Students’ Knowledge Integration and Decision Making

Abstract

Timely feedback is crucial in the effective teaching of GCE A Level Biology. In Singapore, junior colleges adopt the lecture-tutorial system in curriculum delivery. However, pedagogical effectiveness during lectures is hindered by many challenges that include large lecture size, diverse learning abilities of students and difficulty in monitoring students’ learning. Hence, it is an uphill task to employ the best teaching practices that foster deep learning. We have administered post-lecture feedback for all Biology topics taught since 2007, and monitored the efficacy of this mode of student feedback on their understanding of biological concepts. Our findings, based on consolidated feedback from five student cohorts, have shown a positive correlation in the use of post-lecture feedback with students’ ability to grasp concepts, and provided evidence that students improved in their capability to make connections between related themes in the subject.