Better learning by teaching less

On October 4, 2016 the 4TU Centre for Engineering Education and Education in the Spotlight invited speakers Kristina Edström and Jakob Kuttenkeuler from KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden to reveal all and give a workshop. They showed illustrative cases where, in clearly designed courses, the assessment method was subtly tweaked with clever techniques and tasks to stimulate student participation, responsibility and commitment.

A regular assignment cycle with exercises which the students peer assess following the teacher’s template and which are not graded, leads to deep and livelier discussion of the subject matter. Students get repetition, variation and prompt feedback. They spread their effort over the whole course and get a real sense of how they progress. Learning outcomes improve as the quantity and nature of student efforts adjust from passive to active in response to these demands. Also accounting for less re-sit exams, the savings in teacher time are significant.

Teachers can supplement this base with oral final exams putting the onus on the student to start by demonstrating their mastery of the subject, adopting minimalist grading regimes, avoiding over correction allowing students to identify their own errors using lists of common mistakes and flipping the classroom and allowing student led lectures.

By doing this teachers are putting key principles into practice to increase the students’ time doing tasks, and to generate the right learning activity. Harnessing social motivation stimulates students to give each other timely feedback when it counts and the continuous assessment allows them to gradually assimilate the levels of quality expected from them.

“The result is a warm, safe atmosphere where lecturer and students can learn together,” said Edström. “Lecturer student interaction becomes quality time that is more meaningful and fun.”

These are cost neutral interventions that allow teachers to concentrate their efforts and teach more effectively. They do need to adjust their role to a facilitator and develop other time and people management skills, especially sensitivity to students from other cultures.