John Moses and Bob Bell

3 Student-centred learning in information systems teaching

John Moses and Bob Bell
From Innovations in Computing Teaching, SEDA Paper 88, 1995. Reproduced with permission.

Introduction

The main aims of the Information Systems Management module (ISM), in the final year of the BA degrees in Computing, are to provide students with skills and abilities to:

- manage, plan and control information systems development
- derive a system specification from a functional requirements statement
- prepare an invitation to tender, evaluate and select from proposals
- participate in the management of hardware, software and database resources
- evaluate and implement security levels required within a database system
- tune a database system to operate efficiently and effectively.

Parts of this module have been taught in the mode described in this paper since the academic year 1990/91. The innovative approach conceived for this module came from comments made and ideas proposed by the module tutor during 1989/90. The tutor made the following notes about the running of the module that year:

'Strategic, planning issues presented the usual conceptual challenge. Project planning and control proved more accessible and the Workshop exercising both topics ran smoothly and elicited some good group performances'.

'Methodologies ' in the second term was received rather passively . The danger of this topic becoming an arid survey was ever present. It is the intention to radically alter the approach to this important topic next year (1990/91) to a more student-centred one. Groups will take responsibility for researching and illustrating a particular methodology or development perspective. The resulting study papers will be presented and copied for other groups.

There was some consternation at the low marks for the essay in the Industrial Relations part of the course (serviced by the Business School). More clarity on the requirements of the assessment will be needed next year.

The examination results were perfectly satisfactory showing slightly more dispersion of achievement than in previous years.'

The need for more student involvement in the learning process is clear from these paragraphs. In addition, the need for clearer student achievement goals was also noted. The methodology described in the following sections has been practised and refined over the last three academic years (1990/91-1992/93) and continues to be practised and has thus reached a level of maturity at which evaluation of the approach can be considered seriously. The innovative approach adopted is described in the methodology section; which is followed by a discussion of the advantages of the student-centred approach and the effects the methodology has had on the student learning experience.

Methodology

Philosophy: To do is to learn (What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing. Aristotle)

The module uses a student self-learning approach to deliver most of the course content; and, therefore, there is very little delivery of knowledge by the traditional lecture method. However, a concise set of basic material (course notes, journal publications, etc.) and a module handbook form the core of knowledge with which a student must be familiar. The bulk of the learning experience, however, is achieved by students tackling two projects, chosen from the ten or so available outlined in the module handbook. These two projects build on the core knowledge and provide an opportunity to develop more in depth knowledge and skills in a particular area of the module, whilst reinforcing the core material.

Delivery

The course has no formal lectures and is composed solely of tutorials which are normally used for group activities and project development. The course is divided into two separate but related parts: each student is required to attend two ISM tutorials per week, one for Database Management and one for Management Issues. Each of these two tutorials is under the supervision of a member of the teaching team. Each student is assigned to a group within their tutorial set and undertakes two group projects: a Database Management project and a Management Issues project. Within a tutorial, each group will have a unique project/case study. However, the same project may be undertaken by another group in a different tutorial. Note, also, that a student will belong to an identical grouping within the tutorial set for both projects.

Some of the project work is undertaken outside tutorial periods. This should amount to about as much as the tutorials themselves. Also, some contingency time for meetings and related work should be considered by groups in order to offset any unforeseen problems. This makes up the remainder of the time students are expected to spend on this module, i.e. 60 hours tutorial contact plus 60 hours outside tutorial periods.

Why group working?

The decision to adopt group working in the ISM module was taken to enable students to gain experience of co-operation with team members in the pursuit of a common learning goal. The experience of group learning is beneficial to group members in their eventual roles in the workplace: it enables group members to develop their own interpersonal skills and in particular, to improve their communication skills. This has been widely promoted by employers, recognised by the British Computer Society and identified by educational inspectors as a necessary quality that graduates who wish to enter the modem world of work must possess. Further, for accreditation with the BCS it is an essential requirement.

Regular group meetings and work provide the opportunity for students to obtain immediate feedback and hence to take more immediate remedial action, if necessary, than is possible with traditional lecture-based methods. A group mark is awarded for the final project report and presentation. Normally, this mark is shared equally amongst members although other arrangements can be made by a group and discussed/negotiated with the tutor.

Groupworking problems

The reality of group working in the workplace is not in doubt. However, occasionally some students feel that they may be penalised if the members of their group are lazy or less able than themselves. Therefore, mechanisms have been introduced to deal with this. The groups are in charge of their own learning and are expected to keep a record of the attendance of every group member and can, in extreme cases, penalise non-attendance at group meetings or failure to produce work on time. The penalty win be a reduction in the individual's mark (in the real world the ultimate sanction is wen known and very effective). Students are given an introduction to group working before the project group work begins. This provides members with the opportunity to recognise each other's strengths and weaknesses and decide how they will manage their group learning and project development. In the unlikely event of an inter-personal problem proving insoluble to a group the tutor is approached to enable a solution to be expedited.

Finally, those students who are still unhappy about their individual grade reflecting their work in the group, may indicate to the member of teaching staff concerned the extent of an individual's contribution to the group, i.e. the individual may sign the pages of the report document relevant to the work they produced within the group.

Project reviews

During the semester there are periodic reviews for each group and staff maintain a watchful eye on the work of each group throughout the module. The emphasis is on sharing experiences within the tutorial group in order to solve any learning, technical or project problems.

Project presentations and reports

Towards the end of the semester, a presentation is given by each group to all members of their tutorial. All tutorial members are involved in the presentation. The group presenting their work are expected to involve the other tutorial members; the tutorial members not presenting are expected to take note and be able to answer questions on the content and final conclusions of the work presented by each of the other groups. Constructive criticism is, of course, encouraged.

Student-centred learning

The approach adopted by the team changes the balance of the breadth and depth which would normally be achieved using a conventional lecture/tutorial style.

By breadth we mean the number of closely linked topics which form a coherent syllabus. Also implied by breadth is the scope of the syllabus, i.e. its ambition in terms of the coverage which is being attempted by the staff delivering the module. In the context of Information Systems Management, the breadth is potentially very wide, ranging from strategic planning through project appraisal and formulation, project management, staffing structures, motivation and personnel issues (for Management Issues) through to Data Modelling and Database Security (Database Administration).

The extent, or depth, to which a topic is explored is a function of detail, rigour, application and critical analysis. To illustrate depth, if we look at a topic such as project appraisal it is possible to proceed from initial discussion of pay-back periods, DCF, rates of return, weights and scores to utility graphs, full economic evaluation, to multi-objective decision making, the application of some or all of these approaches to one or more case studies, a features-based comparative evaluation of their value, culminating in the assessment of the approaches' relative appropriateness to instances of project appraisal. However, project appraisal is only a small part of the whole breadth of topics which are justifiably included in Information Systems Management.

The approach used to deliver the Information Systems Management module deliberately sets out to manage the breadth v. depth conundrum which is implicit in such fairly broad ranging subjects. A conventional approach would achieve breadth through a sensibly organised lecture schedule, but the degree of exploratory learning by students may be limited (surface learning). If conventional tutorials and assessment methods are used to support lectures then some of the topics may receive a fuller treatment and the act of requiring student input will result in more conscious exploration by the students (deep learning).

The approach being used by the Information Systems Management Module team is to cover breadth via duplicated materials. Students will need to master the breadth so as to handle general questions in the end-of-module examination and will therefore be motivated to assimilate this breadth at an admittedly superficial level. The contention is that this breadth is achieved at no more or less a level of depth than for conventional lecture delivery.

Depth is achieved via two mechanisms:

each team (about five students) will undertake an assessed in-depth study and application of process to a case study within two major topics of the module. A report and a presentation will be produced from this;

everyone listens to a full ( I hour) interactively-designed presentation by the other teams with respect to their specialised topics.

Thus two topics will be addressed to a very significant depth and several others will receive a reasonably thorough treatment by virtue of attendance at student team presentations.

The two in-depth studying processes absorb much of the contact time and are supported regularly by staff working with each group of five (a highly effective arrangement for two-way communication) to unlock problems and push each group for quality. Also a large collection of pre-sourced material is available which enables students to extend their own research efforts. Thus the claim made is that frequently the depth achieved in the two topics is close to publishable standards.

Discussion

The innovative approach adopted for the ISM module can be evaluated by comparing comments and statistics collected in 1989/90, when traditional lecture based teaching was used, against similar statistics collected in 1992/93 No significantly discernible difference in student marks can be detected between the two years, and student numbers remained similar.

However, from the student feedback forms, it is clear that there has been a significant improvement in both students' perceived understanding of, and interest in, subjects studied, (18% and 12% respectively). Further, tutor comments are supportive of the approach:

'I am convinced that for many students some genuine deep learning took place. Certainly both reports and presentations were impressive and the depth of answer found in end of year papers was an improvement compared to previous years. The quantity and quality of work going into the presentations often exceeded expectations for undergraduates.'

Conclusions

Caution should be exercised when interpreting the statistics collected on the feedback forms because these are all subjective measures, and uncontrollable, and personal likes and dislikes may contribute to the values attributed. However, it is clear that the approach enables many useful qualities (e.g. communication skills, team-working) to be acquired; and the improvement in ease of subject understanding and subject interest must weigh heavily in favour of the approach. In addition, the depth of understanding shown in examination answers is a very positive and encouraging trend.