Refurbishing and assessing the concept of ‘pre-reading’: Multimedia snapshots and web-based assignments.

Authors

  • Christopher D. Thompson School of Chemistry

Abstract

Tertiary students have been traditionally instructed to prepare for lectures by completing a ‘pre-reading’ task. This may be a book chapter or a section from the lecturer’s notes, covering material which is imminently about to be discussed in class. However student participation in this non-compulsory task is often poor, with many students either under significant time pressure, finding the task intimidating or lacking appropriate access to the resources. In first-year chemistry we have adopted a new approach to this concept by developing short videos – ‘snapshots’ – which are ultimately tethered to a short web-based assignment. The closing date for the assignment falls before the material is covered in lectures, and each one is worth a small component of the overall assessment. The videos are generated using a tablet PC, via screen capture of a PowerPoint presentation. Invariably these presentations have also been annotated using ‘digital ink’. A number of flash animations developed between this author and the textbook publisher have also been incorporated. Project aims include delivering a compact overview of upcoming topics in lectures a glossary for introducing new terminology, and conveying three-dimensional perspectives of complex molecular structures and dynamic chemical systems. We discuss some of the early and very encouraging retention and outcomes statistics.

Author Biography

Christopher D. Thompson, School of Chemistry

First Year Coordinator

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Published

2012-08-28