Last December, Economics Lecturer at NBS, Dr Kevin Deane, took the unusual step of abandoning 4 weeks of his timetabled lecture programme and replacing it with a group exercise culminating in an academic poster exhibition (see this blog posting for more details!)
The exhibition was a real success, particularly for a first-time event, as evidenced by the comments from the students and other NBS staff who attended the exhibition. That said, Kevin has some definite changes and improvements he would introduce next time around. But, in these days of NSS scores and working to improve the student experience, the big question to be answered is … what did the students think?
Generally, their reflections mirrored those of Kevin himself. Apart from an appreciation of the refreshments (!) the following comments are worth mentioning in response to the question of what was good about the task:
- One student responded by saying that the good thing was the “big range of information exchanged and displayed, very insightful. Food was good, getting tutors and guests involved.”
- Another enjoyed the fact that they didn’t have the pressure of an assessed assignment.
- “People did them relatively well. Rewards were good incentive”.
- Another student commented that it “was a great insight into a variety of economists. It provided me with a better understanding of these economists and their philosophies.”
There were some technical hitches on the day of the exhibition itself. In particular, Kevin had been expecting the room to be ready when he and his students arrived, but an error in communication meant that an hour was lost having to set up the exhibition boards. This did have a significant knock-on effect for students as the first hour of the session was lost. This had been scheduled for a student-student presentation of each of the posters, which would have provided the primary opportunity for students to learn about those other economists being studied by their peers.
The following student comments on what could be done differently/better mirror Kevin’s own reflections. Specifically, the students were keen that copies of the other posters were circulated – something Kevin had already planned to do. This is of particular importance pedagogically – where students are creating and generating module content which forms one jigsaw piece of the whole picture, ensuring that each student has access to the full and final picture is essential. Another comment was that it was rightly considered unfair that some students were asked to produce posters on economists that had already been studied in class whereas others were starting from scratch. Looking ahead, Kevin would ensure this didn’t happen again and recognises that it was purely circumstantial, arising from the decision to move away from lecturing to the poster exhibition after the lectures had begun. In itself, this was engendered by student feedback indicating that the lecture approach to this topic was dry and uninteresting.
One final comment worth addressing directly was that students considered the poster to be “too much extra, [it was] not part of our course.” This feedback reflected a failure to appreciate that this poster wasn’t actually ‘extra’ work per se, rather a change in the way the module content was being taught. In future, Kevin would draw attention to the fact that the requirements of producing a poster are no more onerous in terms of the expected study time than indicated in the module spec: 4 students per group x 3 hours per week of independent study x 3 weeks = 36 student study hours per poster.
Other negative comments included the following:
- It was a lot of work, for no obvious reward in terms of assessment.
- Lack of assessment meant no incentive to produce high quality.
- Doing a poster on one subject was limiting.
- Some people didn’t even go.
Having allowed time for both his personal and the students reflections, the following changes would, Kevin believes, improve the exercise next time around:
- Ensuring that the dedicated time for student-student presentations is preserved to ensure that all students receive the benefit of the work done by other groups and learn about all the economists studied in the module
- Explicitly recognise the focus that students place on assessment and grades and therefore turn the task into the first assessment for the module and run it earlier in the academic year when students were not under pressure to complete assessment tasks for other modules
- Ensure that the key points are captured in a summary ‘timeline’ lecture that places them all in context.
Probably the biggest objection he has to overcome is the idea that this task placed an additional burden on students and this really boils down to managing their expectations more explicitly. A clearer explanation and on-going reminder that the poster itself should be the final product of 36 student study hours (9 per student) would go a long way to removing this objection and engendering in students the realisation that this level of work and time investment is, ultimately, what they are at University for!
