2014). In order to try and provide learning experiences which I myself would find useful and interesting, I have tried out some suggested flipped learning activities and, accordingly, within this blog post I briefly reflect upon using a quiz as a learning tool within a tutorial.

As Moraros et al (2015) suggest, the use of quizzes as a flipped learning tool can lead to positive outcomes for students. With this in mind, for one tutorial I wrote a set of quiz questions on the article that students were required to read prior to the tutorial (luckily it was an article that lent itself well to writing quiz questions). Within the tutorial I gave students the opportunity to read the article for ten minutes and make notes on what they believed to be the key points and ideas. After the ten minutes were up, the students were instructed to put away phones and laptops and only have their notes in front of them. They then got themselves into groups in which they had to work together to answer the quiz questions, which we went through afterwards as a class, with a confectionery-based prize for the winning team, as well as something for the rest of the students. The result of this approach was that the competitive and fun element introduced through the flipped learning activity increased student engagement and enjoyment, (as suggested by prior research, e.g. Willey and Gardener, 2014), as well as allowing me an insight into their understanding and the extent to which they had prepared for the tutorial. However, one caveat to this approach is that it clearly works much more effectively for some topics than others and may not help students engage higher levels skills such as those related to critical evaluation, analysis and synthesis.

It would be great to hear any other ideas for different activities that anyone else has experienced or conducted within tutorials and lectures….

Moraros, J., Islam, A., Yu, S., Banow, R. and Schindelka, B. (2015) ‘Flipping for success : evaluating the effectiveness of a novel teaching approach in a graduate level setting’, BMC Medical Education, 15(1), pp. 27–37.

Young, M. S. and Robinson, S. (2014) ‘Students pay attention !’, Active Learning in Higher Education, 10(1), pp. 41–55.

Willey, K. and Gardner, A.P., 2014, December. Impact of student’s goal orientation in a flipped learning environment. In AAEE-Annual Conference of Australasian Association for Engineering Education. School of Engineering & Advanced Technology, Massey University.'

Response: 

I agree that it can be frustrating trying to find innovative ways to foster student engagement and I think you have implemented a really nice approach. You’ve created an environment where students can feel comfortable discussing with their peers and they have the added incentive of a sweet reward. I would certainly enjoy being in that class. My only concern with this approach is how do you avoid potential free rider problems where certain members of the group do all the work?  (Alexander Vickery, Economics)

Traditional VS Technology-based teaching  (Nolla Haidar)

Student engagement has been the focus of many scholars in the education field which aims at increasing performance and achievement, and also to create a sense of belonging, so that students will not opt out from college (Parsons and Taylor, 2011). Of course like many teachers, I have encountered many incidents where students are disengaged with the material provided and many have reached out to express their dislike on the course material. In order to overcome such incidents, I have worked on altering my teaching methods not only to increase students’ engagement, but also to allow the students to engage with the class and learn.  

 To increase students’ engagement and to encourage them to engage with the class, I have integrated the traditional method of teaching along with the technological one. I used the PowerPoint presentations less than usual, while I intended to write more on the board. The PowerPoint slides were mostly used to present a case study, or to discuss a certain theory. The board is used to write questions about the case study or the theory, and then I start asking students individually about their answers and promptly writing their answers on the board. In this way of teaching, I keep all students  alert, enhance their performance through fostering creativity, strengthening their critical analysis and fully engage them in the course material. In some cases, I ask one or two students to write their peers’ answers on the board, and I also allow them to ask their peers questions to delve more into their answers. In using this strategy, I intend to shift the class focus from being a teacher-centered to a student-centered, which gives students the power to take control in class. This strategy has often been successful and engaging, and most importantly, students engage with it. 

 I also used the power of competence and the reward system as tools to enhance students’ engagement. This strategy happens by splitting the class into two halves, group A and group B. Both groups will  discuss a single case study, in which they have to answer questions.. I give both groups around 10-15 minutes to discuss the questions, and to write the answers on a piece of paper. Later, I choose one member of each group to read the answers out loud. The group who wins will be rewarded either with an applause or by chocolate bars—depending on what is available. This method of teaching has not only enhanced students’ engagement and critical thinking, but also it has  improved their team working skills and competitive skills, which are two of the most important skills that foster higher performance. 

 References

Parsons, J. and Taylor, L., 2011. Improving student engagement. Current issues in education, 14(1).

Online Teaching in Higher Education (Mikaella Milikouri)

In response to the current pandemic, most educational institutions have been required to move into an online teaching period. Not unlike many teachers, I have faced both challenges and opportunities when preparing and conducting online sessions. In doing so, re-thinking my overall teaching approach and re-designing the structure, resources and materials of the class was deemed necessary.

Online teaching has invoked much discussion and debate on how teachers could establish nurturing environments to interact with their students and keep them interested and engaged in virtual classrooms. I have identified the main strengths of online teaching to be freedom and convenience. Students attend meetings without leaving their familiar environment, classes are delivered free of travel time and expenses, and participants can be located in different cities or countries (e.g. inviting a distance guest speaker to join aclass). However, online teaching could often encourage students to be passive, distracted or disengaged whereas little opportunity for personal contact is offered. Online teaching also requires a strong internet connection, which is not always provided.

With short notice, I tried out various online platforms to select the software that would best serve my teaching style and aims. Each platform is uniquely structured, serving online conferences, web-based seminars (webinars), lectures, workshops, tutorials, et.al. First, I tried out “Panopta” which was recommended by my department and I decided that it was not an appropriate option since it creates non-live pre-recorded lectures or tutorials. I also tried out “Electa Live 8”, which I found to be very authoritative and lecture-like since only one participant is able to have their camera and microphone on and all other participants communicate using a textbox and buttons (yes, no, raise of hand). As a result, the event host (i.e. teacher) would have to switch their microphone and video off every time anyone wanted to speak. Moreover, I tried out “Adobe Connect” which allows a limited number of participants to have their cameras and microphones on at a time and all other participants communicate through textbox messaging. “Microsoft Teams” encourages more engaging live sessions and interaction between the teacher and the students. However, I personally found it less user friendly than “Zoom”, which was in fact created for distance education. Unlike “Skype” where everyone needs to have an account to attend an event, “Zoom” does not require the students to have an account and online events are easily scheduled and accessed. It offers a stable connection and excellent audio-visual quality. In “Zoom” all participants are able to have their cameras and microphones on, and the teacher can share their screen, make presentations, share audiovisual resources, send files during lessons, mute and unmute participants, form groups or dyads, utilise messaging textbox, record the lessons, etc. Every time a person speaks, their video appears at the top of the meeting, thus creating an interactive and engaging platform where student’s voices are encouraged. “Zoom” is my preferred online teaching platform and I set out to continue building on teaching in an online forum and deliver more successful, concise and informative online classes in the future. 

(Please note that the information provided on online software tools might only be relevant at the time of posting in this forum. This blog post is not meant to be taken as a guide and it is important to keep in mind that technology evolves rapidly and software updates are frequently performed.)

References

Bao, W. (2020) “Covid-19 and Online Teaching in Higher Education: A Case Study of Peking University” Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies. 1-3.

Baran, E., Correia, A. P. and Thompson, A. (2013) “Tracing Successful Online Teaching in Higher Education: Voices of Exemplary Online Teachers” Teachers College Record. 115(3), 1-41.

Darby, F. (2020) “How to Be a Better Online Teacher. Advice Guide” The Chronicle of Higher [online], Available at https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/advice-online-teaching

Mitchell, A. (2014) “Online Courses and Online Teaching Strategies in Higher Education” Creative Education. 5(23), 2017-19.

Case-Based Learning in Classroom Teaching (Muhammad Sajid)

While teaching a particular curriculum, satisfying students’ diverse learning needs to enhance their comprehension and success rate are the two challenges for imparting quality education. To address these contemporary challenges, I advocate the use of “case-based learning” that I have been using in my classes and find it very beneficial for students’ learning and course comprehension. Case-based learning or active learning sessions have been increasingly acknowledged as an effective teaching tool widely used in educational setups to engender a constructive and progressive learning environment. It helps students to target the range of learning outcomes through active participation in case-based learning sessions which consequently help them to develop higher-level cognitive skills and enhance their reasoning/problem-solving skills (Lohman, 2002; Ricards, Gorman, Scherer, & Landel, 1995).

While applying the case-based learning approach, I have assessed that it stimulates creative problem-solving skills among the students and shift their focus from passive absorption to active/valued participation. To make the case-based learning process more result-oriented, I divide students into smaller groups which encourage divergent thinking process and allow the participating students to effectively learn from each other in a progressive way. The participating groups have to complete the assigned task in a given time frame, thus, it helps the students to develop time management skills within a competitive and collaborative classroom environment that indeed prompt intra-team dynamics. I normally work as a moderator to facilitate learners to reach an informed decision by clearly delineates facts from opinions. I find the case-based learning approach as quite an effective tool to promote active learning and intellectual students’ participation in class.

References: 

Lohman, M. C. (2002). Cultivating problem-solving skills through problem-based approaches to professional development. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 13(3), 243–261. 

Richards, L. G., Gorman, M., Scherer, W. T., & Landel, R. D. (1995). Promoting Active Learning with Cases and Instructional Modules. Journal of Engineering Education, 84(4), 375–381. 

Response:

I completely agree with your the effectiveness of case-based teaching. In my own experience the use of a single case discussed within and between multiple groups of students has inspired critical learning among the students. The post group work discussion within the main Teams space has brought up really interesting points that I myself as a teacher had missed during my initial analysis of the case. Moreover, case analysis as an activity can involve visual and online collaborative aspects like use of jamboard or mentimeter, which makes teaching during pandemic more engaging. (Shyam Krishna)

 From a Teacher to a Facilitator: the rules of online teaching (Priyanka Pandey)

The move to online teaching has been both a rewarding and a challenging experience for teachers in educational institutions across the world. Factors such as clarity of course design and organization, student engagement, responsiveness of the instructor and a sense of community in the class are some of the many challenges that need to be addressed during online teaching (Bair and Bair, 2011). Like many, I was also one of the few teachers who had to, in short notice, move from classroom to online teaching, in order to accommodate the changes made by the pandemic. In doing so, I had to rethink my overall teaching structure which included identifying new and innovative methods of reaching the same learning outcomes as designed for classroom teaching within an online class.

The main challenge(s) for me as a new online teacher was ensuring firstly, good levels of student engagement and participation. Secondly, to ensure clarity and coherency in my teaching. The two goals, in my opinion were achieved by shifting my role from a teacher to a facilitator. Unlike classroom teaching, to create a nurturing and supportive learning environment in an online class, it is important to have a good teaching presence with a more flexible organization of the teaching content (Berge, 2002).

According to (Baran et al., 2011) the teacher not only takes on the role of delivering the academic content but also engages in discussions with the students, like a student themself. The online learning platform flattens the power structure between the students and the teacher. The teacher moves from being the centre of interaction to a medium of creating engagement. This change of role as a facilitator is also important because online students are expected to take greater control of their learning process and be more active in stimulating their peers’ learning. Therefore, the need for facilitation is important in guiding these student-centred approaches to create a critically reflective environment for learning.

I used the Zoom platform to teach my online class. The methods that helped me with the facilitation are -

1.       Dividing the learning material into small exercises, quizzes or games

2.       Dividing the class into small groups for the quizzes or exercises to facilitate more peer interaction, by using the breakout room feature on Zoom

3.       Ending or opening every topic/concept with an open-ended question, as that provides opportunities for students to ask questions, contribute to and open up discussions and critically engage with the topic

4.       To use more images or diagrams in your slide show (if you are using one) to explain concepts. This helps students engage  more easily with the concept rather than reading long texts 

References

Bair, David E., and Bair, Mary (2011) Paradoxes of Online Teaching. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 5:2,17.  

Baran, Evrim., Correia, Ana-Paula., and Thompson, Ann (2011) Transforming online teaching practice: critical analysis of the literature on the roles and competencies of online teachers. Distance Education 32:3, 421-439. 

Berge, Zane L (2002) Active, interactive, and reflective e-learning. Quarterly Review of Distance Education 3, 181–190.

Challenges of project-based learning in online education (Diego Martinez-Castro)

There is limited research on using project-based learning (PBL) in online education for several reasons. Firstly, despite the increasing academic documents found on research and education about PBL, it could be said that it is at a relatively early stage in comparison to other constructivist approaches. Hence, its importance seems to be located on some specific disciplines (such as engineering) (Chen, Kolmos and Du, 2020).

Secondly, the role of facilitation for teachers could be even more challenging in terms of preparedness and empirical reach. The preparation is related to the training to teachers for facilitation in online environments, which represent a double task of changing the strategy and the methods. In contrast, in practical terms, resources available for student-centred interactions could be even more limited than in face-to-face formats.

Thirdly, the online tools for cooperative work are limited, especially in more often used platforms in online education, such as LMS platforms (Moodle or Blackboard). Even though the use of platforms was more than a decade ago, its structure has suffered a few changes. In recent exceptional circumstances, limitations of LMS platforms have been evidenced.

Nonetheless, there could be a meaningful contribution from PBL in online formats: evaluation and virtualisation. The traditional assessment fails because of its format, as it is required the surveillance and physical presence of a teacher or tutor, applying the same structured instruments for all. Instead, other qualitative forms of evaluation from constructivist approaches have been proposed, where the evaluation is more focused on the process of each student. Finally, the focus on projects has led to exploring more alternatives on simulating “real-life conditions”, thus the limitation of having all resources on hand to learn has been an issue of concern in PBL (Segrelles et al., 2017). When the context of a project is essential for training future professionals and such settings are not accessible, regardless of the reasons, thinking on creative ways of simulation and virtualisation of relevant environments is critical.

In sum, there are many challenges faced by constructivist approaches, such as PBL, when online-only activities are mandatory. However, contributions could be observed on the need for changing evaluation, and the importance of context, leading to considering virtualisation and simulation as crucial aspects in all disciplines.

References

Chen, J., Kolmos, A. and Du, X. (2020) ‘Forms of implementation and challenges of PBL in engineering education: a review of literature’, European Journal of Engineering Education. Taylor & Francis, 0(0), pp. 1–26. doi: 10.1080/03043797.2020.1718615.

Segrelles, J. D. et al. (2017) ‘Virtualized Computational Environments on the cloud to foster group skills through PBL: A case study in architecture’, Computers and Education, 108, pp. 131–144. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2017.02.001.

Dragging students’ attention from smartphones by using smartphones (Jia Jia)

Cannot be only me found that it was hard to make students concentrate on workshops. Bring mobile devices into the classroom becomes normal in recent time because students need laptops and smartphones to take a note, search essential material, write their assignments and so on. However, social media and other entertainment have occupied tons of their time during the classes. It sounds unrealistic to ask students to turn off their phones or do not bring laptops into the classroom. The question of how to drag their attention from social media to class became crucial. 

One way I found effective to solve this problem was using interactive teaching apps. I observed a seminar in which the tutor used Socrative software to conduct quizzes. Students replied questions through Socrative and the results from all classmates were immediately shown on screen. By using this software, the answers of questions and the ratio of different replies were visualised. When most students reacted the result and started to discuss those questions, it was easy to attract the rest of students to switch social media app into this in-class interactive action. I found this was useful for both creating an interactive and experiential learning environment and reducing the ‘screen time’ during class. Once their entertainment was interrupted, their ‘immersive screen time’ was finished as well. While students still hold the phones, they participated in the workshop and temporarily left the ‘relaxing vibe’.

However, it takes time to prepare this software and ask students to join it. Therefore, in my later workshops, when I planned to use the software, guidance and introduction were given before the session. In a one-hour lesson, it was reasonable to apply this method only one or two times. I think this method does improve student participation in my workshops. 

I would like to know how others tackle this problem, and how do you drag students’ attention from smartphones?

Response: 

I agree that it is challenging to attract students’ attention in the class. Even though students need to use these devices for finding sources online or reading e-book/teaching slides, they often end up checking their social media platforms or messages while listening to the lecture. I also usually use Mentimeter to gain attention of my students 2-3 more times in the class too. I think this is the right amount to make them concentrate and follow your lecture because otherwise, we will not be able to deliver our lessons as planned and rather busy just to make sure our students engaged. Apps are useful for us to make students pay attention more on our materials but we need to focus substantially to the 

materials themselves. I often use some real life examples which they can easily relate to or show some Youtube videos that cover some stories or news that I use in the examples. I found the topic are relatively clear for students such that make them motivated to learn more as found by Dike (1989). So, in short, I agree with using some apps or tools in our lectures but we need to make sure that we are not trapped to focus on using those more than the concepts that we are going to deliver. (Daim Syukriyah/Economics)

Reference 

Dike, H.L (1989). Strategies for producing instructional materials. Owerri: The Government printers

Do You Have A Story To Tell? (Xiangming Tao)

Storytelling has long been regarded as a pedagogical tool in higher education (Abrahamson, 1998), especially as a reflective tool in higher education (McDrury and Alterio, 2003). Nowadays, digital storytelling, combines the new technological applications with traditional pedagogical approaches and has acted as an essential technology-integrated tool for engaged student learning (Wu and Chen, 2020). According to Kocaman-Karoglu (2016), digital storytelling usually takes a form of 3 to 5 minutes narratives which combine various types of digital media such as images, sounds, and videos. It is thus highlighted as a “dynamic and beautiful marriage of narrative and technology that is proving to be a potent force in educational practice” (Rossiter and Garcia, 2010, p.37).

Last semester I taught entrepreneurial finance to undergraduate students, many of whom were interested in doing business but had minimal knowledge about entrepreneurial finance such as venture capital. The aim is to help the students to understand the theoretical and practical implications of entrepreneurial finance. To obtain this target, I used the digital storytelling approach to motivate the student to delve deeper beyond the initial knowledge and evaluate their experiences of learning (Lambert and Hessler, 2018). At the beginning of this course, I introduced the story of a virtual entrepreneurial firm. Twenty students were divided into four groups that played as the top management teams (TMTs) of this firm. The four TMTs then were asked to create and share their digital stories to raise venture capital. The overall feedback was given based on their performance. 

Although the effectiveness of digital storytelling has been widely verified in educational use (Sadik, 2008), I met several challenges in carrying out this approach. For example, it has proved challenging to elicit stories within collective activities due to the various technological and cultural background. To put the digital storytelling to best use, I think it’s vital that student feel confident to take ownership of this site. Overall, this is an innovative way of teaching that I am interested in, and which I would like to develop further with combating such challenges. 

Reference

Abrahamson, C. E. (1998). Storytelling as a pedagogical tool in higher education. Education, 118(3), 440-452.

Alterio, M., & McDrury, J. (2003). Learning through storytelling in higher education: Using reflection and experience to improve learning. Routledge.

Kocaman-Karoglu, A. (2016). Personal voices in higher education: A digital storytelling experience for pre-service teachers. Education and Information Technologies, 21(5), 1153-1168.

Lambert, J., & Hessler, B. (2018). Digital storytelling: Capturing lives, creating community. Routledge.

Rossiter, M., & Garcia, P. A. (2010). Digital storytelling: A new player in the narrative field. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 126, 37-48.

Sadik, A. (2008). Digital storytelling: A meaningful technology-integrated approach for engaged student learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 56(4), 487-506.

Wu, J., & Chen, D. T. V. (2020). A systematic review of educational digital storytelling. Computers & Education, 147, 103786.

Using twitter as a pedagogical tool (Shyam Krishna)

While teaching about the social justice and inequality impacts of digital technology, I wanted to show direct examples of digital users sharing their own reflections on their use of digital apps. I was able to achieve this using twitter threads which showed screenshots and screen-grabbed videos of digital apps being used which was juxtaposed with actual narratives of how the users felt during the time. I found this a fitting use of twitter as a pedagogical tool, as it has been shown to encourage students to view the subject matter of the tweets ‘critically’ and most relevantly that they can be oriented to consider the implication of such analysis ‘in relation to social justice’ (Lackovic et al 2017).

This particular example was of an artificial intelligence (AI)  powered app called ‘genderify’ which sought to ‘identify a person’s gender by analyzing their name, username or email address’. Here I used the twitter thread, where the tweet creator reacts incrementally to identifying different ways in which the app discriminates and is biased along gender lines due to unfair assumptions made by the technology. For instance, the gender of names with title as ‘Dr.’ was deemed ‘male’ with a very high probability score. I contacted the tweet creator and sought explicit permission to use the content in the classroom as an indirect representation of their lived experience in exploring the genderify app.

The students during the exploration of the twitter thread were able see the evolution of the app user’s (tweet creators) reactions through the tweets, identify the biases within the technology and discuss amongst themselves. This provided an avenue, especially during online teaching, for the students to directly engage and explore using twitter as an interactive tool beyond just the classroom content. As research (Talib 2018 ) suggests and in my experience, the students were provided an opportunity to “consider the entire context” of digital technology use. So, this use of twitter as a pedagogical tool I hope is a pathway for the students to develop a critical outlook into the issue of both their own social media use and of the wider realm of digital technology, as the lecture intended in its learning objectives.

Lackovic, N., Kerry, R., Lowe, R., & Lowe, T. (2017). Being knowledge, power and profession subordinates: Students' perceptions of Twitter for learning. The Internet and Higher Education, 33, 41-48.

Talib, S. (2018). Social media pedagogy: Applying an interdisciplinary approach to teach multimodal critical digital literacy. E-learning and digital media, 15(2), 55-66.

Challenges of Deploying Visual Resources in Online Teaching (Divya Patel)

My first ever teaching lesson was initially planned as a face-to-face session with post-graduate students. For an interactive class activity, I planned to use the visual data of my PhD research as a teaching resource. Visual methods encourage student participation and lead them to reflect on the given images critically (McIntosh & Warren, 2013). The activity involved analysing free-hand drawings created by men and women research participants. Students in groups were to find similarities and differences in the drawings, interpret the meanings of the drawn objects drawn and make connections between them. Each group had a different pair of drawings so that multiple concepts could be covered creatively, and more critical reflections could be generated.

Had this activity executed as planned in a face-to-face setting, I would not have been worried. It would have been much simpler operationally to distribute different sets of drawings amongst student groups, initiate discussions, and participate in student conversations for higher engagement in an in-person environment (Jacques & Salmon, 2007). However, social distancing is critical in the current Covid-19 circumstances, and therefore the lesson took place online over Teams. Using the breakout room function, I could create student groups, but the main challenge was delivering the different sets of drawings to each group. It was also crucial that all other students are able to see the drawings that a particular group was explaining during the class discussion section. This required precise planning, which included sending accurate image links to the multiple breakout rooms, uploading the drawings beforehand on the course Moodle page as a backup and sharing them on my screen in the correct sequence at the time of class discussion. The activity was undoubtedly complex and required intense, accurate manoeuvring from my end, but when I visited each breakout room, I observed that students enjoyed analysing drawings. When groups came back together for class discussion, they shared varied perspectives on the concepts drawn, raising questions for other students, including me, to reflect upon.

References

Jaques, D., & Salmon, G. (2007). Learning in groups: A handbook for face-to-face and online environments. (4th ed.) London: Routledge.

McIntosh, P., & Warren, D. (2013). Creativity in the Classroom: case studies in using the arts in teaching and learning in higher education, Bristol: Intellect.

Using non-academic sources in an academic setting - Courtney Hagen Ford

Something I have always been enthusiastic about is the use of non-academic sources in academic settings. We spend so much of our time reading big heavy books and pouring over dense and complex articles, and we do not always stop to think about how tiresome this can be, particularly for someone who is new to university or has not been in formal education for a while. I remember when I was doing my MA, I stuck my hand up and said that I didn’t understand Weber and could the instructor explain it? He asked the rest of the class, and they did not understand either.

When it came to designing my teaching materials for inSTIL, I knew I was going to bring something non-academic in. I felt this was especially important given the module I was guesting on: MN 5616. Prof Bradshaw is known for his love of critical theory, especially the Frankfurt School. And as much as I like the work of Adorno and Horkheimer (1997), I know it is a hard read.

When choosing my suggested readings for the module, I definitely did not want to choose Zuboff (2019). But since I admired Doctorow’s (2020a) e-book on the problems with surveillance capitalism, particularly for its clear and accessible  discussion of a complex topic, I included it in my Suggestions. For the sake of thoroughness, I also included a blog post from Boing Boing that compiled the Twitter thread where Doctorow originally outlined his arguments (Doctorow 2020b).

My hope is that students will enjoy the break from critical theory, and then be able to return to it with a sense of freshness.

Citations

• Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. (1997). Dialectic of Enlightenment (Verso classics; 15). London: Verso.

• Doctorow, C., 2020a. How to Destroy ‘Surveillance Capitalism’. [online] Medium. Available at: <https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59> [Accessed 5 February 2021].

• Doctorow, C., 2020b. Cory Doctorow describes what's wrong about "Surveillance Capitalism" | Boing Boing. [online]. Available at: <https://boingboing.net/2020/08/26/cory-doctorow-describes-what.html> [Accessed 5 February 2021].

Using digital tools for collaborative teaching in a hybrid class setting (Emilio Costales)

During the COVID19 pandemic, I had to prepare a class on Responsible Entrepreneurship and Innovation. I opted to conduct an interactive class on Systems Thinking to illustrate the complexities and ambivalence of innovation. Building off of Goodman’s (1997) ‘Systems thinker’, my initial plan was to draw multiple pictures of an iceberg on the white board in front of the classroom to illustrate the elements of a system that operate beneath the surface. After a class discussion the intention was to break the students into groups where they would choose a particular system and identify the different levels at play within the system. After which, each group would write an aspect of their system on a post-it, place it somewhere on the iceberg, and briefly justify why they placed the post-its where they did.

However, the hybrid classroom setup wouldn’t allow that. Both the online and the in-person sessions had to be the same and the online students couldn’t engage the way initially envisioned. I stumbled upon MURAL, a digital collaboration tool that enables people to participate without having to sign up. Utilizing this tool, I was able to upload pictures of icebergs and students were able to attach post-its through the tool. I used the breakout function on MS teams to place students in groups where they were able to discuss and identify the levels of their chosen system. Visualizing the complexities of a system in an image has the grounding effect of a metaphor, and enables the students to critically reflect on the interconnected elements of the systems the chose (c.f. McIntosh & Warren, 2013). MURAL allowed students to benefit from seeing each other work in real time and the anonymity of the app encouraged students to try without fear of judgement. Since students were using one MURAL across groups, despite being in varying breakout rooms, they were still able to see the additions of their classmates from other groups, which allowed for inspiration from others. The students had to be given a bit of time initially to familiarize themselves with the platform, but they adapted rapidly, and once they got the hang of it, I noticed the students engaging enthusiastically with the diagrams. Additionally, I noticed students using MURAL’s comment function to raise their own questions for reflection beyond the group discussion. I highly recommend remote educators who use visual methods to try using the MURAL collaboration tool to encourage participation. My experience suggests that it provides a semblance of normalcy while also incorporating students’ technological prowess.

References

Goodman, M. (1997). Systems thinking: What, why, when, where, and how. The systems thinker, 8(2), 6-7.

McIntosh, P., & Warren, D. (2013). Creativity in the Classroom: case studies in using the arts in teaching and learning in higher education, Bristol: Intellect.

Response:

Thank you for sharing this. I was not aware of the Mural platform, and it sounds like a very interactive method of leading the students to engage not only with the content, but with each other. I have recently come across Jamboard as well, which seems to provide a similar experience to Mural.

I think one of the positive consequences of a hybrid class setting was the opportunity to learn about new technologies that increase student participation, and the success of the class overall. Engagement through digital platforms is definitely something I plan on adding to future sessions. (Cátia Rodrigues, English)

Is the future gamification? (Courtney Rada)

Crypto and bitcoin are old news, NFTs are currently the trending fintech topic, and the metaverse is en route to changing how we experience society. The recurring question is what’s next? Unsurprisingly, Gen Z is said to have the lowest attention span across the board resulting in a need to recreate learning styles and evolve an adaptive attitude toward education (Munsch, 2021). One solution has been to introduce gamification into the education sector (Landers, 2014). Gamification is “the use of video game elements in non-gaming systems to improve user experience and user engagement” (Deterding et al, 2011 via Landers, 2014). Implementation varies in levels from enhanced digital gaming software as used with healthcare trainees to improve diagnosis (Sinha, 2021) to less expensive virtual points for secondary students completing quiz tasks (Sanchez et al, 2020). This technique achieves better learning through a higher degree of motivation and attention and provides instant gratification that younger generations thrive on (Su and Cheng, 2015). Software like Archy Learning and Postharvest allows educators to create online learning platforms with gamification elements without the coding experience. Gamification teaching strategies are an evolving solution to creating value in the student through the creation of competition, encouragement, and escapism (Christensen, K.P., 2021). Here is to the future of gamification - are you ready to play?

https://archylearning.com

https://www.postharvest.com

Source 

Christensen, K.P., 2021, October. Gamification Elements in the Classroom: A Review. In SITE Interactive Conference (pp. 216-222). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Deterding, S., Sicart, M., Nacke, L., O’Hara, K., Dixon, D. (2011, May). Gamification: Toward a definition. Proceedings of the CHI 2011 Gamification Workshop, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. 

Landers, R.N., 2014. Developing a theory of gamified learning: Linking serious games and gamification of learning. Simulation & gaming, 45(6), pp.752-768.

Munsch, A., 2021. Millennial and generation Z digital marketing communication and advertising effectiveness: A qualitative exploration. Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, 31(1), pp.10-29.

Riccardo Rialti, Raffaele Filieri, Lamberto Zollo, Saleh Bazi, Cristiano Ciappei. (2022) Assessing the relationship between gamified advertising and in-app purchases: a consumers’ benefits-based perspective. International Journal of Advertising 0:0, pages 1-23. 

Sanchez, D.R., Langer, M. and Kaur, R., 2020. Gamification in the classroom: Examining the impact of gamified quizzes on student learning. Computers & Education, 144, p.103666.

Sinha, N., 2021. Introducing Gamification for advancing current mental healthcare and treatment practices. In IoT in Healthcare and Ambient Assisted Living (pp. 223-241). Springer, Singapore.

Using internet memes to overcome boredom and students’ short attention span (Tippayanet Sorosrungruang)

‘He who laughs most, learns best,’ said John Cleese.

As a student myself who experienced both conventional and unconventional teaching styles, I learned better, especially for implicit learning, when teachers employed engaging or unconventional approaches such as learning English vocabulary through music or learning historical events via infographics and humorous storytelling. Like learning through music, this kind of approaches could draw attention and assist in information retention and retrieval (Alexomanolaki et al., 2007). Similarly, considering teaching students in today's generation like Gen Z or ‘Digital Natives,’ this is probably more challenging due to their learning styles influenced and groomed by the internet and technological advancement (Moore et al., 2017). Regarding these, It appears that traditional lecturing without exciting stimuli could fail to support Gen Z students learning and cognitive processing since their brains tend to incorporate visual cues or imageries and interactive activities (Cilliers, 2017). Apart from being visual learners, digital natives students tend to have a short attention span and dislike textual and passive learning. However, according to Reddy et al. (2020), humour can aid students in understanding, memorising, and recalling class content. Altogether, I believe employing internet memes which generally involve visual cues, text, and humour in the class can facilitate ice-breaking and attract attention and engagement from young learners.

As internet memes are not uncommon in social media where Gen Z interacts with virtual communities, using memes is accessible and can creatively and visually introduce or explain concepts (Miller, 2017; Weiner, n.d.). In addition, internet memes could also reduce boredom and generate a positive learning environment since memes are humorous. Therefore, why not try an edutainer approach by using ‘internet memes.’

References

• Alexomanolaki, M. et al. (2007) Music and Memory in Advertising: Music as a Device of Implicit Learning and Recall. Music, Sound, and the Moving Image. 1 (1), 51–71. [online]. Available from: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/269004 (Accessed 22 April 2022).

• Cilliers, E. J. (2017) The challenge of teaching generation Z. International Journal of Social Sciences. [Online] 3 (1), 188–198. [online]. Available from: http://grdspublishing.org/ (Accessed 22 April 2022).

• Miller, E. (2017) How memes can make lessons interesting - BookWidgets [online]. Available from: https://www.bookwidgets.com/blog/2017/09/how-memes-can-make-lessons-interesting (Accessed 23 April 2022).

• Moore, K. et al. (2017) Engineering Education For Generation Z. American Journal of Engineering Education (AJEE). [Online] 8 (2), 111–126. [online]. Available from: https://clutejournals.com/index.php/AJEE/article/view/10067 (Accessed 22 April 2022).

• Reddy, R. et al. (2020) Joy of Learning Through Internet Memes. International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy. [Online] 10 (5), 116–133. [online]. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v10i5.15211 (Accessed 22 April 2022).

• Weiner, E. (n.d.) 10 Fun Ways to Use Memes in Your Classroom [online]. Available from: https://www.boredteachers.com/post/memes-for-the-classroom (Accessed 22 April 2022).

Learning with a Robot (Lorentsa Gkinko)

An innovative way of teaching in Digital Technologies and implications would be to bring into the classroom an actual robot. The robot could respond to frequently asked questions about the main topics of the lecture, and students could interact with it, by using natural language. Not only it is an innovative way of teaching, but also students could easily learn from the memorable lecture through Experiential Learning (Kolb, 1984) and therefore could enhance their learning experience. Experiential Learning Theory encourages the creation of an environment where students can learn by applying knowledge into practice (McCarthy, 2010). In experiential learning courses, students acquire new knowledge through learning that takes place in real-life scenarios. While learning about user experiences with digital technologies and their implications, interacting with a robot is an immersive learning experience that would grasp their attention and focus. Motivating them with an advanced technology, that is implemented nowadays in many customer facing scenarios, could bring the experiential element and encourage them to think about how the implications of such technologies in business and customer support. Additionally, digital technologies can support various pedagogical practices; it could contribute to a student-centered pedagogy (McCabe, O’Connor, 2014), by allowing the students to have an active role in the learning process. The use of technology, apart from increasing students’ motivation, can expand the range of pedagogical resources and allow them to actively engage in the learning process rather than passively receiving facts (Fauville et al., 2014). They could interact with the robot and also be observed by others which could lead to a discussion about their perceived experience and also bring about different views from the peers, while focusing on the key takeaways of the lecture, this time stated by the robot.

 References

Fauville et al. (2014Fauville, G., Lantz-Andersson, A., & Säljö, R. (2014). ICT tools in environmental education: Reviewing two newcomers to schools. Environmental Education Research, 20(2), 248–283

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experience as the source of learning and development. Upper Sadle River: Prentice Hall.

McCabe, A., & O'Connor, U. (2014). Student-centred learning: the role and responsibility of the lecturer. Teaching in Higher Education, 19(4), 350-359.

McCarthy, M. (2010). Experiential learning theory: From theory to practice. Journal of Business & Economics Research (JBER), 8(5).

Response:

The idea of taking a robot to the classroom is extremely interesting and creative. It exactly reflects Kolb (2015)’s argument of experiential learning as “a holistic process consisting of acquisition, specialisation, and integration and about the adaptation to the transactions between the person and the environment.” (Rui Hou)

Learning with a Robot (Lorentsa Gkinko)

An innovative way of teaching in Digital Technologies and implications would be to bring into the classroom an actual robot. The robot could respond to frequently asked questions about the main topics of the lecture, and students could interact with it, by using natural language. Not only it is an innovative way of teaching, but also students could easily learn from the memorable lecture through Experiential Learning (Kolb, 1984) and therefore could enhance their learning experience. Experiential Learning Theory encourages the creation of an environment where students can learn by applying knowledge into practice (McCarthy, 2010). In experiential learning courses, students acquire new knowledge through learning that takes place in real-life scenarios. While learning about user experiences with digital technologies and their implications, interacting with a robot is an immersive learning experience that would grasp their attention and focus. Motivating them with an advanced technology, that is implemented nowadays in many customer facing scenarios, could bring the experiential element and encourage them to think about how the implications of such technologies in business and customer support. Additionally, digital technologies can support various pedagogical practices; it could contribute to a student-centered pedagogy (McCabe, O’Connor, 2014), by allowing the students to have an active role in the learning process. The use of technology, apart from increasing students’ motivation, can expand the range of pedagogical resources and allow them to actively engage in the learning process rather than passively receiving facts (Fauville et al., 2014). They could interact with the robot and also be observed by others which could lead to a discussion about their perceived experience and also bring about different views from the peers, while focusing on the key takeaways of the lecture, this time stated by the robot.

 References

Fauville et al. (2014Fauville, G., Lantz-Andersson, A., & Säljö, R. (2014). ICT tools in environmental education: Reviewing two newcomers to schools. Environmental Education Research, 20(2), 248–283

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experience as the source of learning and development. Upper Sadle River: Prentice Hall.

McCabe, A., & O'Connor, U. (2014). Student-centred learning: the role and responsibility of the lecturer. Teaching in Higher Education, 19(4), 350-359.

McCarthy, M. (2010). Experiential learning theory: From theory to practice. Journal of Business & Economics Research (JBER), 8(5).

Fill in the Blanks in the Table (Meng XING)

According to Mossel & Tamus (2015), strategic learning emphasises delivering the learning skills to students, in other words, developing their ability to learn. The objective of strategic learning is to help students change from ‘learners’ to more independently self-directed lifelong learners and are able to effectively learn in different environments. While constructivism believes that instead of passively taking in information, learners should build their own representations and incorporate new information into their existing knowledge base while experiencing the world (Zulkarnaen, 2019). During my teaching journey, I apply these two effective learning strategies to each session and here is a good example of ‘Fill in the Blanks in the Table’.

In week 8, the topic is ‘emotional labour’, and the students are asked to read an article from Kang (2003) in order to understand why race, gender and social class are relevant to the experience of emotional labour. The paper is more than 20 pages, and three case studies are involved. Although I have cut it into 5 pages of the main content for them to read, it is still hard for the first-year undergraduate students to find out the answers. Then we involved a ‘Fill in the Blanks in the Table’ activity, the students are required to find the key information and fill out the form within 10 minutes. Instead of presenting the answers, I reckon this activity is the best way to address the issues and students are able to develop their learning skills through independent thinking. This activity reflects these two theories as it helps to develop their skills of analysing and summary.

References

Kang, M. (2003). The managed hand: The commercialization of bodies and emotions in Korean immigrant–owned nail salons. Gender & Society, 17(6), 820-839.

Mossel, E., Sly, A., & Tamuz, O. (2015). Strategic Learning and the Topology of Social Networks. Econometrica, 83(5), 1755-1794.

Zulkarnaen, R. (2019). Students' academic self-concept the constructivism learning model. Journal of Physics. Conference Series, 1315(1), Journal of physics. Conference series, 2019-10-01, Vol.1315 (1).

Response (Shareen Holmer)

I really like the approach you used of filling in the blanks. I can see how this is a digestible and manageable way for your student group to grasp the concepts at hand whilst not being overwhelmed. Our brains naturally want to fill in gaps - and I think this is a teaching/learning approach I will probably replicate from you! :)

Innovative way of teaching (Shareen Holmer)

With blended learning, I am finding student/teacher engagement to be a key concern. Which is not made easier by the obvious physical difference/divide by those in-person and those online (never mind the technology involved!). With the international students I teach I feel the main reasons why they do not engage is shyness, language proficiency and perhaps cultural factors. Though fortunately, with my PG-students, apathy is not an issue.

I found starting any teaching session asking the students how they, what is happening in other subjects they are doing etc is a good way to get them warmed-up/talking. I know this is not anything special or innovative, but I genuinely want to know and by getting the students to talk as soon as possible helps to break down any unconscious barriers (with ref to Schön, 1983, a sense of Belonging). I then draw from Bloom’s Taxonomy and make clear the lessons learning objectives (the slides are always sent out at least a day before) and I like to use a relevant video/YouTube clip about the topic of discussion. I have used for example a clip from the TV series ‘The Apprentice’ and asked the class what was wrong in that scenario regarding team-working? I asked the students for that specific example to work in Teams (either online) or in small groups (for those in class) to answer a few questions I posed. I find video clips super useful. I have noticed they generate a lot of discussion, especially when you show a popular show that is relatable and seem to have country specific versions globally.

I have also done some role playing where the students work in pairs, and one is Lord Sugar or Donald Trump (the old US version of the Apprentice), or a Dragon from 'Dragon’s Den' and they have to explain and justify why have chosen a particular business approach. I have also used the ‘45-second elevator pitch’ approach to get students to think clearly and concisely about what the key points they want to make are and why.

I can’t claim that these approaches are dazzlingly innovative but when mixed with other more traditional teaching methods, the learning is reinforced - and there is little room for non-participation (eg as with death-by-PowerPoint). Also, talking, discussing and having fun becomes part of the learning process – and a way of encouraging real engagement!

References

• Bloom, B.S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. New York, NY: Longmans, Green.

• Schön, D.A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. London: Temple Smith

Response (Meng XING)

Thanks for sharing this. From my perspective, teaching online is such a big challenge. As there lack of eye contact. It is hard to control the teaching pace and hard to know if the students are actually there to engage. I found the clip of the TV series very helpful as it is very fun and attractive. From my experience, they are more engaged after watching the clips as we should have visual activities involved in our teaching techniques.

Innovative way of teaching (Shareen Holmer)

With blended learning, I am finding student/teacher engagement to be a key concern. Which is not made easier by the obvious physical difference/divide by those in-person and those online (never mind the technology involved!). With the international students I teach I feel the main reasons why they do not engage is shyness, language proficiency and perhaps cultural factors. Though fortunately, with my PG-students, apathy is not an issue.

I found starting any teaching session asking the students how they, what is happening in other subjects they are doing etc is a good way to get them warmed-up/talking. I know this is not anything special or innovative, but I genuinely want to know and by getting the students to talk as soon as possible helps to break down any unconscious barriers (with ref to Schön, 1983, a sense of Belonging). I then draw from Bloom’s Taxonomy and make clear the lessons learning objectives (the slides are always sent out at least a day before) and I like to use a relevant video/YouTube clip about the topic of discussion. I have used for example a clip from the TV series ‘The Apprentice’ and asked the class what was wrong in that scenario regarding team-working? I asked the students for that specific example to work in Teams (either online) or in small groups (for those in class) to answer a few questions I posed. I find video clips super useful. I have noticed they generate a lot of discussion, especially when you show a popular show that is relatable and seem to have country specific versions globally.

I have also done some role playing where the students work in pairs, and one is Lord Sugar or Donald Trump (the old US version of the Apprentice), or a Dragon from 'Dragon’s Den' and they have to explain and justify why have chosen a particular business approach. I have also used the ‘45-second elevator pitch’ approach to get students to think clearly and concisely about what the key points they want to make are and why.

I can’t claim that these approaches are dazzlingly innovative but when mixed with other more traditional teaching methods, the learning is reinforced - and there is little room for non-participation (eg as with death-by-PowerPoint). Also, talking, discussing and having fun becomes part of the learning process – and a way of encouraging real engagement!

References

• Bloom, B.S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. New York, NY: Longmans, Green.

• Schön, D.A. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. London: Temple Smith

Response (Meng XING)

Thanks for sharing this. From my perspective, teaching online is such a big challenge. As there lack of eye contact. It is hard to control the teaching pace and hard to know if the students are actually there to engage. I found the clip of the TV series very helpful as it is very fun and attractive. From my experience, they are more engaged after watching the clips as we should have visual activities involved in our teaching techniques.

Approach to complex theory teaching (Kim Jongsoo)

It is never easy to get learners to understand a variety of different theories every week for a term. With this in mind, I tried to minimize the explanation of the theory itself, which students are reluctant to listen to as they regard it as just a huge and complex collection of words. Therefore, I focused more on how useful theories are in the analysis of practice. I think I could attract learners' attention when I show that social science theories can make it easy to understand complex social phenomena. To help learners understand that theory is an interesting and useful tool for them, I have used the following methods.

First, I tried to make students clearly aware of what the aims and outcomes of each workshop were throughout the session. This motivates students to effectively learn a particular theory by making them recognize what it means in practice. In this respect, the aims and outcomes need to be clearly presented at the beginning of each workshop and mentioned along with relevant examples throughout the session. It also helps to understand the value of the theory even further if referred to again at the end of the session along with a summary of the entire content.

Second, I reduced the description of the theory itself and focused on case analysis to which the theory can be applied. To this end, I used videos that are close to learners, such as YouTube, rather than text-based materials. These audiovisual materials can induce more participation by learners and can also promote easier understanding of the content. In this context, case analysis with audiovisual materials can easily demonstrate how complex theories can be applied.

Third, I made use of segmented sub-questions to promote more participation and understanding in case analysis. Broad questions were asked first, and then I split them into several sub-questions. This was also useful as a way of guidance especially when students were not able to answer the broad one right away. Even when I asked detailed sub-questions, I tried to throw simpler sub-questions first, gradually reaching to complex ones. For example, it was good to start with a yes or no sub-question and let learners talk about their relevant personal experiences to make them easier to participate.

Response: I totally agree that by emphasising the usefulness of the theory, and examples of application, students may engage more effectively with the abstract content. In addition, asking small step-by-step questions is indeed a useful way to learn. (Xiaojian Xing)

An Integrated Approach to Teaching. (Xiaojian Xing)

Teaching concepts and techniques to students requires an integrated approach that fosters engagement and deepens understanding. 

To gauge student understanding and promote participation, I begin the workshops by asking a few comprehension questions about the concept and letting students explain it to each other and the tutor. The idea is to get the whole class engaged and identify areas where students may need additional support. This is followed by an oral presentation of the concept with ppt, where I define and describe it to the student to deepen their understanding. During solving questions phase, it is essential to stop/pause and sense-check the content with students to ensure understanding of questions and concepts before proceeding to answer. 

To bridge the gap between theory and practice. For instance, most young people spend much time on social media like Instagram and TikTok. When teaching a concept in strategic management, I encourage students to explore real-life examples related to the concept being taught. For example, by drawing connections to look at the adverts on these platforms, we create interest together. We then brainstorm as a class to identify why some strategies are making more sales than others.

I find this integrated approach of questions, ppt presentation, sense-checking and relating concepts to real-life experiences more engaging, as students can always practice even during their free time since class concepts were taught with the aid of their gadgets. This approach also follows Bloom’s taxonomy of education as the students can easily remember, evaluate and practice the class concepts anytime, anywhere.  

Reference

Bloom, B.S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. New York, NY: Longmans, Green.

Integrating Technology into the Classroom (Yuen Yui Lam)

It is important to employ innovative approaches that meet the needs of today's students (Shulman, 2018). In this teaching experience, I implemented several innovative methods to enhance students' learning experiences. Students are becoming more tech-savvy and accustomed to digital tools, and I utilize various technologies to make lessons more engaging and interactive (Kolber, 2022). For example, I use online platforms to facilitate discussions.

Additionally, I engage students in critical discussion using videos and simulated case studies in discussion forum posts. I used case studies involve analyzing real-life business scenarios and making strategic decisions based on available information (Boston University, 2019). This approach helps students develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills by applying theoretical concepts to real-world situations (Boston University, 2019). The purpose is to encourage students to engage in case study discussions that enhance their understanding and application of business principles. These experiential learning opportunities make the content more concrete, help students develop practical skills, and bridge the gap between theory and practice. Moreover, it can develop the attitudes, approaches, and skills they need to succeed in today's era of business education. It allows students to explore different perspectives and make their arguments based on evidence and logic (Serdyukov, 2017).

It is interesting to find an up-to-date case study of the topic each week to discuss with those students. Some of them will provide unique and interesting insight. Although some of the students did not engage in the discussion, they were suitable to look at the discussion and understand different views on the topic.

Reference

Boston University (2019). Using case studies to teach» center for teaching & learning | boston university. [online] Bu.edu. Available at: https://www.bu.edu/ctl/teaching-resources/using-case-studies-to-teach/.

Kolber, S. (2022). #TeachersTransform teaching: How tech-savvy teachers use digital tools to enrich the learning experience for more students. [online] Teacher Task Force. Available at: https://teachertaskforce.org/blog/teacherstransform-teaching-how-tech-savvy-teachers-use-digital-tools-enrich-learning [Accessed 26 May 2023].

Serdyukov, P. (2017). Innovation in education: what works, what doesn’t, and what to do about it? Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning, [online] 10(1), pp.4–33. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/jrit-10-2016-0007.

Shulman, R.D. (2018). 10 Ways Educators Can Make Classrooms More Innovative. [online] Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robynshulman/2018/11/19/10-ways-educators-can-make-classrooms-more-innovative/?sh=607c2c6a7f87 [Accessed 26 May 2023].

Hitting the Wall and Fighting the Dreaded Silence (Harvey Moyne)

Twenty-five minutes into your hour-long seminar, you have covered your material, the students have had time to read their case study and now it's time for a discussion… Hay bales roll past, silence falls… Here are my reflections on silence in a recent seminar. 

During my experience of struggling to get interaction from my students I tried to continue the discussion by directing questions at each group, but these discussions tailed off quickly; it was particularly difficult to promote discussion from one group of students to another (they had been split into four groups at the start of the seminar) and I felt the session was quickly running out of steam. One student in the class was particularly verbose, but I was conscious that if the session turned into a one-on-one discourse that would lead to disengagement from the rest of the group. Furthermore, as the disjointed discussion continued, I started to realise that some of elements of the case study (the London Underground) may have been confusing to some of the international students, so I tried to adapt the theories we were discussing to more generalisable examples. 

With an eye toward interaction with international students, silence in class as a cultural trait is discussed by Nakane (2005) whose study on Japanese students in Australia showed silence was used as a mechanism to save face, born partially from their educational culture and partially from a lack of rapport with their lecturers. Marlina (2009) downplays the cultural factors in Asian student’s quietness, suggesting that the lecturer is fostering a their own ‘small culture’, forcing those who are less verbal into an out group through one-dimensional feedback, verbal discussion. 

It is very interesting to think about the reasons behind silence in seminar classes; before examining these papers I had presumed silence was either due to a lack of understanding or a disinterest in the topic; however, the actual reasons behind silence, particularly in Asian students, may be more nuanced. In future, I would take the time to outline the levels of discussion I expect from the class, namely an increase in the back and forth between groups (rather than bouncing off me) and for all groups to have numerous contributors to discussion, rather than relying on a spokesperson. Through my briefing on expectations I would do my best to reassure participants that this is a ‘safe space’ for discussion, free from ridicule, which hopefully would negate face saving behaviours. I would then reflect upon future discussions; if there is little improvement, I might borrow more ideas from Marlina (2009) and work on other avenues of discussion which do not focus on verbal communications, perhaps via interactive technologies.

With a large proportion of my management classes made up of Asian students this is a topic with considerable impact to my teaching. Should silence be taken for granted or can the lecturer foster an environment full of verbal contributions? I would really like to know how others have combatted this situation. Many thanks for reading!

Response:

You have totally captured the awkwardness and difficulty associated with students’ contributions to class discussions, and I very much agree with your proposed strategies. One of my favoured activities to get students talking is giving each sub-group within a tutorial group a flipchart/whiteboard and pens with a different set of questions which they have to work on and then present to the class as this means that all students have to contribute. (Simon Oldham, Business and Management)

In response to ‘Hitting the Wall and Fighting the Dreaded Silence’ (Harvey Moyne)

I have the same experience as him in my seminar. Some of the seminars have a few students attend, and increasing the class atmosphere is hard. After looking at your experience, I had a self-reflection and understood what I should do in the next term. (Yuen Yui Lam, HRM)

Response (Scott Downham, Politics):

In my experience, unless one has a very outgoing, advanced-level, small class, “whole class discussions” are a myth. These are often really just discussions between the teacher and the most outgoing and knowledgeable student or two, as you suggest. I think it is entirely reasonable for students to opt to avoid any risk of embarrassment in front of all their peers, given the option, in case they get it wrong, fumble their words, and so on, and unreasonable to expect otherwise. The affective atmosphere of awkwardness and fear is also something I no longer want to subject people too. My solution is to only discuss with students 1-on-1 or in their small friendship groups, when everyone else is also busy discussing stuff. You’ll be amazed that even the most supposedly "shy" students are all more than happy to talk to you, ask lots of questions, even joke around. After, you can always summarise interesting points, for the whole class.