Abstract:

At the University of the Free State, students can choose between attending lectures on campus or do their degree via distance learning (e-learn). Within the higher education sector, the focus is often on the amount of attention offered to e-learn (distance learning) students to assist them in their learning experience as they cannot attend weekly classes. This focus, in my view, neglects the on-campus students. However, the impact of the effort put into the e-learn students’ learning experience can greatly benefit the on-campus students as well. The focus must be shifted to treat the on-campus students as e-learn students.

My undergraduate law module is an elective module for the Commerce students in their second year. The law module is an understanding of calculations of the most important taxes used in financial planning in South Africa, unlike the typical theory found in most law modules. This presents a challenge to lecture commerce- and law students who have different cognitive levels and habits of learning. Although it is not big classes, lecturers tend to spend a lot of lecturing time to explain basic calculations. Some students may understand the concepts quickly while others still do not completely understand the concepts even after class.

To make use of recorded video explanations and class recordings, that is usually only meant for the e-learning students, it assists the on-campus students in their understanding of the difficult concepts on their own time. They can revisit the video explanations and class recordings before assessments, tests and examinations. Expecting of students to have already watched the explanation videos before class, it opens up the opportunity to go into more depth into the particular lecture and answering the questions that the students may have on the videos. Evaluation forms from the campus students on the video explanations proofs the success and need for campus students to get more of the lecturer’s attention “off” campus on their own time.

Giving the class students a “poster” of the semester’s work on the first day of class gives the students a holistic view of the semester’s work and can easily be compared of the work already handled to avoid uncertainty and can be referred back to before each lecture with great ease.

These methods may aid our campus students in having a deeper understanding of the work and sense of responsibility to prepare for class. Classes may change from information giving to a deeper and holistic understanding of the work.

Keywords:

E-learn, on-campus students, tertiary education.