A new, studio based, multimedia dynamic systems course: does it really work?

In the Fall of 1996, a new course in dynamic systems was offered in an interactive studio environment using multimedia computer software and a variety of other interactive activities. The course results were assessed and the students' progress and scores were compared with the regular, lecture-based sections of the course. The students for the studio section were selected at random and did not have any prior knowledge about the new format. The results show an improvement of about 10% in favor of the studio type instruction. Students were also surveyed at the end of the semester and indicated that they preferred the studio-based learning environment. Although the multimedia software plays an important role in the course, the authors postulate that this is only one of the decisive factors responsible for the improvement. All modes of interactions, human-to-human as well as human-to-computer, contributed to the new experience in this studio. Computer based multimedia is only a new tool in the arsenal of old teaching and learning techniques that the educators should be incorporating into their efforts to improve a global educational experience of the students.