Addressing Large Student Groups via Blended Learning Approach - Lessons Learnt and Experiences from Sri Lanka

Abstract

Higher education programmes worldwide are attracting increasing number of students over time. This trend has many underlying factors, and In the case of government universities in Sri Lanka, it is the fact that higher education at present accommodates only less than 10% of the total student population vying for entry. Pure online delivery of courses aims at undergraduates but has not yet been able to attract the critical mass required to maintain such programs, and accessibility to the Internet is a major contributing factor. As such many courses accommodate large groups of students, which has a negative impact on the quality of education. Blended learning approaches have been introduced to improve this situation. This paper presents a blended learning approach experimented for teaching two application software packages. The teaching environment is a Computer laboratory complex of a Government University in Sri Lanka. The innovative feature of this blended learning approach is the projection of the live lecture session into a remote lab, in which the students are guided by a projection of the lecture, the projection of the desktop plus the lecturer’s voice. This need arises due to a large number of students participating in a single session. Student feedback obtained via a survey using a sample of 300 students reveals that the students indicate that the virtual lecturer session is sufficient for successfully participating in the lecture session. However, we reveal additional needs pointed out by students, and recommendations on improving the environment.