NAME: Susan Pritchard

PEER-GRADED ASSIGNMENT

TITLE: “MY LEARNING, MY PRIDE”

“My Learning, My Pride”

Challenge: As a Lecturer from Faculty of Business and Globalization from Vlisco,

since 2007 up to 2013 our students used to be so vibrant, so full of energy and always eager to

come to school. This created a very conducive environment for both students and staff

members. For the past three years (2014-2016) our Faculty has been experiencing a challenge

of students’ poor attendance (lectures and tutorials) and lack of interest in their learning.  This

has even affected lecturers’ performance in classes as well. As one of the experienced lecturers

in the faculty, I always reported this challenge in my weekly report. In one of the faculty

meeting I tabled the discussion about this challenge; it became evident that every lecturer was

facing the same problem. I therefore volunteered to lead a team that was to find solutions to

this challenge.

Selection: I chose the storytelling design thinking tool to address this challenge. Storytelling is

an “essential human activity” for sharing experiences, explaining values, and deciding on

solutions through vivid verbal and visual accounts. Stories take on a variety of forms :  visual

storytelling, storyboards, scenario generation, storytelling through videos, animation or talk. I

did use talk form of storytelling so as to be able to narrate the challenge as well as listen to the

students’ concerns. This will also give me the opportunity to discuss with the students the

negative impact of this current challenge on their academic work and why there is a need to

find solutions to resolve the challenge.  Listening engages people and empathy is an essential

and fundamental component in the process of solving the challenge.

Application: Through a series of consultative meetings, my team and I did collect the needs and

interests of students and lecturers. During these consultative meetings, we would use

questionnaires, sometimes interviewing the business students one on one or at times use the

assistance of class representatives to collect students’ views about their current state of

learning and what leads to their lack of interest in their learning. These consultative meetings

also aimed at imagining new solutions that could help the faculty of Business to be more

effective.  Collectively, we designed a learning approach called “My Learning, My Pride”, which

put emphasis on instilling pride in students towards their knowledge based learning not just

been receivers of information during lectures. The feedback we got while listening to the

students, their concerns were that: the teaching methods are the traditional boring writing on

the white board with a marker, there was lack of connection with the industry out there, they

are not able to practice what they are been taught while still learning and hence do not become

too eager to continue with the learning as well as not having sufficient facilities for extra

curriculum activities i.e. sports activities.

“My Learning, My Pride” approach came up with various solutions to meet the students’

needs and hence improved students’ interest in their learning as evident by more than 50%

improvement in the attendance and higher student achievement results in school within the

semester it was implemented(therefore February to May 2017 semester). The solutions we

came up with was: a) to encourage lecturers to make lecture delivery interesting by using

power point slides and projecting them in class instead of the traditional writing on the white

board using a marker (Projectors are already available in the IT department),  b) as part of

student assessment real life projects from the industry are given to students to work on ,

c)periodically organize seminars or workshops for both students and staff members  facilitated

by industry advisors, d) organize industry visits related to students courses for students to

appreciate  what they learn in class, e)Establishment of a Business club  and making club

activities to be more interesting, even involvement of more staff members in the club. The

faculty aims to share this “My Learning, My Pride” approach with every new lecturer during

their orientation. In realizing the success of this approach, other faculties have also developed

an interest in using this approach in the near future as they are also experiencing the same

challenge.

Insight: In applying this design thinking tool it helped me to understand elements that lead to

students’ lack of interest in their learning as well as poor attendance in class. Listening to and

empathizing with the students’ needs, I gained enormous insights into the types of lecture

delivery and different other ways to make their learning interesting and meaningful.

Innovativeness and creativeness are patterns of behavior I found among 21st century education

seeking students. This helped me a lot as before applying this design tool I was merely thinking

its students not been serious about their learning hence not attending lectures and lacking

interest in their learning.

Approach: Based mainly on students’ input, we were able to redesign their learning

environment to better meet their learning needs and desires. So next time, still using the same

storytelling design tool, we will also give more attention to member of staff  so as to get to

address their faculty academic needs and desires as per the faculty’s capability. This is because

lecturers play a very important part in motivating students while delivering lectures in class.

Unhappy lecturers will not be as effective and productive as they could be when they are happy

about their work environment.

