Abstract:

Most fundamental science and mathematical courses at the tertiary education cover the depth and breadth of abstract concepts and their applications. Higher order thinking skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking are part of the learning outcomes of these courses. As they are common core papers for different degree programs, a large group of tertiary learners with disparity in cognitive ability, prior knowledge, learning styles and past experience will register these courses in every semester of an academic year. Hence, it is indeed a challenging task for the instructor concerned to design a standardized instruction to enhance learning experience and facilitate the achievement of the course learning outcomes among tertiary learners. It is vital to homogenize the learners’ prior knowledge before active and reflective learning strategies can be effectively implemented in lectures to enhance learners’ motivation, interest, engagement and self-efficacy. This paper elaborates the importance of pre-lecture instruction on reducing prior knowledge deficiency of tertiary learners in their first-year basic core subjects and its integration with learners’ experiential learning and cognitive information processing to facilitate evaluation and synthesis of knowledge. The proposed implementation of pre-lecture instruction accommodates learners with different levels of prior knowledge, learning preference and past experience in order to establish and extend a pool of inter-connected knowledge constructs in the learners’ long-term memory for new learning to take place. On top of that, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has been recommended as a mediating tool in the presentation of pre-lecture instruction to engage learners with visual, verbal and kinesthetic preferences as well as to provide timely feedback of pre-lecture assessment to both instructors and learners before commencement of the respective lectures.

Keywords:

Pre-lecture instruction, experiential learning, cognitive information processing and tertiary learners.