Abstract:

Among the challenges that universities are facing nowadays, one that deserves special attention is the increasing number of dropouts [1]. Welcome sessions for the new freshmen who are going to get into university may be effective in increasing their persistence [2].

Refresher courses for perspective freshmen have regularly been organised at Politecnico di Milano over the last years [3,4]. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the present situation posed serious limitations to traditional teaching methods this year, especially for long (3-4 hours) lectures which may be difficult to follow online.

A novel approach based on a blend of non-interactive conventional lectures in large groups and interactive lessons in smaller groups has been experimented.
The course was delivered online using the Microsoft Teams software. The topics were arranged in 8 modules of 4 hours each. Every module was dedicated to a specific macro-area (e.g. Kinematics, Dynamics, Static electricity etc.) and divided into two parts: first, a live video of a 1 hour lecture was streamed by a single tutor for the whole pool of approximately 1000 students. During this streaming, the students were not allowed to interact with the tutor or with one another by any means. Afterwards, 8 teams of students were formed and assigned to different tutors for the following three hours.

In this second phase, mutual interaction among students was encouraged, as well as the interaction between the tutor and the students. Each tutor presented examples and exercises of their own choice (mainly on the same topic as the streamed video) and delivered guided solutions. Furthermore, a common set of short problems was given to each team: this activity could be performed at any time during the second part of the block, as decided by each tutor.

In order to span among different teaching styles, the student teams were assigned to a different tutor every day for the interactive part of the lesson.
As an additional resource, an online forum was activated on a dedicated website, which allowed students to ask questions on the course topics in an asynchronous way.

Depending on the attitude of students and tutors as well, most interactions took place on the Teams chat or with real-time spoken questions via microphone, whereas the forum was not employed as intensively.

At the end of the course, every student was invited to fill in an anonymous survey to express their satisfaction with the course. The results of the survey indicate an overall degree of satisfaction with a mean rating over 75%.

References:
[1] V. Tinto (2006-2007), “Research and practice of student retention: what next?”, J. Student College Retention, 8 (1), 1-19
[2] D. Koutsoubakis (1999), “A test of the effectiveness of a one-term freshman orientation program at the foreign campus of an accredited private American university”, Journal of The First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, 11 (2), 33-58
[3] M. Bozzi et al. (2019), “Securing freshmen’s learning through a Physics refresher course: a breakthrough experience at Politecnico di Milano”, iCERi2019 (XII International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation), Seville (Spain) 11-13/11/2019, iCERi2019 Proceedings, pp. 2237 – 2243
[4] J. Raffaghelli et al. (2018), “Integrating MOOCs in physics preliminary undergraduate education: beyond large size lectures”, Educational Media International, 55 (4), 301-316.

Keywords:

Physics, Peer Learning, Class Discussion, Distance Learning.