News from the Cincinnati ALOC Workshop

This year marks the fourth consecutive year the cCWCS sponsored its Active Learning in Organic Chemistry (ALOC) mini-workshop.  This year’s workshop took place from June 20 - 23 at the Hyatt Place Cincinnati Airport Hotel located just outside Cincinnati Ohio.  As with prior years the workshop again hosted 21 organic chemistry instructors from both two and four-year institutions from around the country, exposing them to the various pedagogical strategies, e.g., video lectures, Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT), with associated hands-on activities using the support technologies, e.g., screen capture, iPads, Doceri, Explain Everything, clickers, and Livescribe Pens, that will allow the implementation of a “flipped” classroom, bringing the excitement of active learning to their students.  The workshop also introduced the participants to the important topics of backward design for the development of both course and topic level learning objectives, and a discussion of the effective use of assessments using Nearpod and EasyOChem.

Participants this year engaged in the development of a concept inventory of multiple choice questions related to alkene chemistry.  This compliments the aldehyde and ketone concept inventory, now in its final stages of validation, developed during the 2015 workshop.

Finally, the workshop closed on Thursday morning with a presentation by Dan Esterline (Thomas Moore College), a former workshop participant (Charlotte, NC, 2013) who shared with this year’s group his experiences with incorporating active learning into his classroom, which he calls “Flippin Fridays”.