Teaching Artifacts

Here are some samples of the work I did throughout the GRAD 704 course this Spring 2019 semester.

Artifact 1

Above is a question from a Mentimeter http://www.mentimeter.com quiz, which I used as review for the students’ Genetics exam. This is a great tool for student formative assessment and helps address misconceptions or wrong ideas right away; it also can give me a feel for how the students are thinking at a certain day.

I was unable to make a capture of their results, but when this question was posed, it showed a clear split down the middle between 0 and 25%. This facilitated a discussion among the students as to why so many thought the way they did. At no time did I state which was the correct answer, as one of them clearly were, but the students determined through peer review and discussion to educate each other. Once the discussion died down, I ran the question again; this time they overwhelmingly chose 25% (the correct answer), with a few holdouts firmly convinced 0 was correct (and 1 who changed it to 100% for some odd reason!)

Implementation of the quiz was a little rough at first, as the students were required to input a code given by me into their phones/tablets/laptops, and as with anything new it caused some hiccups. In the future, I will allow more time and recruit students who get this tech easier than others to help each other.

Artifact 2

Above is a sample of a Webcampus quiz for the Intro to Molecular Biology Lab course. I have employed Webcampus for many of my classroom needs in the past, and did not change for this semester. The Quiz tool is very handy for generation of these quizzes, and offers many options to tailor them to my specific needs. I can adjust the time, order of questions and answers in how they appear to students, let them see their correct answers (or not), and many other parameters. One of the great things here, is if there is a glitch or wrong answer that pertains to everyone, it can be solved with a click and update. No need to go back and scribble out, erase and replace, and/or input new grades completely. With the live feedback to the students (should you allow it), they also then know what was right/wrong and what they should study in the future.

I haven’t encountered many problems with the tool or it’s implementation. I enjoy it for it’s ease of use, and students enjoy it since they can have “open book/note/internet” quizzes. While this may cause instances of them helping each other i.e. one person takes it and tells everybody else their answers, this can also allow me to then discuss why an approach like this harms them overall. Since I have the ability to go in and see just how long everybody is taking, I can then assert with evidence that this is occurring and how we can work together to enhance the learning environment.

Artifact 3

Teaching everybody about Cell Respiration!

This artifact was unable to be uploaded in it’s entirety, as the file type was unsupported for some reason. However, this was an introductory video I made for my Biology 190 Lecture course on the chapter/topic of Cellular Respiration.

The lecture notes were already provided in .pdf form through Webcampus, as well as skeleton notes/study guides that the students could fill in as they studied or throughout class itself. In this video, I attempted to highlight which slides and topics were most important to their learning. Throughout I mentioned and highlighted the most relevant issues such as Redox Reactions, the general overview of the main three (3) pathways of Cellular Respiration, and the intermediates in the Kreb’s Cycle proper.

This was all recorded using Screencast-O-Matic, a free download that can do simple video recording. However, one must upgrade in order to use all of the features, this includes the ability to record screen sounds. So, if you have videos within videos or music you wish to have playing that is not already included with the software, one must upgrade. The upgrade also gives the user the ability to edit their videos on the fly.

I have purchased a Wacom Intuos writing tablet which I plan to use to make Khan Academy-like videos in the future. The tablet is wireless and bluetooth enabled, and can work with a laptop, desktop, tablet, or even properly enabled (i.e. “jailbroken”) phone. I have heard that the online videos available on sites such as YouTube are very popular among the higher-ed students of today, and wish to cash in on that fad so the material can be available and accessible to all.