[MUSIC] >> In this case study we examine how teachers can use online lectures to support active learning, and improve student understanding of class content. Dr. Daniel Southam, an Associate Professor of Mauro Mocerino of Curtin University. Use a combination of clicker questioning, and supporting online lectures in their first year pharmacy course, to help engage and improve student learning. In this episode, we examine the benefits of this approach, and offer some useful tips when using these strategies. >> So the course we are going to be looking at today is a first year pharmacy course, it is called Introduction to Pharmaceutical Chemistry. About 140, are in this class. The format is face to face, but with online support. The face to face class uses an active learning strategy, I don't give any didactic lectures. The whole reason for going to a different approach to teaching, is born out of a dissatisfaction with the current passive learning strategy, and with the desire to improve student understanding. >> I apply the, this active learning strategies in both my major first year classes. In first semester it's a pharmacy group, and in second semester they're the chemist, chemical engineers. I do it because I think it supports their learning, and improves their learning. I'm not here to make life easy for them, but I do want to make their learning better. >> We use a pedagogy called process oriented guided inquiry learning. We use a prompt such as clicker questioning. We record some mini lectures using a, a screen capture software, which is used as a backup to the activity in class, just to get them working toward the activity, engaging with the content, and hopefully learning something along the way. [BLANK_AUDIO] The clicker itself just involves a multiple choice response. We use turning point keypads. When the polling is open, a little window comes up on the screen that shows them a number of responses. >> If I have a spread of answers, with the clickers I will get them to re-vote, discuss amongst themselves, and try and convince their neighbors that their answer is right. >> And the clicker software will actually allows them to change their response. [BLANK_AUDIO] Because I don't give that transmission of information in the classroom, I have an underlying concern that other students might be missing out. Either they have missed a concept or interpreted it incorrectly and so just as a feedback mechanism and to really close the loop for those students. We give them nice mini lectures online. It doesn't replace actually doing the activity, or attending the lecture, or doing the clicker questions, it's just as a support mechanism. So, within our lecture notes section here, on, blackboard, the clicker questions that have just been given in the class go up as a pdf. They are, these particular section has lectures. >> So let me look at reactivity there are two possible measure of whether a reaction will actually occur. The first is thermodynamics, and this tells us whether the process is spontaneous. >> I use a piece of desktop capture software called Echo 360. It's linked directly into our lecture system. These are the ones that I've already prepared, and so when you actually record the process, it'll just take a capture of the actual screen that you're seeing. Once that's done, you come up with, a recording itself, which looks like this, and so you can actually go through and just check. And then you just publish the recording, log in to the iLecture database uploads it automatically. So yeah, I'm using the iLectures and, and the information and the clicker questions in class, and giving to them in that passive format online. That's, that's a powerful thing. The benefit is that I can have the confidence that the students have the information. >> I think that iLectures were actually really helpful, they are really clear, and, yeah you can really understand them really well. >> I think it's good because if you haven't, by any chance haven't attended the lecture you can listen to it, and get the idea instead of reading their logs, which is not effective as listening to the lectures. >> When I gave the question, a clicker question, and I have a spread of answers, and I ask the students to then, without telling them what the right answer was, discuss with your colleagues. I always get a better second vote without explanation from me. >> So is good to have the clicker question, we can see if we, we're going the right way in the activities. >> I think it's actually helpful that we can work in groups, and talk to each other, and see if we can come up with a better answer. >> They know how they're supposed to think, they recognize that they don't need to fully understand it before they start. Their understanding will come by the time they get to the end. >> Any time, in a lecture, somebody gives an example, that example can be turned around. So in a passive learning environment, you would talk them through how to approach that example, and then show it. Within the process oriented guided inquiry learning, what happens is, you actually flip it around, give them the example, and then get them to interrogate that, that example, that model. And arrive at the understanding themselves. What concepts do I really want them to cover in this class, and then that really does scaffold the presentation post lectures, I mean the lecture online. During the lecture also I'll make note of where I think they're struggling, what they might need, to further examples. I try then the week following to make sure the iLectures are available. It shouldn't be a significant work load. Certainly if you can try and at least try to frame the questions that you want to answer in the mini lectures specifically, it can cut down the number of student inquiries about the concept. >> The students didn't react very well at the beginning. They felt fairly uncomfortable, and it, it did require a bit of explanation on the psychology of learning, and how people learn. Because a lot of students have not, a lot of people haven't thought about how they actually learn things. >> Lecture theater looks and feels very different to what they're used to. That given the opportunity to talk or encourage to talk, and actually do something in the lecture. And so for that class it might be something that they've never seen before. >> I find not having the lec, lecture, real lecture challenging sometimes we just go straight to activities and it's really hard to, because we don't have any background. >> I think it has improved my results, because I'm more active, than like just looking at the teacher, listening to him or her. >> Their understanding of the concepts are improved, and they get it better by working through these things. But it takes a little bit longer at the beginning, because they're learning the process of working it out for themselves. >> And so by giving them that online support, you're giving them the confidence that the concept that they've built up by themselves with minimum intervention from me, is actually correct. >> Not only do they work it out for themselves, they develop confidence in their own ability to work something out. And I think the confidence is also an important aspect. [BLANK_AUDIO]