Complete thesis - Murdoch University

Week 4 (all unit information available; well explained and resourced). Later in the semesterstudents were more comfortable with the resources (prescribed text relevant to course andeasy to understand; good web-based material), suggesting the issue was as much the learningenvironment as a whole at the commencement of semester as the resources themselves.Each member of a team was required to ‘research’ what had been identified as the learningelements required, return to the team and discuss their findings in order to re-examine theproblem (phase 3). Students expected the solutions to be in the textbook (more reference toprescribed text course content) – not assembled from the various sources available to them.Through group discussion and negotiation (phase 4) (inability to work alone was an issue), asolution is proposed and documented. Because of the requirements of the University assessmentpolicy these were quite explicitly spelt out. However, some students still had problems(very vague on assessment and what specifically needs to be completed; assessment are vague).Finally a debriefing (phase 5) allows for reflection on the learning process (boring unit).The PBL literature had indicated students required about four weeks to engage with thelearning environment. Despite negative comments about the learning model (don’t really likehow it’s structured; does not have proper course structure; no lecture or tutorial (all fromthe Week 4 Year survey)) some students acknowledged its value (makes you think; helpswith thinking about all areas of a problem (good for other units)), and considered the unitwell structured; interesting; practical; well presented; good for software industry; it’s reallygood. However, the lecturer was required to address student perceptions at a staff meetingreviewing the Year surveys.A greater understanding of teacher characteristics was achieved through applying additional‘Teaching styles’ instruments between Cycle 1 and Cycle 2 of the project (see Section 7.1.2).This had a profound impact on how the teacher ‘behaved’ within the class. The teacher’spersonal characteristics, in particular a directive tendency, was in conflict with the strategyto be applied in this cycle – in fact, a much clearer alignment can be seen between themaster/apprentice model of learning and the teacher’s personal characteristics as ‘Teacher’(see Chapter 6). Therefore, in choosing to abandon this learning model, clearly, changes werealso required to the teacher’s behaviour.This was a difficulty within the classroom, for reasons cited in the PBL literature (eg Bridges(1992)) – academic staff feel a need to intervene early when students seem to be going ‘offtrack’.To mitigate this effect, the approach decided on for ENG260 was that the teacher wouldalways be available within the class environment, but engaged in other tasks. This meantthat, to a large extent, students were required to approach her, rather than being in an305