Assignment 3 - Designing Probe

Nightmare indeed. We were warned by Mr. Reddy that it was the proclaimed "Nightware assignment" by past students of the module. Yes it was.

Its not so much about the workload per say, but trying to find a solution (which might never exists!) No right or wrong (which sometimes happens to be more difficult!) Boon, min and myself spent quite a bit of time brain storming, what methodology to use and all.

To make matter worse, it was e-learning submission week~ Meaning we had to submit our presentation online (which was nightmare to us - our submission just hung it there for several times. Finally got it uploaded though)


General Theme

As it was e-learning week, we thought of using the theme of a Radio show to convey our design probe for lecture learning experience. It is similar to radio shows that invites guests into the record room to "learn from the experts".

Methods

We used mainly 3 methods, VBR (visceral, behavioral and reflective) analysis on 4 lecture theatres, cultural probe and laddering. It is quite a weird combi per se, but Mr. Reddy did mentioned that we ought to improvise and mix-&-match techniques and methods. That's what we did. Heh.

Research and execution

We sought of spent quite a bit of time surveying suitable lecture theatres, and executing the laddering and cultural probe. Most were not sure what they were, so we gotta explain and show-tell what to do etc. It didnt turn out too bad, as laddering enabled us to go down to the root of the problem.

Recording voices and dialogues

We brainstormed for quite a long period as to how we can convey our dialogues through a "conversation". In the end, we came up with 3 fictious characters, a lady DJ (min), a prof (Boon) and a research assistant (me!). We chose the library discussion room for the recording of the dialogues as there's this "echo" feel that the room can provide, which mimics the recording studio's.

NGs

Yes, we cant possibly record the entire conversation at a go! And guess what, we had a total of 62 NGs, heh. We spent like around 3 hours recording in the room.

Analysis

We finally came out with a conclusion, based on 6 factors that affects the overall experience.

They are:

Main factors

• Lecturers
• Students
• Content

"Minor" factors

• Technology
• Time
• Place

Below is the proposed cycle that all can use it as a reference in providing a better LT learning experience.

Preparation work must be done by the lecturer, knowing the subject matter and preparing the teaching materials (interesting ones if possible).

That's how you can get the students engaged and have a 2 way interaction/communication. With this achieved, students will thus be interested in learning.

To further engage students, there should be challenging activities and content that students can construct new knowledge and higher order thinking, and not memorization or other traditional way of learning.

There will be decent payoff, say students construct new knowledge, and will be able to apply the knowledge to new scenarios etc.

Lessons learnt

It was a tough "need" to satisfy, and there's no one solution to this demanding need, as no students learn the same way. However, we can assume that there are several distinct groups whereby the way of learning is similar. We hope our framework can be applied to all the groups though. :)