Results to date show a pleasing increase in the use of effective learning strategies for independent learning by students, especially with the benefit of hindsight.
Reflections on Student-Centered Learning in a Large MS/OR Class John Buchanan John Scott Department of Management Systems University of Waikato
Abstract In the context of taught courses, many tertiary institutions are placing more emphasis on the processes of learning and less on course content. While this is more easily achieved in the small class setting, it remains difficult in large class settings . In this paper we describe an attempt to foster the processes of learning and encourage student independence in a large, first year MS/OR course. We discuss the processes used, outcomes achieved and critical success factors perceived. Results to date show a pleasing increase in the use of effective learning strategies for independent learning by students, especially with the benefit of hindsight. However, a significant minority of students have n ot responded positively to the independence goal.
1. Introduction In the last decade, many university teachers have moved away from the tradi tional reliance on lectures prompted by the view that a high priority must be given to the goal of helping students become intellectually independent (Boud [3], Stephenson [8]). The heightened attention given to this goal of intellectual independence recognises the powerful and enduring benefits that such independence provides, particularly in work situations characterised by constant change and uncertainty, e.g., Handy [5]. In this paper we discuss a f irst year MS/OR course designed to support and encourage more independent learning. An earlier, expanded report is to appear in Scott et al. [6]. The course content comprises total quality management, forecasting, and management information systems; three specific areas which are repr esentative of the three areas of our department (Operations Management , Management Science and Management Information Systems respectively). A short module on Systems Thinking (based on Senge [7]), along with two classes on learning skills, open the course and are used as glue to bind the course together. Over time, our unwritten slogan for the course has become that of an Ashley Brilliant Pot-Shot; "It's easier to learn many other things if you first learn how to learn." Our personal goals were to offer students a variety of ways of working with the course material and make classes driven more by student agendas t han our own. We wanted to encourage students to take greater responsibility for their own learning and become accustomed to the notion of independence early in their degree so that independence could increase with each year of study. Specific qualities we desired to see developed in the students included: - questioning, and being able to formulate worthwhile questions about subject matter, - skilled and sensitive use of a wide range of methods and tools for answering such questions,
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good judgement of the adequacy of their own and others' answers, and self-awareness and a self-critical ability with regard to their own learning and thinking skills. We now discuss the course content. Learning ideas we have tried are addressed in Section 3, followed by a discussion of feedback and outcomes in Section 4. Conclusions are presented in Section 5.
2. The Course Over the five years we have taught this course, there have been small, but important changes in the content of the course. The addition of material on Systems Thinking and the concept of the Learning Organisation in 1995 have better supported the learning goals of the course. The organisation of the course cen tered on the three main components of tutorials, the workbook, and assessment. Large tutorials have replaced lectures. "Lecture notes" are contained in a 500-page workbook, comprising a separate worksheet for each class session. Students are expected to have attempted the relevant worksheet in advance, coming to class to discuss their findings, principally in small groups called buzz groups. Any problems and/or questions that students have, which are relevant to the buzz group discussion questions, are ironed out by the lecturer helped by two or more senior students who move around the lecture theatre responding to raised hands. Average class attendance is 220 students. A typical class begins with an overview comment and administrative detail, followed by several buzz slots - one for each major issue of the day - with summar y comments from the front after each one. In a buzz slot, students discuss in their buzz groups questions from the worksheet, which should have been prepared in advance of class. Our senior tutors will often solicit feedback from different buzz groups by writing on overhead transparencies which are then put up for all to see, and briefly discussed, at the end of the buzz slot. Often, students' responses are intelligent and appropriate, and provide a good basis for further comment from the front. Students invariably copy down the feedback from their peers. Occasionally there is a mini-lecture in the class, a demonstration using some software, a simulation game or even a role play by the students. The class typically ends by looking ahead to the next worksheet. Supplementing the large class tutorials are drop-in tutorials; a place where s tudents can drop-in either individually, or in small groups, and get help from a senior tutor. These tutors are provided with notes for all questions but are encouraged to use Socrat ic dialogue to work with the students rather than provide model answers; again our emphasis on process rather than content. Numbers attendi ng are monitored and additional drop-ins are scheduled if demand requires. The 500-page workbook provides the course foundation. It comprises lecture notes and reading material, administration details, worksheets for each of the 48 classes, and examples of previous tests. A worksheet consists of readings, questions, exercises, summaries and review questions, with ample spa ce for notes and workings. Margin icons identify common tasks which typically follow a repetitive cycle of doing, reflection, summarizing and testing. This workbook approach conveniently brings all course details together under one cover and is relatively easy to alter between semesters before the next course offering. Resulting classes have the opportunity to be more student driven, with staff more reactive than proactive. Also, the workbook approach makes the course portable; we have articulation agreements with several polytechnics in other cities.
Assessment is partly driven by a University requirement that "60% of assessable material is demonstrably the student's own work". Therefore a quiz, in-class tests, a presentation and a short final examination are the main assessed outputs. Both peer and self marking have been tried. Random scripts were re-marked by tutors to discourage cheating and to validate the process. The test and final examination are open book, with applied questions based on short cases and exercises, rather than qu estions requiring recall and repackaging. The presentation requires each buzz group of four students (about 70 groups in all) to give a 15 minute presentation to one of the two lecturers. This encourages the teamwork and independence we are seeking to develop and provides and early opportunity for first year students to get used to presenting. The topic of these presentations has typically been based arou nd articles on double loop learning (Argyris [1,2]) and some personal and group reflection on learning processes. In addition a short assignment uses rich pictures (from Soft Systems Methodology).
3. Learning ideas we have tried Matching different learning ideas with the material has been enjoyable, helping to meet our personal goal of variety. Wide use of the ideas encourages students to work in a variety of learning settings. The "I nteresting Ways to Teach" series Gibbs et al.[4] have been a rich source of ideas. For helping students to learn, we encourage and include information where needed on: - working in groups (also see buzz groups below), - SQ3R and Skimming & Scanning: two techniques for efficient and effective reading, - anxieties: identifying three anxieties, pooling them and discussing ways of overcoming, and - next five minutes: what will you do in the next five minutes of working with this course? In class we have used: - debates on open questions, involving either two halves of the lecture theatre with spokespeople to represent groups, or selected teams of staff and students, - role plays, particularly depicting client/analyst issues, and qualitative forecasting methods (e.g. Delphi), - buzz groups; a mainstay of the course. Effort is put into forming groups of three that can work together throughout the course. This includes formative experience with different groups in the first two weeks, identifying traits of students you would like to work with, workbook notes on effective buzzing/working together, and "pool rules" (= do's and don'ts), - active experiments where students participate in a simple game to demonstrate a particular point, and - music, as a beginning and ending to a session. In formative assessment, we have used a teach/test approach, with review questions at the beginning of the fourth (last) hour in a typical week. In summative assessment we have tried cross-check (i.e., peer marking), although we have found self marking more useful. Finally, for course evaluation we use open questions such as "like/dislike/change" and "if you had to tell someone else about this course". We have used the information from these open questions to produce more formal follow up questionnaires. Such a questionnaire has been used one half year later to test how much use is made of learning
processes in subsequent courses. We typically evaluate during the course rather than at the end.
4.
Outcomes and Feedback How has the course been received? An holistic comparison of responses between 1992 and 1993 suggests a slightly more favourable response to the course in 1992. Despite the course having more "bugs" the first time through and the workbook being more d ifficult to use, we expect that we brought to the 1992 classes a greater sense of enthusiasm and urgency to which the students responded. Here is a situation where the teachers had to practice what they preached. We had exhorted the students to take responsibility for their learning and we were in a situation where we ourselves had to learn as we went along and to modify our plans, almost in response to the previous class. As we became more familiar with the course in 1993 and consequently presented a more professional approach, some of the vulnerability that existed in the previous year (which the students could r elate to and accept) was absent. A commonly occurring response relates to our use of drop-in tutorials. Drop-ins are voluntary. A number of students requested that drop-ins be made compulsory, so that they would be compelled to attend. In the student responses, only 18% of students disagreed with the phrase, Next time I think I would use the drop in centre more. The challenge is to help students to learn this in advance, rather than by hindsight. Presenting this evidence to future classes has made little difference. Student advocacy may be more p owerful, and we have sought to report feedback from graduates. For instance, we recently received the following unsolicited email from a graduate working with Unilever. "I am really busy at the moment as this is my only day in the office this week but I thought that I should write to you while this is fresh in my mind! I have just returned from a course run by Unilever on Accelerative Learning, aka Suggestopedia or Emotopedia. The way that they are training us to teach within the company is right in line with the way that you are teaching the 42-111 course. Mindmapping, music, symbols, metaphors, suggestion, loaded questions.. the list goes on and on. And even though the students may think that it is strange, unfamiliar, and at times too easy... it is the way of the future, and businesses are only just beginning to realise the potential of this type of learning. So, I guess what I am saying is that I am really glad that I had the exposure to this type of learning. Thanks for having the courage and the foresight to teach in this "unconventional" yet so obvious way. I think that later on, as students look back at the course, they will come to realise the value they received from it....." This very positive response helps to illustrate the distribution of responses to this course. Responses are more polarized than usual; casually speaking, students tend to either love it or hate it. Further, the response above illustrates again the benefit of hindsight. The course material, although not appearing particularly relevant at the time (true of many courses we suspect), proves with experience to be useful and applicable. We had examined whether students were still using some of the skills and/or techniques they had been exposed to. We questioned students in a compulsory second year course who had taken our course the previous year. (The sample was unlikely to be biased since students who failed our co urse would still have been eligible for this second year course). We asked which of the following learning skills that we had encouraged students to use, were they in fact continuing to use. The results are in Table 1. While not all of these skills
are directly attributable to the first year course, it is nonetheless an encouraging response, especially since the majority of these skills are not explicitly encouraged in most oth er first or second year courses. Some skills for lifelong learning are being used.
Percentage using this tool/skill
Tool/Skill Skimming and scanning readings (and SQ3R)
62
Preparing before class
50
Picturing ideas
50
Transforming material into another form
40
Learning partners
35
Creating ideas maps
35
Buzz groups
28
Rich pictures
21 Table 1- Ongoing usage of different skills
We also asked students for their view of our first year course both now and compared with their view of all courses in their f irst year of study. The specific question asked was, Looking back on the learning activities you participated in last year, how positivelynegatively do you rate them now? The results are in Table 2.
Mgmt Systems course
All first year courses
Mainly Positive
29%
9%
More Positive than Negative
32%
34%
50/50
23%
43%
More Negative than Positive
9%
10%
Mainly Negative
7%
4%
Table 2 - Comparison of Mgmt Systems first year course with all other first year courses
5. Conclusion The positive response of a good number of students has strengthened our commitment to the underlying philosophy of the course. We have been encouraged by students' self-reports (both undergraduates and graduates) of their continuing use of some of the learning skills that we have introduced. It is the longer term positive legacy of such learning that we hope students will recognize. It also complements effective Systems Thinking. One of the critical success factors of a student centered learning approach such as we have adopted is that of being flexible in terms of structure. If we are seriously going to
consider student input to the agenda for the day, we need to be prepared to leave the classroom without using some of our prepared material. As structure becomes more formalised (and by implication, less flexible), the credibili ty of a student centered learning approach can diminish in the eyes of the students. On the other hand, it is clear that the course cannot be run wholly on student agendas, unless they are consistent with course objectives. It is a fine balance. Another critical success factor for this large class setting is the workbook which allowed for considerable freedom in class. This has proved an interesting combination: a very structured workbook and relatively flexible class sessions. The workbook contained the required content; therefore i f we did not cover every aspect in class, students could visit a drop-in tutorial for additional help. Supporting structures were in place. How do we view the future for ourselves and our students? Some tuning has been necessary to align this course a little more with other first year Management courses, such as including some mini-lectures. While at the same time, other first year courses in Management are moving slightly toward our style. At first year, students are not always that ready to explore new approaches, and we need to be m indful of that in terms of future developments. Content of the course has been influenced by the style of the course, with the more recent inclusion of Systems Thinking/Learning Organisation material. We expect to expand this material further in subsequent years. There is also potential for "technologizing" the course. Possibilities include setting up electronic discussion groups for each buzz group to facilitate asynchronous communication and provide electronic or even multimedia copy of the workbook. Has the course been successful? There are some encouraging signs from students, but the silent majority remain - silent. But for us, will we continue, do we want to work with 250 students in each semester next year? The answer is an unqualified, "Yes!" But will they want to work with us? Hope springs eternal!
References [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
C. Argyris, Good Communication that Blocks Learning, Harvard Business Review, July-August (1994), pp 77-86. C. Argyris, Teaching Smart People how to Learn, Harvard Business Review, MayJune (1991), pp 99-109. D.J. Boud, Moving Towards Autonomy, in D. Boud (ed) Developing Student Autonomy in Learning, Kogan Page (1988), pp 17-39. G. Gibbs, S. Habeshaw and T. Habeshaw, 53 Interesting Things to Do in Your Lectures, Technical and Educational Services, Bristol (1985). C. Handy, The Age of Unreason, Arrow (1989). J. Scott, J. Buchanan and N. Haigh, Reflections on Student Centered Learning in a Large Class Setting, British Journal of Educational Technology, to appear. P. Senge, The Fifth Discipline, Doubleday (1990). J. Stephenson, The Use of Statements in North East London Polytechnic, in E. Adams, T. Burgess (eds). Outcomes of Education, Macmillan (1980), pp 132-149.
