- What kind of teaching engages students? Why do they skip classes? What motivates them to learn? The answers to these questions would give us clues about the features or the components to include in teaching for better student engagement. Let's hear directly from students. - Its content has to raise my interest. - Kind of fits in with my needs and my goals. - So when I choose a course, then I see if I will enjoy that course. If I will learn something new in that course. - Well I was looking for something that interested me most of all. Not at job prospects or, so I chose this because it was quite broad, had language, you had to learn a language. It had a little bit of everything so that's why I liked it in the beginning. I think I wasn't very sure what I wanted to do, to be honest. - Interactive and not that we are just sitting in the lecture hall and receiving the lecturers lesson or knowledge but we are also allowed to participate in the lecture actively. Like for example, a Q & A session or some scenario learnings. - The lecturer will actually interact with us and do some experiment on us. This kind of experiment really triggers our interest in learning and would like to devote in class. - I quite like interactive ones, and just ones with like quite a lot of teamwork presentations and case studies. - First of all, I would like to go to lectures that are interesting instead of, that's more interactive I'd say. Because sometimes just sitting there and looking at the powerpoint and hearing the lecturers recite the powerpoint, it might get a little bit less interesting. So I would prefer lecturers that are more interactive that involves maybe more daily lives, or things that we can actually experience rather than just purely academical. - I would like thermodynamics courses. Mostly in thermodynamics there is mostly field work like the power generation and all that. So it seems easy to us, how a pump works, it just increases the pressure of the water, but it's not that easy. How much pressure does it increase, in what time does it increase, how much energy will it use? All these things you have to keep it in mind. And it is really important when we are actually using it. - I like to see like diagrams and pictures on a powerpoint. It's like if it's all words then it's sometimes discouraging for me. For some topics if, like anatomy, then obviously more pictures. Then sometimes if they are flow charts or like diagrams describing the sequence of events in physiology. Then I think they are more attractive for me. - They have good powerpoints that we can follow him easily. 'Cause sometimes they don't use powerpoints or they don't look to students. Also the lecturer, I check sometimes. I just google the name of the lecturer and I check if, what they have done, what masters they have. That's also kind of interesting as well too to see whether I would like the course. - I enjoy lectures, on more small scale. And also from a lecturer who's very knowledgeable but also enthusiastic about what they teach. I think that's the most important thing. - So we probably wanna pick some courses with good grade. - Good grades. Like average they should get an B plus. - Obviously, 'cause I'm a student I think about the grade as well so, I would ask the seniors, that when it comes to common course, which are the ones that I could get a higher grade? (upbeat music) - Yeah I've skipped a class where I don't feel like that class helps enrich my understanding of the subject. - When I do it, it's generally because I have too much work, or if I didn't prepare for the class. - Sometimes maybe there are really a lot of homework to do and I just prefer to stay at home to do my homework instead of like going to class. - For example, if there is an exam, a very hard exam I have to tackled, right after their class I may skip the class. - I live in the hall, and we hang out till like two to three, and the classes is at, half past eight the other day so we just couldn't get up. - I'm too tired. If I skip a class it's always in the morning because of maybe going out the night before or, yeah. But I've never skipped a class because I'm, I because I haven't done the work or I haven't done the reading or something like that. - When I go to the class, the professor is not able attract the class, is not able to attract me. I mean, they surely know a lot, I'm not doubting their intelligence or their I mean, what they know, their knowledge. But if they don't know how to attract a class, how to deliver a lecture, basically the teacher is reading from his lecture notes, or powerpoint files, we can also do that. - Some courses just repeat the powerpoint says. What we can learn directly from the module by ourselves or even we can get more from the readings by ourselves. - We have a 80% exam, a 10% lab, and a 10% mid-term. So if we just have to give the exam then why go to the class? At the end of the November we just take a few notes, we study off on our own, and then we give exam. And if it's an 80% exam and we can get an A if we want to. (upbeat music) - What motivates me answer a question is a genuine desire to know like why or how things work. And something that motivates me is like how to understand the problem better. When I don't wanna ask question is when I'm just not interested, indifferent to whatever the teacher is talking about. - The politic course I took that the lecturer offers an online sites for us to ask question regarding the lectures. And I found that this will actually motivate me to ask more question actively both in class or through online because the lecturer has offered a way for us to actually think more about what she has taught and especially when sometimes there are actually some counterexamples that contradicts with the theories or phenomena that she has taught. And that really motivates me to ask more to find out why there will be such contradictions or inconsistency. - I would hesitate if there are lots of students in the classroom and also if I, feels like I'm not sure about whether my answer is correct or not. Some teachers are actually really helpful as they would say something like, "no questions are stupid questions." Or they would say, "there are no absolute answers, "so all of you can actually voice out." So this kind of phrases can actually make a student feels like, Oh I can actually try for it. - A major factor with me, if that teacher is giving you credit for answering a question. - I feel like it depends a lot on the teacher. So for example if there's a teacher who you can tell is very passionate about the subject it would definitely make me more interested in it. Whether, if you can see a teacher which you can tell just doesn't wanna be there, is tired. You know like, students can tell. Like it's the small things I guess that says a lot about the teacher or the lecturer. (upbeat music) - Actually the one who doesn't read from the lecture notes. - Some lecturers are, really good at making you get involved in the class and feel like you're actually learning something. - I like teachers who are very organised in the sense that they would tailor the curriculum based on the class that they have. So for example one class I have, they'll give us weekly in-class quizzes to make sure that we're up-to-date with the knowledge. Which I think is very good of a lecturer, because most lecturers just kind of talk and then that's it. Whether if they actually do stuff during the lecture, it helps keep the students awake and focused and stuff, and I think that's really important. - And I like a teacher who is passionate about their subject and also someone who can very precisely feel what the level and the mood of the students are. So I think if there's a mismatch between what the teacher or what the professor expects or what they think the students know and what the students actually know or expect, then that can be very uncomfortable or make things work not as well. - Considerate. The work load definitely because sometimes my major has a lot of readings to do so, it can be really overwhelming sometimes but if more guidelines can be given or he or she could summarise the cases in the lectures that would be very helpful to us. (upbeat music) - I would particularly like the online quiz because I can choose to do it just before the deadline and it'll give me more freedom to choose when to do it. - Video presentation where you need to make a video obviously. And I find that quite unorthodox so I really like that one yeah. It's different from just like sitting down and writing a paper. - Quite like presentations and group work just a bit more fun. But also like individual assignments quite like just go and fit myself and stuff like that as well. Not really a big fan of just like exams. I think like everyone does something different. Where often like the stat analysis and stuff like that you can explore it how you like to. There's a lot of different directions you can take the way you present you can do different ways as well. - I think it would be marketing. I think developing our own products and actually finding the brands that we're interested too and study on it and invent a new product or develop a new marketing stream, I feel like that is more exciting than just taking exams, or like writing reports or research essay. But there is one setback, it's that you have to have good group mates, you have to have good people to work with or else the workload might be little bit too overwhelming. - Again, I found a lot of themes here similar to what literature told us about effective teaching. Students are more likely to be engaged if the class meets their interests and needs, encourage interactions, use real examples, and give them hands-on experiences. The other important factor influencing student engagement is apparently the teacher. Students can easily tell whether a teacher is passionate or care about them. One more thing you might have noticed from these interviews is the power of assessment. It's related to whether or not a student will choose a course or come to the classroom or participate in class. The assessment students found meaningful usually allows students autonomy and creativity, encourage collaboration and have authentic elements. This video tells us the factors that effect student engagement. Almost all of them can find support in research evidence too. I would encourage you to think about where we could include these elements in teaching to enhance students engagement and help them achieve better learning outcomes.
