Moreover, each student is actually seated at his or her own workstation, and is linked to the internet, and can easily become distracted and pay insufficient attention to the delivered material. Our approach does require considerable staff-student contact time. However, delivering three essentially identical sessions per week has one significant advantage. As a tutor, one often perceives shortcomings in one's delivery of the material that can be quickly addressed in subsequent sessions that week. Figure 2 illustrates this year's attendance levels.
Attendance is generally good, but dips slightly towards the end of the Michaelmas term.
Attendance levels are not recorded for the equivalent first year Computer Science major lectures, but are known to tail off significantly. COM120 compares favourably with attendance of major students in practical laboratory sessions, despite the fact that COM120 students know that all material will be on-line and accessible outside of the timetabled sessions. One negative aspect of the sessions relates to the physical set-up of the laboratory. The lecturer is situated in the middle of four or five rows of students. Students are more used to traditional lectures, for which the behavioural parameters are well defined.