Pedagogy/Teaching & Learning

Presented Monday night at the 2017 ALOC workshop.

Upon attending a previous cCWCS workshop on Active Learning in Organic Chemistry the author was introduced to lecture capture technologies.  These activities have been used by the author previously to create remedial videos for the Organic Chemistry classroom.  A more ambitious project was enacted for the General Chemistry II classroom.  A semester of in-class lecture was used to create a series of Learning On Demand videos.  These videos showed a real classroom with the author discussing topics using PowerPoint as a visual aid while working problems on a white board.  The videos gave a "real classroom" experience, with the advantages of being accessible at any hour and controlled by the user, allowing for waning attention spans.  These videos were then used as the focal point of comparison between three separate courses:  a fully face-to-face course (the parent course), a fully on-line lecture course, and a face-to-face course that had access to the Learning On Demand lectures.  Initial classroom performances will be discussed along with logistics of the process.

The technique of Just-In-Time teaching was used as a preparative activity to increase student engagement and comprehension during lecture periods in a small classrooms.  Activities involved the introduction of pre-class reading or video with an accompanying set of open-ended questions that were submitted via Dropbox before the relevant class meeting.  The reading/video covered foudnational materials that would introduce the student to the new topic.  The questions would serve to prove the students understanding of the initial concept.  The questions would quickly flesh out early misconceptions about the subject while giving "gems" of incite from other studetns.  Questions were introduced during the relevant class period with common answers, both good and bad, being used to drive discussions.  The technique has been used for two full years of the two semester Organic Chemistry sequence, along with one semester of Environmental Chemistry.  The fundamentals, example answers, logistics, and student feedback will be discussed.

Technology should make our life easier not more complicated.  As I learn more technology, I try to implement it in my classroom to see if it makes my student’s life easier.  And in some cases it does.  During the past five years I have gradually increased “out of class” learning environment for my students, so I can have more time in class to go over problem solving.  I will present how and what kind of resources I created for my students using LiveScribe Pen and Power Point video lectures.  To increase class participation, I also started using Clickers. I will discuss some of the strengths and drawbacks of all the resources and my future plans to increase student preparation before they come to class and participation in class once they are there.