Integrating Academic Skills Development
in a First Semester Chemistry Unit
Technology Enhanced Curriculum | Sydney Teaching Colloquium | 2012
ADAM BRIDGEMAN
ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR LEARNING AND TEACHING
FACULTY OF SCIENCE
Issue
FIRST YEAR UNIT CHEMISTRY:
› ~2000 students enrol in CHEM1 each semester, from every faculty
› CHEM1 should contain the molecular science that every scientists should
know
› Alongside subject specific knowledge, first year (science) units have a duty
to:
- Engage students
- Develop the academic skills of students new to higher education
- Introduce students to the scientific method and to the primary literature
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Threshold Learning Outcomes
NATIONAL SCIENCE THRESHOLD LEARNING OUTCOMES
› Understanding science
› Inquiry and problem solving
› Major focus in new national curriculum for schools
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Why online?
› Every researcher now searches for and reads the literature online
- ‘Authentic’ experience
- Can blend resources and tools
› Marking is expensive and takes a long time
- Online assessments can be easier to mark and feedback can be rapid
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Research Project
GLOBAL WARMING ASSIGNMENT
› ‘Academic information skills’ (5/10 marks)
- Skills tutorials assessed through certificate of completion
- ‘Scholarly versus non-scholarly resources’
- ‘Finding journal articles using databases’
- ‘Introduction to using the Web of Science’
- ‘Search smarter, search faster’
- Find top 5 cited papers on global warming from 2000 – 2010
- Quiz based on Web of Science results: number of citations, number of
references etc.
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Research Project
GLOBAL WARMING ASSIGNMENT
› ‘Reading the Scientific Literature’ (5/10 marks)
- Information on the scientific literature and details of papers to find
- Quiz on what the scientific literature is
- Find and read 3 key papers on the science of global warming
- 15 question multiple choice quiz
- Covers basic calculations and scientific mechanism
- Develops a story on how evidence is argued over as part of scientific process
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Research Project
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Research Project
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Research Project
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Research Project
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Marking and Feedback
‘FAST AND PERSONAL FEEDBACK’
› Columns downloaded from Blackboard
› Used to generate unique feedback for each student
- Statistical information on performance
- Explanation on each question answered incorrectly
- Description of story connecting evidence in papers, particularly around
importance of positive-feedback mechanisms
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Student Perceptions
PRELIMINARY RESULTS FROM eLEARNING SURVEYS
› Students who report a deep approach to :
› tend to report using technology in ways which further their inquiry
› don't see any fragmentation between their experiences face-to-face and online
› Students reporting a surface approach to inquiry:
› tend to report using technology in ways which are more about collecting
information
› perceive a fragmentation of the physical and virtual learning spaces
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