How Corrective Actions Impact Undergraduate
Teaching and Learning

by Dr. Mikael Powell, NCARB, NCIDQ 

See

http://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/education_dissertations/20/

or

http://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=education_dissertations

Jamieson, Fisher, Gilding, Taylor, and Trevitt (2000) wrote the following:

Space envelops the user, including the impact of colour and texture, the acoustic and thermal qualities, the way natural light enters the space, and how one area relates to another.  Each built space on the university campus presents itself to teachers and students in these multiple ways.  In turn, each of these ways will be experienced variously by different individuals and, significantly, has the capacity to affect the attitude and performance of any inhabitant.  Decisions about any aspect of the design and layout of a specific space…represent a particular viewpoint about how that facility is to be experienced by the users.  (pp. 121–122)

Such emphasis on context is appropriate, especially regarding classroom R4.  It is on the campus of one of the larger universities in this study and its building dedication in 1938 was surely well- received.  While the university awarded a commission for design of the building through a national competition, the administration was unable to start construction due to financial constraints. 

               However, when the university lost its accreditation due to existing “cramped classrooms and inadequate laboratory facilities” (Serenyi, 1998, p. 25), not surprisingly, it acquired the funds to construct the edifice, which was the first one built on the new campus.  The exterior was “characterized by Beaux-Arts classicism: axial, symmetrical… reminiscent of Welles Bosworth’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus of 1913” (Serenyi, 1998, p. 25), mentioned in Chapter One.  In similar fashion to MIT, the interior was contemporary, utilitarian, and efficient.  On the day of the opening  in 1938, the university president, (whose name is withheld to maintain the institutional anonymity provided by the researcher to participants) said, “The dedication of this building marks a new era in the life of the University, an era in which what has been created will be rendered permanent and enduring” (as cited in  Serenyi, 1998, p. 25). 

               Except for a renovation in the early 1990s, the building remains much the same.  Classroom R4 is the largest in the building and has tiered flooring (and a high ceiling to accommodate the rise of almost 36 inches from the front to rear), and large, long windows on two sides.  Each window has a long drab shade curled at the edges due to the length.  In 1938, the windows were cited as “essential characteristics of the façade…defined by alternating the vertical windows (voids) with vertical walls (solids)” (Serenyi, 1998, p. 25), but now the windows and shades serve as a distraction, scattering light through the room with the movement of air being blown in through vents for heating or cooling purposes.  There are seven continuous rows of 14 fixed hard wood pivoting-seats, with access from flanking aisles, and two rows of nine seats at the rear with entrance provided at one side. 
 All the walls are cement block, painted whitish-neutral, except the front, which was brownish to match the vintage wood doors.  Filling much of the front wall is a large three-segmented, sliding green chalkboard with a 12 foot-wide projection screen pulled down to the chalk-rail.  The browns, green, and off-whites of the classroom are reminiscent of the 20^th century and blend with the patina of the putty and terracotta-colored flooring.  The floor is polished, but it is unclear if it is clean.  Along two of the windows are low radiators and the ceiling is a lay-in acoustical tile with air supply and return registers.  The room is about 35 feet wide by 45 feet long.  The fold down tablet arm is wedge-shaped and minimally sized.  Remarkably, there are only two electrical outlets in the front of the room along either side of the chalkboard and one electrical outlet in the rear wall of the room (see Figure A4, in Appendix A for a floor plan illustration of the room layout).  There is intermittent wireless Internet connectivity.  The teacher and students enter the classroom through the door in the front.  In the following narrative, I offer an interpretive excerpt of the classroom observation to illustrate the student survey responses, to provide indication of the pervasiveness of remedial responses performed, and to present a phenomenological exploration of the actions (see Figure 10 for illustrations of narrative excerpt and note that I obscured images for anonymity).    

At 2:51PM, it was warm throughout classroom R4, but not intolerable, for a brisk autumn day when the outside air was 53 degrees Fahrenheit.  Juan (pseudonyms are used throughout) entered the auditorium and intently strolled to the seat at the end of the fifth row from the front, adjacent to the windows.  There, he was close enough to view activities at the front of the room, and less likely to “fool around” (as he would later denounce) because he knew that his efforts were important and if he concentrated on the coursework, he would succeed (Juan, survey response, October 30, 2013).  Therefore, Juan established his area: He took off his backpack and placed it on the floor in the aisle next to his desk chair, then unzipped his hooded jacket and draped it atop the backpack, repositioning the load until it balanced without touching the smudgy flooring.  Juan reached into the backpack pocket, retrieved a spiral pad, and placed it on the tablet arm of the empty desk chair adjacent to his.  This secured space on either side of his desk chair.  In similar manner, Scott, Steve, Paula, Farah, Cho Hee, and B’shara repeated that classroom ritual, whereby students maintained an empty seat next to them for placement of their backpack contents, and garments (and drinks to hydrate or sustain the occupants through the varying classroom climate).  Like Juan, B’shara did not remove her laptop from her backpack, which was on the floor in front of an empty seat beside her.  Instead, she perched languidly with her purse in her lap and a tablet and pen on the tiny desktop surface, habitually twirling her hair.  When asked about her remedial actions, she complained that there was “no space for laptops,” and that she “fall[s] behind in lecture while setting up.”  Surprisingly, she reported that she expended significant efforts trying to “accommodate writing and her computer at her seat” (B’shara, survey responses, October 30, 2013).  Most of her cohort agreed with those sentiments, and all the students in class said that they performed some remedial actions in class that day. 

            Soon, all the students were seated, although two-thirds of the desks were empty.  After all had settled, the professor addressed the students to introduce the first group presentation, and then he extinguished all overhead lighting.  Madison retrieved the handouts for distribution, while Farrah and Kaitlyn stood at the podium and projection screen in the front, cueing the PowerPoint program.  The tall window shades were pulled down, nevertheless, light infiltrated along the sides of the window jamb and windowsill, illuminating a large part of the screen, and rendering a great swath of the projection illegible.  Resigned, Madison trudged up the ramp and through the aisles distributing packets of supplementary information while her group members waited restlessly to start the presentation.  She methodically began in the front row, then proceeded up the side aisle by the windows, and sidled across each row to distribute the papers to students, before heading back to the podium.  Xavier, having no space convenient to place his handout, took the papers, loosely crossed his leg, and then balanced the packet on his knee. 

            Kaitlyn began the class presentation without commenting on the screen projection quality, although she knew that it was “difficult to see the screen with the bad lighting” (Kaitlyn, survey response, October 30, 2013).  Other students subsequently remarked that they had to view the presentation online after class.  However, those who did attempt to follow along relayed that they were always leaning forward to see or hear.  Olivia shifted forward, crossed her arms, rested her chin on her fist, and bent toward the podium.  At the end of class, Olivia acknowledged that she had to lean in to see.  When questioned three weeks later, she acquiesced, “The classroom is older so [you] cannot see the projector screen” (Olivia, survey response, November 20, 2013).  Likewise, Ikuya rocked back and forth, eventually settling against the seat back in front of him.  He said, “When I try to learn during class by leaning forward I could remember more material” (survey response, October 30, 2013).  Throughout the presentation, Noah awkwardly shifted back and forth, with one elbow on the little writing surface and the other on the empty armrest adjacent to him, hands clasped, alternating between resting his chin on his knuckles, or in the palm of his left hand.

 Around 3:00 PM, it quickly became noticeably hotter at the right front side of the classroom.  Adam, who was sitting less than three feet from an overhead heat supply duct, automatically took off his sweater, folded it, put it on his lap, and then unbuttoned his sleeves and rolled them up to his elbows.  Within minutes, the air was even hotter at the rear of the room, but remained more comfortable by the windows.  Nonetheless, Quentin, who sat adjacent to the windows, took out his handout and for the next two minutes, fanned himself and then Madison sitting next to him.  Later, neither of them remarked about room temperature when asked about deficiencies in the classroom.  However, Whitney was exasperated.  She said that she “was drinking coffee to warm up and then took off [her] scarf because it was too hot” ( survey response, October 30, 2013).
            At 3:17 PM, the student presentation ended, and the professor turned on the overhead lights, walked to the front of the room, stood centered on the projection screen, and addressed the class.  Somewhat reluctantly, he reiterated students’ problems with intermittent wireless Internet in the room and suggested that students groups use their “smart phones.”  The professor was resigned to the fact that he would have to continue to utilize the classroom amid growing efforts to mitigate problems.  He walked from side to side as he spoke and directed comments to the back of the room to keep students engaged in the meagerly occupied lecture room.  “Being able to work with the room I guess is part of the skill of being an educator,” he would say later (interview, November 25, 2013).  However, this class today was an important test, because he knew for the remainder of the course, group work is required during each class session.  At the beginning of the semester, he tried to move the course to another classroom and he had shared information about those unsuccessful efforts with his students.  Therefore, now he was anxious to see how effective group work could be accomplished here.  He announced that the students should meet with their project teammates and that he would visit each group.

Several students took all of their belongings and moved to another group location in the classroom.  After gathering his backpack, Ian routinely climbed over a row of fixed chairs to reach the destination where his group met.  Similarly, Ethan and Tanner scaled chairs in another area of the room.  Whitney, Ying, Farrah, Emily, and Claire became a group, with the two former students sitting in front of the latter three to converse.  Annoyed, Whitney twisted around to relate to her peers behind her and turned forward to use her laptop, while Ying mostly attended to her laptop in front of her.  At the end of class, Ying responded that she had undertaken “important efforts” to form groups (survey response, October 30, 2013).  Most of her classmates agreed.  At the end of class, Emily reported that the “chairs [were] uncomfortable and [made] it difficult to meet in groups” and that it was “hard to pay attention when you’re not comfortable” (Emily, survey responses, October 30, 2013).  Instead of trying to talk while sitting, Wu, Ikuya, and Tanner decided to relate to their group while standing in the aisle.

Adam stayed where he was, and B’shara moved over to sit next to him.  Cho Hee brought her possessions and sat along the front row with her group members.  Dao sat behind them to complete the group.  Adam and B’shara conferred and used their cell phones to access the Internet instead of trying to do so with their laptops as the course syllabus had directed.  Dao leaned forward in his seat to relate to them.  Cho Hee was bending their way also, leaning over her book bag and backpack at the floor between her and the adjacent group member.  B’shara wrote in the notebook on her lap, then B’shara, Cho Hee, and Dao looked at the laptop on Cho Hee’s desktop while Adam looked on. 

The Professor first met with Wu, Ikuya, Tanner, Bradley, and Rick in the back of the room.  He sat down in a row and some members of the group stood in the aisle or sat in the row in front of him, with their heads turned back to the Professor as he addressed and interacted with the students.  While he was with them, they seemed wholly engaged in the interaction.  Confidently, he shouted reminders about group project requirements to the entire class, as he rose and sauntered to the group in the front of the room. There, he crouched on the floor facing Adam, B’Shara, Cho Hee and Dao, seated in their desks.  The Professor’s interactions with each cohort gathering in the room seemed effective.  But, after he left the group, Adam began to attend to his cell phone, only occasionally glancing toward the rest of his group as they talked.  However, nobody prompted Adam to engage further with the group.  Adam did not think that the actions he took that day to make-up for shortcomings in the classroom environment were very important, or that he had much power over how well he did in the course, anyway.  “Students are just tired and can’t pay full attention for that long,” he would say.  When asked later about the corrective measures that he performed, Adam remarked, “I am not aware of what I do; why are you trying to make me feel self-conscious?”(Adam, survey responses, October 30, 2013).      
 

This research revealed three key themes, illuminated experiences of performing corrective actions and, identified how those attempted remedies affected teaching and learning.  I found that a student’s expression of control over their learning experience influenced how he or she rated the importance of making corrective measures.  I noted the value that students placed upon maintaining attention in their learning regimen and, I outlined how teachers addressed adaptation within the teaching experience.  In addition, I analyzed participant data to give substance to the phenomena of remedial responses.  In the following sections, I present my findings supported with student and teacher data, and provide summary remarks.