CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
4.3 T EACHERS ’ R EFLECTIONS
4.3.1 Computer Teacher’s Observations and Afterthoughts of the Project in phase I study
study
1. Pre-PBL preparation
The computer teacher reflected that workloads during the project period are actually more than the regular class instruction. The instructor needs more time to prepare the projects beforehand; this involves determining the topics and the special flow of information, planning for activities, preparing the class instruction, and building the assessments. The preparatory work the teacher needs to do includes the creation of the printed lecture, the model project, weekly progress reports, in-class handouts, final report
checklist, presentation evaluation form, self evaluation form, project participation form, voting ballot, certificate, questionnaire, and so on.
2. In-PBL preparation
Because students are allowed to formulate their topic of research, albeit with consultation with the instructor, the wide range of topics forced the instructor to do some extra studying of her own. In addition, the instructor has to require the students to achieve the work and to complete their weekly report and at the same time closely supervise their progress and the content of their research. Each week the teacher must announce the best work of the previous week for display. In each period, she put up the poster of each team in front of the classroom and recorded the performance and the progress of each team in class to make the evaluation as fair as possible. The instructor can view this as an opportunity or a challenge to supplement her knowledge, to sharpen her teaching skills, and to make her a better teacher.
3. Post-PBL preparation
The related activities concerning PBL take diversified and multiple evaluations, such as self-assessment, work report and progress, posters of each team and project work.
Comparatively speaking, post-evaluation of PBL takes much more time than that of traditional lectures.
4. Quality of work
The instructor uses the following strategies to keep track of the work progress of the students: (1) constantly emphasized the learning activity for the project; (2) reminds the students to show their projects to all the students; (3) selects the outstanding work for public demonstration; (4) holds the official group presentations, and invites the foreign guests to participate; (5) includes the learning attitude of the students and the classroom order as a reference for grading; (6) walks from aisle to aisle to show care and concern about the students’ work instead of staying on the platform; (7) checks out the
work progress of the students regularly to ensure the students complete their work before the deadline; (8) asks the students something about their thematic content and also points out their weakness or their errors, and; (9) puts up the poster in the classroom and keeps a constant record of the performance and the work progress of each team to make evaluations as fair as possible.
The instructor thought some groups really did a good job but some groups didn’t meet the requirements. Some students thought they had a very heavy burden from their schoolwork, so they did not have enough time to devote themselves to the project. It followed that they often copy-pasted the firsthand information. But those who worked hard on their group project showed their originality and organization or did their layout in a more vivid way. From the project, students did benefit a lot from gathering information through the search engines. Though it was convenient to get access to the information, it challenged the students to judge if the materials were correct and unbiased. It was often thought that students spent more time on information gathering than on analysis and understanding of the materials. Moreover, the questions raised by the students focus more on the operation of the software than on the knowledge of the computer science or the ways of assessing the data. Due to the above demerits, the teacher really had to supervise the student’s work from time to time.
5. Oral presentation
The students in Taiwan are not used to giving presentations to their peers. Thus, when it comes to a presentation, most groups do not meet the teacher’s expectations. In other words, their presentations in class are weak by comparison to her expectations. One group even read through their slides word for word without once looking at the audience.
The instructor used some strategies to improve the in-class presentation: (1) the voting activity—the instructor, the students and the invited guests can choose the winner of the best content, the best artwork or the best performance to encourage the students’
participation; (2) questions—the teacher can request the students answer the questions proposed by the teacher, the students, or the guests to boost their interaction; (3) demonstration—the teacher can demonstrate the skill of how to make a presentation, including the mannerisms, the terms for introducing the ideas and the bearing; (4) the handout—the teacher can remind the students of the content and the focal point of their work on display; (5) display—the teacher can transfer the location of the display to the average classroom to help the students concentrate. As a result, some students enjoyed showing their own work in public and expressing their opinions. Others did not like to confine their work to meet the requirements of the teacher. They voiced their opinions and presented their unique work, which was beyond the teacher’s expectation.
However, the students, the school principal, and the homeroom teacher appreciated the PBL approach to learning. They also think that PBL is a good way to practice non-academic aspects of education, including teamwork and development of presentation skills.
6. Group work
The teacher needs to demand that the students compose the weekly progress reports during the project, and supervise their work progress. Furthermore, the individual performance will play a crucial role in the grading of the whole group. That is, each group divides its work equally and assigns the share of the work to each member. By means of self-evaluation, students feel free to comment on the work of the other members and at the same time has more chances of interacting with them. This creates an atmosphere of cooperative learning. On the whole, the students like such a cooperative way and enjoy the feeling of ―giving and taking.‖
7. Software skill acquisition
The students indeed gained deeper operational knowledge and skills at using the
―MS-Publisher‖ software taught in class. PBL calls for learners to acquire and develop the central learning concepts by way of solving problems or making by-products that require the contextual knowledge to be learned.
During the PBL activity, the computer teacher took extra time to explain PBL procedures and what constitutes a good project. Specifically, an extra week (one class period) was allotted for project presentations, which enabled the teacher to give detailed feedback to each group of students.
The computer teacher’s comments included the following.
“Students had very little experience working on projects. They require additional practice in many areas, including finding reputable websites as information sources and using application software for writing reports and preparing presentations.”
“Organization and analysis of collected data is another weakness (of the students).
I had to spend additional time helping each group to structure their final report.”
Partly because of the tendency of entering college and partly because of the pressure of taking a Joint Entrance Exam, the students are less likely to do complete a large-scale project that divides the work and put emphasis on cooperation. To students, this special topic seems more challenging and time-consuming, but students generally reflect that they studied more and benefited a lot from interaction and research. Students, on the whole, can accept this kind of learning method, and fully enjoy the cooperative
learning with their undivided attention on their project. From our viewpoint and experiences with this method, we feel that PBL enhances the learning environment.
Student’s learning attitude shifted from passive to active and the classroom atmosphere changed from dull to lively. PBL does enhance students' learning in computer science concepts and their software usage skills. Students are learning in all aspects, including how to interact and cooperate with others, how to extract important and useful information out of large amounts of collected data, and also how to learn about the chosen topic for the project.