Teaching Online at UTAS

In their book, Learning in Groups: A handbook for face-to-face and online environments, Jacques and Salmon (2007) recount the story of a British business lecturer who faced decreasing attendance at weekly seminars. Seminar participation was not assessable or compulsory, but the lecturer felt that attendance was of benefit to his students..

The lecturer sent out a notification to all students stating that they would only be allowed into a seminar if they brought along a ‘passport’ (a half A4 page), containing notes from their recommended readings for that week. At the start of each tutorial, he would collect the cards, amass them over the teaching weeks, and then hand them back to the students when they sat for the exam.

Collecting the cards resulted in a higher attendance at tutorials – students clearly liked the idea of being able have their notes given to them as reference materials for their exam. The lecturer also noticed that students were far more engaged and interacted more frequently during tutorials.

If you wanted to use a similar technique at UTAS, we strongly advise consulting the Exams Office before agreeing to allow notes in an exam.

Reference

Jacques, D & Salmon, G 2007. Learning in Groups: A handbook for face-to-face and online environments, 4th edn, Routledge, New York. *This text is available at the UTAS Library.