Awardee: Colin Aitken
Semester of Award: Spring 2019
Materials Awarded: iPad and accessories
Explain Everything license
Project Description:
I have been using the Explain Everything App (as part of the Vassar institutional license) to create whiteboard style lectures/explanations that complement my lecturing in class. I post these videos of these lectures to my class Moodle page, resulting in a digestible and durable explainer that students can return to when studying for exams or working on projects. I have incorporated this practice into my Biochemistry (BIOL/CHEM 272), Energy Flow in Biological Systems (BIOl 107), and Biochemistry Senior Seminar (Molecular Biology of RNA, BIOC 356) classes. In all three environments, students have found these videos useful in their learning. In particular, they appreciate the ability to digest the material at their own pace, for example pausing to take notes or rewinding to hear an explanation a second time.
I also used the Explain Everything app to create completely flipped lectures in my Biochemistry (BIOL/CHEM 272) course this Fall semester. As with the mini explainer videos I create, I post these to my Moodle page (or to my YouTube account). Students watch these lectures before class, enabling us to work directly with the material in class, usually in a small-groups. Student feedback to this experiment has been somewhat mixed. Some students prefer traditional lectures and others are ambivalent. However, many students find these flipped classes incredibly helpful. Moreover, my experience was that these flipped lectures and in-class problem solving activities short-circuited many questions that I have traditionally received outside of class, either via email or during office hours. While I have implemented this format only one semester thus far, it also appears to result in stronger student outcomes and I am hopeful that this trend will persist in future semesters.
I also use the Notability app for grading and commenting on student work. This functionality has proved particularly useful in upper level seminar courses (for example, BIOC 356) and when working with thesis students in the lab. The ability to efficiently provide feedback to students whilst also keeping an organized digital record has proved very useful.
Illustration: