A blended approach to collaborative learning: Can it make large group teaching more student-centred?

Belinda Allen
Educational Development and Technology Centre
University of New South Wales

Alan Crosky
School of Materials Science and Engineering
University of New South Wales

Iain McAlpine
Educational Development and Technology Centre
University of New South Wales

Mark Hoffman, Paul Munroe
School of Materials Science and Engineering
University of New South Wales

Current educational thinking promotes a student-centred approach to teaching as more engaging and challenging for students, leading to improved learning outcomes. But what is ‘student-centred’ learning, and how can it be achieved in a higher education setting with very large classes and content-rich courses? In a materials engineering course for 300 first-year engineers, an online group project was introduced to add authenticity and collaborative activity into the course, and to improve student engagement. We explore the design, development and implementation of the project, and see if the intended outcomes were achieved.

Keywords: student-centred, collaborative learning, problem-based learning, group work, large group teaching, online