Students: managing to learn; teachers: learning to manage

Abstract

Two large (400 enrollments) freshman courses at Queensland University of Technology in Australia have been converted to a resource-based, student-centered format, which has enabled supplemental instruction (SI) sessions to be incorporated. The SI scheme is very popular with students, has greatly improved students’ grades, and has reduced dropout rates from engineering. The students now learn content from the resource material and understand the theory in free ranging, fun SI sessions; the teacher has become a manager of the process instead of being a knowledge guru. Professional, non-technical development of students has greatly improved, and all this has been achieved with a reduced financial burden on the department.