Complete thesis - Murdoch University

On another topic will you be in during class time on Thursday todiscuss revision questions for the exam. Thank you for your timeand understanding in this matter, and sorry for any troublesthis may cause.This year, however, some students considered the portfolio component as useless work (toomassive workload with mind map and summaries; there is not a lot of work to submit but theamount of boring reading).The major theme to emerge from all the data collected relates to the like/dislike of thelearning environment. Of particular note, some elements considered ‘bad’ by the students(learning by doing) are a highlight of the PBL process. This may be a reflection of studentapproach to study or preferred learning style, and deserves further investigation.However, this was not really an unexpected result. The learning style profile of the cohort hadindicated PBL would be a challenge, both for ‘old’ Murdoch students and those articulatingin. It was also very different from any other unit they had undertaken previously. Studentmotivation was higher than in the previous year, but this could be attributed to reasons otherthan the PBL environment: for example the anecdotal evidence that articulating studentsare more likely to undertake set work.The strategy applied – PBL – emphasises student responsibility for learning and requires achange in teacher role from instructor to facilitator (Savin-Baden, 2000) as well as studentrole to more pro-active learning. However, it is a process-oriented approach to learning,implying process is of greater importance then the product (Dahlgren, 2000). This raisedissues of several types:• students are very product oriented – they see the artefact (generally the code theydevelop) as the primary goal of the activities they undertake. Being made to focus onprocess to (in their perception) the detriment of the product was very frustrating, andhad some detrimental effect• the dependence on process also had some detrimental effect on the creativity enhancingenvironment that had been developed. As Edwards (2004) notes, the nature of designimplies a need for flexibility – the unexpected is expected. The PBL process was constraining– in theory students were required to follow process stages in sequence, evenif the aha! factor suggested otherwise• the student perception of the new learning style as problematic (a ‘bad’ thing about311