Comments

• • Sze Kiu Yeung@szekiuye

  

  Sze Kiu Yeung March 20, 2011 - 12:06am

   Specifically, the problem of unpredictable classroom allocation in relation to the lab sessions needs to be addressed urgently. Among the 14 lessons available for instructors to teach the BUS017 syllabus, there are four lab sessions of which two are used for the teaching and learning of website design using the Microsoft Expression Web 3.0 web-authoring application. These two three-hour sessions in the lab provide students with the necessary basic skills to design and develop a website which forms the first of two course assignments. As students are required to complete this group project by lesson #10 during which they would have to make presentations to showcase their work, it is therefore necessary for the lab sessions to be scheduled as early as possible so that students can learn the necessary website design skills and have sufficient time to do their project. In previous semesters, labs #1 and #2 took place during lesson three and five respectively (see October 2010 Teaching Plan in Appendix 4). However, in the current semester, both lab sessions have been delayed until lesson five and seven respectively (see January 2011 Teaching Plan in Appendix 5). As the timetable with lab sessions was not released by Administration to the instructors until 28 December 2010 (the new semester began on 3 January 2011), it would be difficult to re-schedule the lab sessions without impacting other courses/classes that need to use the lab as well. For this reason, the teaching of lab #1 took place in lesson #2 in a non-lab classroom (see Lesson 2 Plan in Appendix 6) which is not ideal as students cannot practice their learning with the software.

   

  A second problem caused by the “shift” of the lab sessions is that lesson #10 has become lab #4. Now two problems have arisen here: (1) student-group presentations, which must be made in lesson #10, are taking place in the lab when this is not necessary because only the instructor’s computer is required for each group of students to make their presentation (i.e. the rest of the lab computer resources are idle); and (2) lab #4, which  is a “database” lab, has been “lost” for the teaching and learning of Database Management Systems (Topic 8) using Microsoft Access 2007 and that presenting this topic in a non-lab classroom in lesson #11 (see Appendix 5) is not ideal for students without hands-on practice.

   

  Put simply, the unpredictable nature of lab allocation in the BUS017 timetable has created havoc for the instructors as they are unable to plan for their lab sessions until the start of the semester which has affected the delivery and “flow” of their teaching activities and ultimately impacting on the quality of students’ overall learning experience.

   

   

   

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• • Sze Kiu Yeung@szekiuye

  

  Sze Kiu Yeung March 20, 2011 - 9:58pm

  

   

  Student presentation in the Lab. Note the presence of notebook computers which are not necessary for this lesson (i.e. the Lab resources - notebook computers -are not well utilized - redundant).

• • Sze Kiu Yeung@szekiuye

  

  Sze Kiu Yeung March 20, 2011 - 10:00pm

  

   

  Student presentation in the classroom. Note that this is just a classroom without computers. It is a suitable place for students to make presentation but not suitable if used as a Lab session.