Nightmare Assignment

A “nightmare” assignment with a “nightmare” task: improving learning experience in Lecture Theatres.

Before we began brainstorming, we “dissected” the above task to better understand how to approach the problem.

Improving: to make better and to enhance.
Learning: the acquisition of data, information, knowledge, understanding and wisdom.
Experience: an event someone or something has gone through. Here it refers to the experience of knowledge acquisition, which can be influenced by environment, time, place, other people’s interpretation and previous experience.
Lecture Theatres: it is defined as large formal spaces, tiered and with most seats fixed for about 100 students or more, where the focus is on an individual instructor in the front.

Although lecturers’ teaching style and students’ learning attitude play a huge part in creating good learning experience, it is difficult to change human behaviour. Thus we decided to delve into changing the environment, which can attain maximum results within the shortest time (provided there is enough money). Environment usually has the strongest influence to moods and behaviour. Given the excellent learning environment, learning experience will be improved, hence experiential learning is the key for our assignment.

To make the assignment more interesting, we analysed the environmental setting based on the art of feng shui. This concept has become popular in the past few years, and it has often been integrated with architectural design to harmonize energy both inside buildings and in the surroundings.

Methodology
We were taught several approaches to experience design, but we feel that ethnography is more appropriate as it is an observation of behaviour and surroundings together with research. Given more time, we would have conducted surveys and interviews to gain a deeper understanding on how both lecturers and students feel towards the learning environment in LTs.

Observations
We did some observations of the selected LTs in campus, and we believe that these are not the only problematic ones around.

LT 34
We sat in a lecture in School of Computing to observe the internal environment. Although temperature and lighting was fine, the structure of the LT was a problem. There are pillars at the side of the LT which make it awkward, not to mention that it act as blockages from viewing the presentation slides. Apart from these environmental factors, human factors such as lecturer’s style and students’ attitude are another problem. Many students were either playing games or chatting on Instant Messaging during lecture.

LT 26
It is one of the few “ancient” looking LTs left in campus. Old wooden tables and chairs that make creaking sound and the still air diminishes good learning experience. Not to mention that it gives a claustrophobic feeling. Imaging someone who sits in the middle wants to visit the washroom, and the only way to get out will be asking the whole row to stand up. Troublesome!

LT 32
A long and winding road leading towards the lone LT situated at the top of the hill. The approximate 5 minutes (or longer) walk from the long stretch of road to the flight of stairs will make students tired even before lesson begins.

LT 9 and 10
Another long flight of stairs to climb before attending lessons after walking from AS3.

Findings
Basically, there are four aspects of feng shui:
Environment – Internal and External.
Internal – warmth of the room, smell, the lightness or darkenss, interior design and decorations.
External – landscaping, the surrounding buildings, features that can affect the building such as large body of water .
Building – architecture and design of building Eg: the shape and floor plan within the building aspect.
People – how people are best aligned in the building. Feng shui is about the placement of people and furniture, their interaction with one another to create different circumstances.
Time – Feng shui is based on the Chinese Oracle of Yi Jing (book of change) which states that all things undergo change.

According to the feng shui master, NUS is situated on a piece of good land which is a great place for studies, and also brings the international recognition it has today. Described as “crouching tiger, hidden dragon”, where the silent female tiger makes students docile while Kent Vale was described as the hidden dragon. In addition, the two stretches of roads—Ayer Raja Expressway and Pasir Panjang Road towards Clementi resemble “two arms embracing the school”, whereby “qi” (energy) is kept within the campus.

Harmonics of colour combination is important in affecting mood. It was said that colours such as blue or green will enhance harmony and aptitude for learning. Hence walls of LTs should be of these colours. Red should be avoided as it will increase aggressiveness.

Sounds also have an impact on mood. Playing soothing music before lectures will soothe the mind and increase the power of concentration.

It is found that circular structures reflect the shape of the universe or heaven, where circular movement of “qi” will be encouraged. This will bring us to our suggestion for making the million dollar baby…or LT, rather…

Suggestions
Harnessing the concept of feng shui and the importance of technology, we suggested that a dome-shape LT will improve learning experience.

This inspiration was drawn from Singapore’s Omni-theatre at Singapore Science Centre. When students are involved in immersive and engaging lectures, they will tend to remember and grasp the concepts better. Often learners are forced to create their own mental images to understand situations they cannot view directly. In many instances the result has been a misconception that takes on a reality of its own inside the students’ mind. Thus this will be invaluable for teaching abstract concepts such as that are hard to relate in just using powerpoint slides. The whole point here is to create a larger than life and priceless learning experience.

However, the drawback is that such a dream LT is extremely expensive to build and maintain. Furthermore, only seats closest to the middle of the LT are able to experience the full effect of the immersive view.

Besides using technology, the internal and external environment, as mentioned above, is vital for creating a good learning experience.

Reflections
Theresa's group mentioned that the timing of the lecture is just as important. Indeed, 8am and 6pm lectures are usually the unpopular slots. Early lectures at 8am are sleep-inducing, while 6pm lectures tend to make students lose focus due to tiredness or hunger. Hence it is important that lecturers try to make the delivery of lectures more interesting.

Shuan's group made a good effort in expanding the scope of reserach to SMU. Although different study environment (external and nternal environment) may bring about different learning experience, it all boils down to human factors: teachers and students.

Although feng shui is often regarded as a belief system, rather then being as such, it is very much a scientific concept which has parallels with quantum physics regarding time and space. According to an article from Campus Observer, a renowned feng shui master has rendered his service during the construction of our very own Kent Ridge Guild House. Even for Singapore's very own Suntec City, the architecture has been designed to capture the values of feng shui.

It is interesting to listen to the class's suggestions to improving learning experience. If there is more time, a more thorough research would have been conducted. On the whole, the learning experience for me has been fabulous. The most important thing is having fun while learning something new each time.