Improving Learning Experience in Lecture Theatres

After completing our investigations and presenting our findings to the class it was discovered that the conclusions reached by most groups was that to improving the learning experience of a lecture theatre is subjective and changes from person to person, based on how the individual learns best. Therefore, there is not one perfect solution to help improve the learning experience in LT’s for the masses.

However, our approach to how we came about to our solution is as follows.

Observations
As a portion of our ethnographic studies, we completed some observations while sitting in lecture theatres. The purpose was to evaluate how students acted and reacted to things in lecture theatres. From the environment surrounding them, to the lecturer, to even the time of the lecture itself. After observing several different lectures we came to some conclusions:

· Most students do not prefer to sit in the first few rows of a LT. They like to grab seats at the corners or the end.

· Students usually pay most attention at the beginning of a lecture. As time passes they lose interest and hide themselves behind their laptop or notes as they talk to their friends or do other things.

· Lecturers come in all sorts of shapes and forms. Most of which do not do a good job of teaching especially when they don’t read the feedback from the students

· The size of the lecture tends to also have a big impact on how students seem to learn in a lecture. It seems the smaller the lecture size the more attentive students remain.

Survey

Based on the observations, we developed a list of factors that influenced the learning experience in lecture theatres. We then created a survey to find out directly what the habits of students were and what they preferred for their lectures:

Summary of results:

• Time of lecture: 75% - 10am – 12pm

• Duration: 1.5 hr – 41.7% and 1 hr – 38%

• Class size: 25-49 – 37.5% (most in general like small class size <>

• Format of lecture: Seminar Style (more participatory) – 70.8%

• Characteristics of lecturer: Clarity of speaker – 95.8% (23), Charisma/Enthusiasm – 70.8% (17),

• Other notable - most people were concerned with not hearing properly (accent, speed of speech, etc)

• Temperature of LT: 22-24 degrees – 50%

• Misc. factors affecting learning experience: tired, bored, hungry, noisy students

• Based on pervious experience what do you think helps you learn in a lecture theatre learning environment:

• Having interest in the topic/subject matter being taught in the lecture

• Professor having proper knowledge in the field

• Writing out notes helps keep you paying attention, if you want to pass

• Enthusiasm of the lecturer

• Interaction or involving the students

• Visual aides

Laddering

From performing the ladering technique on users we were able to find out extra factors that made the learning experience of students better or worse. We started all of our laddering approaches with the question: “What don’t you like about the learning experience in a lecture theatre?” The direct answers to this question came in the form:

• Hard to take good notes on the small side tables

• Difficult to listen with others talking

• Lecturer isn’t organized

After divulging deeper into the laddering approach it became evident that all of these stemmed from students wanting to do well in life (having successful jobs).

Thru laddering we were able to justify the importance of improving the learning experience in lecture theatres, as it is obvious that most if not all students hope to do well in school to in turn allow them to be success in a career path in the future.

Interviews

Along with the surveys, we asked users to answer a few questions that we found were important after going through the observation period. A select few questions and results are below:

What is the one thing that bugs you about lecture theatres in NUS?
The lack of power sockets. They're either too far or all in use.

What do you think could be included in lectures that would greatly change your experience?
I think that if food and drinks were provided before the lecture, it would mentally change what you expect from the class.

What disturbs you the most during a lecture?
People walking in and out of the lecture theatre. You have to adjust your position to let people through and you sometimes lose your train of thought.

Solution

Based on our findings, we noticed some interesting trends in what we observed and what students seemed to really want as an improvement to the learning experience in lecture theatres. As a group we thought that we would outline an ideal lecture theatre that would meet the needs of majority of students.

You arrive in school for your first lecture at 9.45am. 15 minutes early, to have breakfast and a nice hot cup of java waiting for you outside the LT. The LT has warm red walls, is gently curved and can comfortably accommodate about 50 students. You go into the LT 5 minutes before the lecture starts with your coffee and sit at your usual spot. The temperature is just right at 22 degrees, cool but not cold. The wood finished table is big enough to accommodate all your lecture notes and your laptop. There is a powerpoint conveniently located at each seat as well as microphones so that the whole class can hear whenever someone asks a question. The chairs are on rollers and have arm rests, they are comfortable and ergonomic with cushioned arm rests. As you ease into your chair, people walk behind you to get to their seats. There is more than enough space between seats so that people can move comfortably in and out without disturbing others.

The lecturer is engaging, and clear in speech. He cracks jokes every once in awhile and uses relevant videos to explain the concept. There are short classroom exercises where you interact with one another and discuss questions. This aims to help you understand the concepts within the lecture hour itself.

As described above, our solution would meet the hierarchy of consumer needs. Having a comfortable, spacious and overall “feel good” feeling in our LT meets the pleasure need of the consumer. The easy to use equipment available meets the usability need. And lastly functionality wise, just being able to see and hear the lecturer properly is also met.

The solution of the ideal LT was broken down again to determine its validity through the four pleasure analysis:

Physio Pleasure: The feeling of space and the wood finished tables. Comfortable chair which fits seamlessly with the body.
Socio Pleasure: Being able to interact with the rest of the class with microphones
Psycho Pleasure: Satisfaction of being able to grasp concepts taught in class itself.
Ideo Pleasure: Love the style of the lecture and the layout of the LT.

Other Presentations

After listening to other groups’ presentation we found that we had arrived at similar conclusions, some being almost identical to us, in terms of the findings and observations. Some groups talked more about the energy needed by a student to get the most out of learning, and by increasing this energy it would in turn increase the learning experience.

Possibly improvements to the solution would be to actually device some experiments to study the affects of the students in some possible solution scenarios (ideal LT’s). It is impossible to know if improved learning experience is based solely on improved marks. Therefore, I believe that we would need to increase the sample size and perform a proper experiment to truly determine a solution on improving the learning experience of lecture theaters.