Request for Instructional Videos for Chemistry

Request for Instructional Videos for Chemistry
This project involves the development of video clips that supplement chemistry lecture and laboratory classes. They will show examples of homework exercises, laboratory procedures and chemical demonstrations. These topics address concerns of both chemistry faculty and students.

A smart board and microphone can record example problems which were not presented during lecture due to time constraints. Once posted on the web, the audio recording will describe each step of the problem as the corresponding handwriting appears on the screen so that students can follow along as if they were in class. This should appeal to students since they consistently ask for more example problems to be presented during class. Students already take online quizzes in general chemistry, now they can study the example problems online prior to taking the quiz.

Students need to be well-prepared when they arrive for their laboratory class. I would like to record videos that show proper experimental techniques and safety precautions. Students can view them prior to attending lab. Graduate student instructors will spend less time explaining the procedures in lab and allow more time for students to complete their experiments. A Faculty Development Grant from Florida Tech ACITC and SCT helped Dr. Monica Baloga record laboratory procedures for first-semester general chemistry labs. It would be worthwhile to expand upon this work by developing videos for second-semester general chemistry and organic chemistry laboratory classes.

The third set of videos will contain chemical demonstrations that cannot be performed in a classroom because they are too smelly, smoky or messy. (As you might expect, these are also the most fun to perform and watch.) These demonstrations can be performed safely and videotaped in a chemistry laboratory. The videos will include a short description of how the demonstration relates to a lecture topic. Several demonstrations have already been taped but there are many more worth recording.

These videos will provide supplemental instruction and will not replace the in-class presentation of example problems or demonstrations of laboratory safety procedures. The videos will benefit all general and organic students in next year’s classes and beyond. This means that potentially over 500 students will view the videos each year. Students in upper-level courses might view the example problems to brush up on skills they learned in general chemistry but forgot. The demonstrations can be useful in multiple classes since they often illustrate a variety of chemical principles.

This project will use audio and video recording facilities located in the Olin Studio and TEC Center. The video clips will be uploaded onto the chemistry department’s web site. A web page for chemistry instructional materials will be designed for this purpose and linked to the course’s Blackboard site. Another possibility is to record the video clips to a CD-ROM and give a copy to students, especially those who live off-campus and do not have broadband Internet access.

I will learn to use video production equipment and software, work with streaming audio/video clips and practice my presentation skills. In the future, I can use these skills to prepare similar video clips for other classes that I teach, design video clips that publicize the activities of the chemistry department faculty (similar to the information found on the DMES web site) and possibly develop distance learning chemistry classes.