Transformed lecture theatres are a success
Feedback from students proves that the innovative transformation of three of our lecture theatres last summer has paid dividends.
The £2.8m innovative, sector-leading redesign of the Dental LT, Mechanical Engineering LT B and Roger Stevens LT 8 completed last summer, so students have had a full year to experience the new facilities. The redevelopment of the lecture theatres allows for group discussion alongside the use of installed technology for group work, interaction, communication and recording.
Students were surveyed before and after the transformation about how satisfied they were with the lecture theatres, how comfortable they found the writing surfaces, how conducive the room was for group study, how satisfied they were with AV and IT provision, and how well the lecture theatres lends themselves to group work.
The fantastic results showed our students love the facilities, with overwhelming satisfaction scores above 80% for each of these areas.
Some students feedback comments included:
"great for group work"
"We need more lecture theatres like this"
Professor Neil Morris, Director of Digital Learning at the University commented: "Through the transformation of our spaces we have been able to establish the strong pedagogy that we were trying to achieve. The collaborative spaces, with desk based technology which is innovative, enables students to work collaboratively through digital means and enriches their learning experiences.
"This first year we have seen a number of the staff undertake the type of teaching they’ve wanted to do for many years but haven’t been able to because of the configuration of the space. The impact is huge for teachers as they are actually able to do the teaching that they want to do and from that comes the positive student satisfaction figures that we’ve seen from our survey."
Student satisfaction average scores:
| Lecture theatre |
satisfaction level before (2016) |
satisfaction level after (2017) |
| Dental LT |
52.1% | 81.5% |
| Mechanical Engineering LT B |
67.2% | 87.3% |
| Roger Stevens LT 8 |
64.5% | 85.0% |
Posted in: Student education