Assignment 4

Task: Improving learning experience in lecture theatres (LT)
For this assignment, Huiyan and I realised that firstly, we need to find out what are the factors affecting learning experience, and how actually, is the learning experience being affected negatively. Therefore, we listed down a long list of factors that we could brainstorm.
Possible Factors:
Lecture theatres:
- Size (if it will affect the learning experience for students)
- Architectural design (can students see the lecturer from the end-corners)
- Accessibility of the LT
- Ambience of the LT (sufficient light?)
- Seats in the LT (are they comfortable for the students to sit still throughout the whole lecture?)
- Technology in the LT (is the projection clear, is the sound system good, are the equipments working well?)
- Temperature control (is it too cold?)
- Lecture timings (is it too early/too late?)
- Sufficient number of power points for laptops?

Lecturer/Pedagogy:
- Punctuality (start and end)
- Clarity in pronunciation
- Class interaction
- Presentation style (OHP/slides)
- Give breaks?
- Webcast
- Delivery of lecture (is it interesting/ interactive?)
- Tone (monotone/speak too fast?)
- Upload notes promptly?
- Quality of notes (useful/ too little information?)

Students:
- Attentiveness/Concentration
- Ability to comprehend the lecture
- Eating in class?
- Punctuality
- Noise level
- Time of lecture

Possible LTs to work on:
- LT 27 (largest LT)
- LT32 (bad location)
- (lecturer uses OHP instead of PPT)
- ST2131 (no lecture notes)
- LT7(rundown)

Possible questions to ask the students:
- What they like/dislike about the LT
- What they like/dislike about the lecture
- What can be improved to enhance their learning experience?

Methods
With the items listed, we began to conduct surveys and questionaires to find out how learning experience can be affected by various factors. After some preliminary discussions, we decide to use the methods below to conduct our findings.
Laddering
- We used this method to understand how the lecturer and LT affects the student.
Modules that we observed:
- CS4265 Advanced topics in E-commerce
- CN4118 Research Project in Chemical Engineering
Ethnographic Study
- Modules that we observed:
- CS4265 Advanced topics in E-commerce

Laddering:
Ching Hui is a student in CS4265.
Q: Do you like the lecturer’s teaching method is this module?
P: Yes, I like it very much.
Q: Why do you like it very much?
P: Because the lecturer conducts the lecture in a very interesting way.
Q: How interesting is the teaching style?
P: There is in-class activity in almost every lesson.
Q: What is good about the in-class activity?
P: The in-class activity presents us the concepts that she (the lecturer) is going to teach for the session, and this allows me to understand concepts better.
Q: Why do you need to understand the concepts better?
P: So that to do well in this module and to improve my CAP.
Q: Why do you need to improve on your CAP?
P: Don’t you want to do well in your studies?
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Eric is a student in CN4118.
Q: Do you like attending lectures in LT7?
P: No.
Q: Why don’t you like in LT7?
P: Because the table and seat don’t go very well, so you don't feel very comfortable resting your hand on the table
Q: How will the bad designs affect you?
P: It affects my concentration.
Q: How does it affect your concentration?
P: I get distracted very easily and will fall asleep after some time.
Q: What is bad about falling asleep in class?
P: I lose track of the lecturer’s teaching, moreover, there’s no webcast for me to go through when I get home.
Q: How will losing track in the lessons affect you?
P: It will affect my CAP.
Q: Why are you concerned about your CAP?
P: I need to do well in my studies.

In summary,
Relevant class activities --> Understand concepts better --> Do better for the module --> Improve cap --> Do well in studies
Bad LT chairs and tables --> Lose concentration --> Affect CAP --> Do badly in studies

Enthonograpic Study
We perform enthonograpic study for CS4265 and observed something interesting.
- Lecturer has class activities for all lectures
- Class activities very relevant to the concept that will be taught during that session
- Students participate in the activities actively.
- Lecture is held during lunch hour (12-2pm), yet nobody eats in class
- Many students answer the lecturer when she poses open-ended questions to the class
- The class is very attentive and participative despite not having any breaks during the lecture.

During this ethnographic study, we realised this is an excellent counterexample of not having breaks and yet active participation remains throughout the lecture.

Summary of findings
After conducting all the studies, we have found out that learning experience in LTs are influenced by:
1. Environment
- Size
The larger the LT size, the class size will be bigger, and it is harder for the lecturer to interact properly with the students.
Without interaction, lessons become a boring give and take thing, and students find it harder to clarify any questions.
- Architectural design
When the lecture theater gets too large, students at the extreme ends are unable to see the contents on the screen when lecturer uses the visualizer.
Students have to squint hard to see what is on the screen, straining their eyes, and the added strain cause them to get tired easily, thus losing their focus after some time.
-Ambience of the LT
Some lecturers like to turn down the lightings when using powerpoint slides, but it creates a very nice dark place which encourages students to fall asleep.
- Seats in the LT
Some lecture theaters, e.g. the LT7 still have plastic chairs which is very uncomfortable for long sitting hours, and students start to fidget after some time, causing students to lose their attention.
Some lecture theaters have broken chairs which are not mended. As there are not enough seats, students are forced to seat at the extreme ends of the lecture theaters, and strain their eyes when trying to read the slides off the screen.
- Technology in the LT
There are some lecture theaters, e.g. LT25, LT32 where the equipments are frequently spoilt.
Precious time is wasted waiting for the technician to come and solve the problem.
Some times, the sound system is spoilt, but the lecturer still carries on with the lecture. Students sitting further away from the lecturer are unable to listen to what the lecturer is teaching.
- Temperature control
Some lecture theaters, e.g. LT19 have temperature that is too cold for students to sit throughout the lecture.
Students can be seen to leave in the middle of lecture to buy hot drinks back. Precious time and information is lost during the trip out to buy drinks.
- Sufficient number of power points for laptops
Some lecture theaters have only 2 power points for the whole theater, e.g. LT33.
Students can be seen to come in extra early to choose the seats near the power point.
Students who are unable to get a power point will be able to use their computers for some time before their computer battery runs out, leaving them unable to view the lecturer’s notes.
- Size of the lecture theatre
Some lectures in NUS are very huge. One example is LT27 at Science Faculty. With such a huge LT with an occupancy of 600 students, students will have difficulty listening to the lecture or to see the projection screen clearly from the back corners.

2. Place
- Accessibility of the LT
LT32 is on a hill and very far from the central of science faculty.
Routes to LT32 are marked with signboards that disappear halfway, making it very hard to find.
Students are tired out after the climb up the hill, affecting the ability to concentrate in lesson.

3. Timing
- Lecture timing
Lectures that start at 8am are too early.
Students are either late for class, sleep in class or skip class altogether
If lecture is not being webcasted, students miss out on lecture

4.Human factor
- Punctuality
Some lecturers tend to end lesson late, causing students to be late for other lessons
Students have to rush for their next lesson will lose out information when they leave before the lecturer ends his lecture.
- Clarity in pronunciation
Some foreigner lecturers have a very strong accent, which is hard for students to understand.
Students have to concentrate extra hard in order to comprehend the lesson, else they will be lost in the middle of the lesson.
- 1 module, Multiple lecturers
Some modules can have up to 3 different lecturers teaching 1 module.
Students have to keep adjusting to different lecturer style.
Added strain on students as it is very hard to adapt to each lecturer’s teaching style in a short time.
- Give breaks
Some lecturer do not give breaks.
Students actually have very short attention span (no more than 15 to 20 min at a time)
Students can be seen to be nodding off in class, eating in class, or going out halfway during lesson to buy food.
Information that actually reaches the students’ mind is greatly reduced.
- Webcast
Students prefer to have their lessons webcasted, as they can choose their own time to listen to the lesson, according to their own pace, without missing out any of the lectures.
Some lectures are not webcasted, and students who are sick either force themselves to attend lesson or they just miss out the whole lecture, which is very unfair to them.
- Delivery of lecture
Some lectures are not interesting, and students tend to lose focus very fast.
- Tone (monotone/speak too fast)
Some lecturers speak in monotone/speak too fast.
Students are unable to catch what the lecturer is talking about, and soon lose attention.
- Prompt upload of notes
Some lecturers do not upload notes one day before the actual lesson (Upload slides at 5am in the morning of the lecture which is at 8am).
Unaware students go to lesson without notes
- Quality of notes
Some lecturer upload notes that has a lot of colorful images but little useful content
Students find it very hard to follow lecture
- Availability of lecture notes
Some lecturers do not give softcopy of notes at all.
OHP slides are released on the spot and students have to copy on the spot
Students who are sick are forced to attend lecture, or they will miss out the whole chapter
- Attentiveness/Concentration
2 hour lecture is too long
Studies have shown that adult learners only have attention span of 15-20 min
Students can be seen to doze off, missing out valuable information
- Ability to comprehend the lecture
In some lectures where the topic is too hard for the students, it can be seen that students are lost in the middle of the lecture, and start chatting away, creating a lot of noise.
Students come out of lecture without learning anything.
- Punctuality
Students are late for lecture, and when they enter in groups, they cause disturbance to the class
- Noise level
Some students go into lecture to chit chat, creating a lot of noise
Students trying to listen to the lecturer are affected

The need to improve learning experience
From the studies, we have found that the most important thing to students is to do well in their studies. On average, students in NUS spend 10 hours each week in lecture theaters. Hence it is very important that students have a good learning experience in lecture theaters to help them achieve the best in their studies.

Solutions
- Keep class size small to increase interactivity between lecturer and students.
- Keep lecture theatre size within a manageable range so that students sitting at the extreme ends will still be able to see the screen and hear the lecturer speak.
- Turn down the lightings near the screen only, keep the lightings where the students sit well lit. This will prevent students from getting too comfortable and fall asleep.
- Change the seats to cushion seats so that students can sit more comfortably.
- Maintain the seats in good condition.
- Lecturers can go into lecture theaters 10 min before lecture to check whether the IT equipments are functioning, so that even if there is something spoilt, there is enough time to call the technician in without disrupting the class.
- There should be a way for the lecturer to control the air conditioning temperature in the lecture theater, so that the temperature can be changed when it drops too low.
- Power points can be increased to accommodate students use of laptops.
- As there is no way to change the location of the present lecture theaters, it will help if the signs leading to the lecture theaters are clearer and well designed.
- Lecture timing can be changed to start at 10 am instead of 8 am, so that students living far off the campus will be able to attend lesson on time.
- The projector can be programmed to auto shutdown 15 min before lecture time finish, so that lecturers will not over run their lessons.
- As clarity in pronunciation is a cultural problem, there is no solution to improve on the accents. Maybe lesson can be webcasted so that students who cannot catch it the first time can go through the lesson again in their own time.
- Short breaks can be given from time to time to keep students’ attention span up.
- It will be good if all lectures can be webcasted.
- Lecturers should make it a good practice to upload their notes at least one day before lesson and at least provide a softcopy of notes for the students online.
- When lecturers realized that students are talking instead of listening to their lectures, they should stop and ask whether the students are lost and if there is any point he needs to repeat. This will ensure that the students are not lost and lose attention.
- Lecturers can make it a point to get students to come in from the back of the lecture theater when they are late, so as not to affect other students and disrupt the lesson.
- Lastly, students should make it a courtesy not to talk unnecessarily in lecture theater as it creates a lot of noise. As it is a cultural problem, there is no solution for this problem, except for lecturers to keep the noise level down.