Assisting students for lecture preparation: a web-based approach

Abstract

Students continue to arrive at universities with poor study and time management skills: they are not proactive in their studies while professors are not willing to hold them accountable for their shortcomings. The result is a ‘dumbing down’ of the course. This can be defeated by student preparation prior to attending lecture, especially in very largelecture classrooms (N>400). In fact, it provides a process to ‘dumb up’ the course. A Web-based system for providing content specific lecture preparations (termed ‘Previews’) was developed and tested in three courses in a large southwestern research institution. Significance was found in final course achievement by treatment levels, including variations by the total number of participations in the lecture preparations. Method of implementation and results are discussed, including future considerations.