learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Glenn Duckworth
very basic level which is crucial for making that first quite big step into the theory… With
Economics being the biggest part (of the module) this helps them enormously. It’s the
first thing they do, it’s sixty percent of the module… it’s a much easier entry than it would
have been without it.” - Module leader for Management in a Complex World.
The lecturers also believed that the exposure to the subject via the pre-workshop activities helped
with student confidence and may have relieved some of the stress and anxiety associated with
beginning the intensive courses:
“I think confidence is crucial. Taking on the MBA is a big challenge for anybody. They are
working as well… so they’ve got continual pressure from that direction. Anything which
eases the stress or burden will build that confidence. And I’ve found a remarkable
difference between the way they used to be before we started this process and the way
they are now. It’s a really valuable initial first step. And for them I think they’ve got a …
safety curtain. They know that if they understand these things then they are well placed
to follow the course in for them, what is a very demanding post-graduate area.” - Module
leader for Management in a Complex World.
“It maybe alleviated some of their concerns about an accounting module. Before, I had to
try and do that in the classroom… so basic accounting terms were introduced to them in
a way that they probably thought ‘this isn’t that complicated really’.“ – Module Leader for
Managing Decisions.
7. The glossary exercise
The glossary exercise was seen by students and staff as being a very useful resource. Students were asked
to indicate whether they found the task to be useful in their learning. With the phrase “I thought the task was
useful”, 95% of respondents indicated that they agreed or strongly agreed (detailed figures are included in
table 1).
The majority of the students on the three modules found the tasks interesting and engaging and most of them
also indicated that the glossary exercise helped them to grasp key concepts.
Table 1: Student views on the glossary exercise (all figures rounded to 1 decimal place)
Phrase Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly
disagree
agree
“The task was useful” 0% 5.3% 0% 44.7% 50%
“Completing the task helped me grasp key concepts” 0% 3.4% 17.2% 41.3% 37.9%
“The task was interesting and engaging” 2.3% 7.1% 11.9% 42.9% 35.7%
They stated that the glossary exercise gave them a method to assess their understanding of the
reading materials and “forced us to do the reading” – which was seen as a good thing by all who took
part in the exercise.
A sample of student comments:
“Very brilliant introduction to the module and sets the tone for what the module entails.”
“Helps to reflect on one's understanding.”
“Some of the descriptions were so similar that you had to understand not just to have
speed read.”
“It had drag and drop and write your own – very challenging.”
“Helped embed terminology.”
“Very useful as a warm up.”
“Good and welcome initiation to any module. Sets the tone and gives a brief insight into
what the module will entail.”
Students were asked whether they would like the glossary exercise to be incorporated into other preworkshop
components of future modules (with content tailored for that module). Every respondent
said that they would like to use it again, and quite surprisingly, more than half of them (60%) said that
they would like it to be incorporated into every module.
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