“My students no longer saw the course as a struggle between the professor and the students, but as a team effort…It changed an ‘I-win-you-lose environment’ into a ‘win-win environment.'”
Dr. Lawrence (Larry) Marsh has used Hawkes since the 1980s. When he initially adopted Hawkes Learning’s materials for his courses, he adopted Dr. James Hawkes’ Adventures in Statistics. Throughout the years, Dr. Marsh has watched Hawkes grow into what it is today. Dr. Marsh enthusiastically tells other instructors about the excellent resources Hawkes provides, and as of recently, he has spread this excitement around the globe!
Over the summer 2024 semester, Dr. Marsh implemented Hawkes’ Discovering Business Statistics in his regression analysis course. This course was unique in that it was taught in the Tunis City of Sciences, a major educational and cultural institution located in the capital city of Tunisia, under the sponsorship of Carthage University, Avila University and the United States Embassy.
The Tunis City of Sciences (Cité des Sciences à Tunis)1
The course was taught in a lecture format with the assistance of two Tunisian professors who showed the students how to use MINITAB and EVIEWS to run the regressions for the Hawkes Learning exercises. In the afternoons, Dr. Marsh would provide additional opportunities to support the students in their homework. meet with the students in a conference room to help them with their Hawkes homework. He could quickly see the students were eager to learn and participate in the course.
After his summer course, Dr. Marsh shared the following comments:
Hopefully, the students learned an important lesson. Under colonial rule and/or a dictatorship, it is more about who you know, and not so much about what you know. I was allowed to recommend one student for a full scholarship to attend Avila University. I recommended a student who had successfully completed all of the Hawkes’ homework well before the others. I hardly noticed him, but he did the work and got the full scholarship recommendation. The students could see that under freedom and democracy, it is what you know that counts.
The students learned about regression analysis and the Hawkes Learning System, but they also learned that it is hard work and accomplishment that really matter in a land of freedom and equal opportunity. My Tunisian experience shows, once again, that the Hawkes Learning System is spreading around the world to, hopefully, be available to benefit all students everywhere.
In addition to the Hawkes homework lessons, the students were required to carry out a statistical study as a research project and give a presentation to the class. Dr. Marsh says that he chooses Hawkes time and time again due to the great framework it provides to instructors. He has found that it helps him keep track of his teaching materials while also providing further support resources to him such as activities and exercises for his homework and tests.
He also appreciates how Hawkes provides a supportive learning environment for students outside of the classroom. He says, “My students needed a place to learn and gain a better understanding of the course material during times when I was not there to help them. The Hawkes ‘Practice’ exercises are excellent and give my students a very solid understanding of the material.”
Dr. Marsh values how Hawkes allows instructors to pinpoint where students spend the most time on their homework. This insight helps him tailor his lectures more effectively, enabling him to emphasize key concepts in class. As a result, students can complete their assignments more easily and use their time more efficiently.
“A gamechanger for the professor-student relationship.”
Dr. Marsh describes Hawkes as “a gamechanger for the professor-student relationship.” He says, “by using the Hawkes software, my students no longer saw the course as a struggle between the professor and the students but as a team effort with the professor helping the students be successful in achieving certification. It changed an ‘I-win-you-lose environment’ into a ‘win-win environment.'” The professor was no longer seen as the barrier to student success but as providing great encouragement and assistance to the students in gaining a more complete understanding of the material needed to certify in the Hawkes software homework exercises, quizzes and exams.”
Dr. Marsh says that his student course evaluations have improved significantly by using Hawkes Learning. He says, “The Hawkes system got me better organized and gave my students excellent instruction to supplement my classroom lectures to give my students a more complete understanding of the material.”
- Nasreddine Nas’h, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons ↩︎
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