Vignettes from the Field
Snapshot
William |
Lecturer |
Discipline |
Marketing |
Delivery mode |
Separate cohorts of internal and online students |
Level |
Undergraduate |
Experience with WBLT |
Positive |
WBLT’s hugely helpful for NESB students and part-timers, ‘cause it give them confidence that if they have not got it right the first time, they can go home and listen to it on Sunday night. William
William’s story
William teaches several units in an undergraduate Marketing program. His students are all on-campus and come from a range of language backgrounds. There are about 50 students in his lectures and he has not encountered a drop in attendance since introducing WBLT 2 years ago.
William has had an extensive career in Marketing prior to his lecturing role and his passion and enthusiasm for his subject are evident.
WBLT and teaching
William describes himself as using the lectures to impart lots of information, but also to inspire and motivate his students and help them build a conceptual framework. He has found that WBLT has had little negative impact on his ability to do these things. In fact, with such a large number of NESB students from a range of language backgrounds, he finds that WBLT helps him support students’ different needs individually:
I’m talking to people from cultures all over the planet. Last year I had a guy from Greenland!’
Some students say lectures are too fast, and slides turn too quickly and that they’re not keeping up; others say ‘Get on with it’. I can tell them (the ones who need extra help) to go back and replay the lecture and they can hear it explained.’
He devotes half of the first lecture to administration, including telling students to use WBLT to ‘translate (his) flat vowels’ especially if they have difficulty understanding his Aussie accent.
At the end of some lectures, Bob asks his students to consider the ‘muddiest point’ of the materials and suggests that his students use WBLT as a study tool to review the unclear materials.
William also uses WBLT to help overcome the differences in his students’ experience with Marketing. For example, the postgraduates are,
older, more mature, and often they have business experiences, but they’ve never done the compulsory units in marketing. They’re doing accounting or a master of international business or something, and often they’re doing marketing because it’s fun kind of thing… they’re not geared for marketing.
Whereas the undergrads, 3 rd years have already had to do certain specialised first and second year, and for my classes, they’ve got to have done 2 second year units in marketing. They’re marketing geared, so it’s easier to talk to them.
Even though (the postgrads) are older, more mature, and maybe more business experienced, they’re not as sharp as the younger kids. So (WBLT)eis hugely important for the postgrads
His lectures are three hours long and he admits that ‘everyone wears out; I wear out!’ so having WBLT as tool for note taking is helpful for the students. He also recognises the benefits of WBLT as a back up if students can’t attend lectures:
If they can’t make it to class for whatever reason, it’s very supportive. It might be a business requirement, or they might just have a flu or something. I think it’s terrific to have that support. They don’t feel cheated, and they don’t have to miss out. They are interested. I don’t feel any of my people come because they have to.
Impressions of using WBLT
William’s experiences of using WBLT have been positive. He uses the roving mic to move around the lecture theatre and has not found that WBLT has had a negative impact on attendance in his classes:
I always have full turn ups, and I don’t take rolls. I only have classes of 50 and it’s rare thing that I don’t have 45 or 40 students (turn up). I think it’s terrific that the room’s full every time.
They are there because they find it interesting. It is interesting, I find it interesting.’
Learning futures
While William recognises the need for future learning environments to cater for students’ need for flexibility, he acknowledges that studying using WBLT is not the same as coming to on-campus lectures, William suggests,
they miss the personal theatre. You can play the radio version of Macbeth back, that’s good, but it’s not the same. ’
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