Faculty-led Inquiry into Reflective and Scholarly Teaching (FIRST)
Date of this Version
2017
Document Type
Portfolio
Abstract
This study explores the impact of distinct teaching approaches on students’ learning. In my course, we cover two main topics, technical analysis and fundamental analysis, which I decided to teach in different ways. I used activities associated with active learning to teach technical analysis, and traditional lectures (recitation) to teach fundamental analysis. Then I compared students’ performance in two exams to assess how much they learned about each topic. Students generally performed better in the exam on technical analysis than they did in the exam on fundamental analysis, suggesting that they learned technical analysis better than they learned fundamental analysis. These findings could imply that the adoption of active learning activities to teach technical analysis might have helped students learn it more successfully, whereas the use of traditional lectures to teach fundamental analysis might not have been as effective to help they learn the material. Anecdotally, students’ comments during the semester were clearly in favor of the teaching method used for technical analysis (active learning), and their excitement and engagement in the activities were visible during our class periods. On the other hand, I never heard any comments about the teaching method used for fundamental analysis (traditional lecture), and I would often notice little enthusiasm during our class periods in that part of the course.
Comments
Course portfolio developed as part of the UNL Peer Review of Teaching Project (peerreview.unl.edu)
Copyright (c) 2017 Fabio Mattos