A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

66 ❘
Teaching, supervising, learning
LECTURING TO A VARIED STUDENT GROUP
It is not uncommon for individual modules to be offered on more than one degree
programme, and this can lead to a student group that has a very varied background
knowledge base. Despite these differences, the learning outcomes for the module will
be the same and there is some skill in managing the diverse student group to the same
end-point. Another possibility is that there may be students studying together in the
same lecture group with slightly different learning outcomes. Use of other teaching
methods alongside the lecture, such as small group work, projects, seminars and differing
assessment strategies, can justify teaching the student group together.
To make the lecture a good learning experience for all students, the following
suggestions may help:
• Find out as much as possible about the student cohorts who will be attending the
lecture, in particular what they may already know about the subject so as to profile
the range of knowledge and subject disciplines of the students.
• Acknowledge to the students at the start that you know they are a varied group and
that the content, organisation and supporting materials for the lecture will reflect
this.
• Use examples, or case studies, that are varied and reflect the subject disciplines of the
group.
• When undertaking class tasks, suggest to the students that they work in their closest
disciplinary cohorts.
• When appropriate, ask the students to work on different problems or consider
different questions that are relevant to their knowledge base or subject discipline.
• Make explicit reference to specific additional resources each cohort can access for
support after the lecture.
Case study 3: Bringing relevance to the
lecturing of robotics
In teaching robotics to engineers, it is vital that the theory is learnt in context and
that there is an understanding of its application. I therefore chose an approach
whereby the students were encouraged into increasing levels of enquiry and
enthusiasm through the consideration of possible solutions to actual robotics
scenarios, linking this to the theory in the principles of robotics as the weeks
progressed.
All lecture slots lasted for two hours. In the first lecture, the students were
introduced to the topic of robotics through written case examples and relevant
video material, showing illustrative applications that ranged from conventional
(welding, paint spray, load/unload of processes, parts transfer) to newer (food