Enhancing Student’s Global Outlook with In-Class Quizzes Page 308 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Volume 45, 2018 ABSTRACT Students today are expected to know at least the basics of what happens in the world around them. Teachers must find ways to provide active learning and to increase student participation. This paper presents the creation and implementation process of low cost and easy to execute global outlook quizzes that are constructed especially for business undergraduate students. It is designed as an in-class group exercise for students to compete with each other. The balanced range of questions covers 5 continents with a focus on business, culture, geography, religion and general knowledge, which are essential matters for business students. Living in the technological world, it is instrumental to use the latest tools for educating students. For more effective teaching and learning of global outlook, we use an integrative learning platform that meets the needs of students by providing one-to-one interaction via an electronic mode. The construction of the questions was proposed by myself and my teaching assistants from Europe. The ad-hoc quizzes are carried out during the regular class time and no dictionary or internet access was allowed. The students would be organized into groups of 4 -6 students and they can discuss within their group to generate the answers. Having tried out with hundreds of students, no one could answer all questions correctly and most students could answer 10 out of 16 questions correctly, which makes them aware of the need to improve the global outlook. Responses from student feedback forms seem to indicate that the quizzes and the e-platform blended learning approach had a positive effect on students' perceived learning and on their perceived attitude toward global outlook, as we had originally hoped. The approach makes the blended activities to be more interactive, enjoyable, easy to understand and remember. Keywords: global outlook learning, quizzes, e-learning INTRODUCTION The Hong Kong Polytechnic University aspires to produce graduates with the attributes of responsible citizens and leaders of tomorrow. The University believes that by adopting an outcome-based approach to curriculum development, teaching, learning, assessment and quality assurance, the University will be able to improve the quality of its educational provision to ensure students’ attainment of the desired learning outcomes (Biggs, 2003; Macht & Ball, 2016). The degree programs offered in The Hong Kong Polytechnic University is AACSB accredited. One major criticism from the audit reports of AACSB on local Hong Kong Polytechnic University students is the lack of global outlook. A number of teaching and learning activities was adopted to facilitate the development and learning of desired outcomes (Ferguson, 2016). The focus of this paper is on the outcomes of an in-class and a one to one web-based self- assessment global outlook quizzes. IMPLEMENTATION The game is designed to be played in-class with or without the need of classroom internet. All questions come with four possible answers. Some questions are easy and some are more challenging. Depending on the students’ background and exposure, easy questions could become difficult ones. Depending on the size of the class, usually a group of four to six students would be ideal for a discussion when they are unsure of what to choose. This game is suitable for any class size, but ideal for a class size of 20 to 40. After dividing up the students into groups we would ask each group to randomly call out a number from 1 to 16. We would then display the question and the 4 choices on the screen. After each question, we would explain clearly why a certain answer is the correct one and why students would easily get wrong answers. The quizzes are designed and organized so that students can maintain their hope of winning until the last round of questions. The first few rounds of questions carry one mark. This game works best if the final round of questions carries higher marks to allow any group to win. From actual results with hundreds of students, no one student could get all the correct answers and most students could answer correctly 10 out of 16 questions. When we have finished the game, we would have some reflections on the learning outcomes. We would also discuss the appropriate difficulty level of the questions, randomness and luck issues. Enhancing Student’s Global Outlook with In-Class Quizzes Ken Wong The Hong Kong Polytechnic University ken.wong@polyu.edu.hk Page 309 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Volume 45, 2018 We ask the students the following questions; 1. Which country is the third - largest continent in square miles? 2. Which African country has the biggest economy? 3. What is the capital of Iran? 4. Which US president was the first to visit the People's Republic of China? 5. What is the name of the first black South African President? 6. Since which year have been the Summer Olympic Games organized? 7. How many countries are there in the European Union? 8. Which language is the second most widely spoken mother tongue in the world, after Mandarin Chinese ? 9. Which of following countries has more than one neighboring country? 10. What is the only catholic-majority country in Eastern Asia? 11. Which country follows the United States as having the second largest immigrant population in the world? 12. In what year was the European Union formally established? 13. In which country is Taj Mahal, one of the 7 world wonders, located? 14. Which is the northernmost Chinese province? 15. What is the number of the people in the World? 16. Most popular world religion is… For more effective teaching and learning of global outlook, we use an active integrative electronic learning platform that meets the needs of students by providing one-to-one interaction. Students are invited to complete an e-questionnaire entitled “Well- being Global Outlook index” so that they understand their own Global Outlook well-being. Students computed the numerical values of well-being components in the e-questionnaire. Then web-side was created which contains materials, instant interactive feedback, and content. After submitting the results, respondents can see their individual “Faces” which are the visualization of his or her well-being with various numerical results for their Global Outlook well-being. They can get an instant summary of one out of the nine grades of “Faces”. In comparison, of the total, students can know his or her positioning among the whole sample. STUDENT FEEDBACK STATISTICS The Hong Kong Polytechnic University's Student Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ) is an important part of the University's teaching quality processes and is administered every semester. Each student is asked to fill in a feedback questionnaire. We received a total of 360 completed surveys and the overall end of the module feedback was positive. The six statements related to the quizzes and their outcomes are listed. Students are requested to review the statements to indicate if they SA= Strongly Agree, A=Agree, D=Disagree, SD=Strongly Disagree, or NO=No Opinion. Question 1: Clear understanding of what I am expected to learn. 130 SA 220 A 1 D 0 SD 1 NO Question 2: The quizzes helped me to achieve the subject learning outcomes. 100 SA 250 A 8 D 1 SD 1 NO Page 310 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Volume 45, 2018 Question 3: Assessments require me to demonstrate knowledge, skills and understanding of the subject. 120 SA 180 A 6 D 0 SD 54 NO Question 4: Provided me with a valuable learning experience. 300 SA 58 A 1 D 1 SD 0 NO Question 5: We receive proper feedback on how we are performing. 250 SA 110 A 0 D 0 SD 0 NO Question 6: This quiz has a great deal of personal meaning for me. 180 SA 169 A 10 D 0 SD 1 NO FEEDBACK FOR GLOBAL OUTLOOK E - SURVEY Focus groups were organized to meet students to ask them what they had learnt from the process of the “Face” e-exercise. The findings show that students agree that the tools of “Faces” approach increase efficiency and effectiveness of development of Global Outlook. The “Face” e-exercise was easier to understand and comprehend. It also helps them to understand themselves better, focus on strengths and work more with weaknesses, competencies and hidden personal problems. The blended exercise with various e-modes have adopted multi-approaches of communicating information to students and involved them in the process of learning and discovering their Global Outlook competencies. OPEN ENDED COMMENTS The main comments were: “Surprisingly worthwhile. The quizzes are useful and set at appropriate difficulty level.” “It made me look into more detail at the topics. ” “By taking the quizzes, it helped me aware of the world around us. The questions made me investigate things that I should.” “It was a good way of motivating me to not just read, but study and understand the world issues.” “The teacher gave timely feedback when the answers to the questions were wrong.” “There could be more questions. Generally, the quizzes were very good and very useful. I think some more in-depth questions have to be added.” “The questions were multiple choice meant that even if you aren’t entirely confident of the correct answer, you could always have an educated guess.” “Good variety of question.” “It helps me to understand myself better, focus on strengths and work with weaknesses and personal problems.” CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION We have found that quizzes are perceived by students as a vehicle for improving both their attitudes toward global outlook and their learning of business skills. By utilizing quizzes, a simple but effective tool at minimal cost, positive student response to this approach has convinced us that a fun approach to teaching and learning is worthwhile. The findings from our blended learning activities and assessment show good responses that make learning more enjoyable, easy to understand and remember. Page 311 - Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Volume 45, 2018 Biggs, J. (2003). Aligning Teaching and Assessment to Curriculum Objectives, (Imaginative Curriculum Project, LTSN Generic Centre). Cann, A. (2016). Increasing Student Engagement with Practical Classes Through Online Pre-Lab Quizzes, Journal of Biological Education, 50:1, pages 101-112. Ferguson, J., Makarem, S. & Jones R. (2016) Using a class blog for student experiential learning reflection in business courses, Journal Of Education For Business, Vol. 91, Iss. 1 Macht, S., & Ball, S. (2016). Authentic Alignment – a new framework of entrepreneurship education. Education + Training, 58:9, pages 926-944. Straley, H. W. & Dupee, L. (2017). One + One > Two: The Effects of Pair Quizzes on Student Attitudes and Perceptions, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Volume 7 Issue 2 ( July 2017), pages 318-339. REFERENCES This exercise serves to further deepen students’ understanding of teamwork and it helped in creating a sense of belonging among the students in the class. These results confirm similar findings that even relatively simple games such as quizzes can increase student engagement (Cann, 2016; Straley & Dupee, 2017). The tool can be further improved by creating a databank of questions on the subject and the questions can be classified into levels of difficulty.