Teaching and Learning Club (TLC) - 4th Gathering (Faculty)

Date: 18 November 2010 (Thursday)
Time: 5.00pm to 6.30pm
Venue: Physics Conference Room, S13 Mezzanine Level
Title: Technology-assisted Learning

A/Prof Sow Chorng Haur welcomed participants to the 2nd TLC for faculty members for the semester. He said that participants could use this platform to discuss and reflect on their experiences with regard to technology-assisted learning. Dr Lee Hon Sing from NUS Business School and A/Prof Laksh Samavedham each gave a short summary on his use of technology in class.

Dr Lee Hon Sing

Dr Lee said that finance students need to remember a certain amount of basic knowledge first – for example, what is a stock or a bond, and how to read a financial statement; learn principles of finance such as interest rates, risk & return; and then try to sharpen their financial sense by introducing real world scenario.
He used technology to enhance 3 areas:

1. Help students to visualize concepts
2. Communicate
3. Keep track of progress

Technology used

1. WebEx
   Is a web conferencing software that allows you to communicate with others over the Internet. This is the best alternative when the person you want to talk to cannot be present. You can talk to others while showing or sharing a document or computer application. There’s also a white board facility, where everyone can write on the white board interactively. The session can also be saved to be viewed again later. Click here for more details.

2. Breeze
   Breeze is an authoring tool which makes use of PowerPoint, enabling you to add audio, video and interactivity to create standalone web-accessible presentations. He has used Breeze to record lectures, which can then be viewed at leisure. Click here for more details.

3. Camtasia
   Allows you to capture anything that is displayed on your computer screen, whether it is presentation slides, a website or a particular software. The drawback is that it does not allow students to jump slides. On the other hand, Breeze is limited to PowerPoint on Windows, although Breeze allows for some basic interactivity such as simple quizzes. Click here for more details.

4. Clickers
   Clickers are an interactive technology that enables instructors to pose questions to students and immediately collect and view the responses of the entire class. This is how clickers work:

   • Instructors present multiple-choice questions (verbally or with presentation software).
   • Students click in their answers using remote transmitters.
   • The system instantly collects and tabulates the results, which instructors can view, save, and (if they wish) display anonymously for the entire class to see.
   Click here for more details.

The estimated cost is $80 per clickers + licensing fee

1. Others: Facebook; Flash Programming – stock investment game, bond calculator, hand phone application such as financial calculator; IVLE; Online assessment; Forum; Blogs

A/Prof Laksh Samavedham

Why technology was used?

1. To add value, not to substitute face-to-face contact
2. To help students learn better
3. To handle time and space constraints

He first got introduced to Breeze and learned to add voice to his PowerPoint presentations. Later he picked up Camtasia Relay; and picked up WebEx from his graduate students.

He divided technology into two types. Inside the classroom, he used “domain” technology to demonstrate solution of hard problems. He also did active learning exercises. Outside of the classroom, he used “Educational” technology (chat rooms, discussion forums) to support learning. He said that he views technology as more useful to engage students outside the classroom.

In his graduate class, he has students with differing backgrounds and knowledge; hence, he tried to pitch his lecture to the “middle” ground. He used to run quite a number of 3-hour sessions on Saturday mornings to get some of these students up to speed but with the use of recorded presentations, it was not necessary for him to conduct as many Saturday sessions. Also, technology freed his time in the classroom to focus on more advanced concepts and challenging problems.

He added that some students wanted to be challenged and wanted to learn more advanced topics beyond the planned syllabus. To cater to such students, he put up more advanced topics online for students to view and learn. This was followed by face-to-face or chat room meetings. More than that, he also saw it as an opportunity to tap on the expertise of senior graduate students who had used or developed more advanced techniques in their research.

He used to have a research group reading on Thursday mornings but found that students were unengaged i.e. they did not ask questions or simply did not show up. To get around the problem, he identified one presenter each week from his class who would then be uploading his or her presentation on the Internet. Others would be viewing this presentation and asking questions. Then on Thursday, they would meet via WebEx. All questions go to him first. He could archive the lessons. And he is glad to report that it has been a good experience for the students.

The following questions were raised at the meeting, with answers from the respective groups:
Group 1
Q1: What do you think should be the role of technology in teaching?

• A supplementary role
• To add value and not to replace lectures; use of face-face lecture remains important rather than being diminished by technology; starting a new module with face-to-face contact is very important
• There was a survey done by one of the group members as to why people don’t use technology –they were not used to it or felt that it would not work

Q2: How do you use technology in your own teaching?

Animations, various versions of web, discussion forum, IVLE

Q3: What might be some of the drawbacks of using specific technological aids in teaching, and especially in IT in education?

Group 2
Q1: What do you think should be the role of technology in teaching?

• Fundamental – students are aggressive with the use of technology, they enjoy and demand it
• Enabling – the role of technology is to enable and to engage the students
• Maybe not always higher level, but regardless they are engaged
• Stage fright avoidance – some faculty have stage fright, technology may be used to their advantage
• Simply recording your lecture is just the basic, not the most important thing to do. But use technology to engage the students through discussion, testing them using the clicker method, and challenging the students.
• Technology can be divided into 2 areas – a) content b) higher order engagement and assessing how students learn

Q3: What might be some of the drawbacks of using specific technological aids in teaching, and especially in IT in education?

• Time-consuming, some think it might not be so significant
• Large classroom settings, the bigger the more difficult to get to 2nd phrase of engaging students
• Concern whether the teachers will be replaced
• Perceptions – some faculty may not be interested

Group 3
Q1: What do you think should be the role of technology in teaching?

• Meant to assist but not replace lectures
• Class which needs to visualize model – supplemented with actual model
• Special technology – low tech (toys that can be brought to class) and high tech (realistic toys) such as those used by the medical schools

Q3: What might be some of the drawbacks of using specific technological aids in teaching, and especially in IT in education?

• Overexposure to IT: students can get caught up with the use of IT and miss the main point