Marilena Cimpoesu
Faculty of Chemistry, University of Bucharest, Romania
Design active courses and laboratory activities, using active learning concept and advanced tools.
The teaching mode must be updating to the new methods and tools. The teaching in class is not a unilateral process, where the teacher provides information. The learning is addressed to the students and must include the student. The teaching method should emphasize involvement and participation in the learning process and learners should be actively engaged in their own learning, rather than simply receiving information from a teacher. The active learning involves a variety of activities, such as problem-solving, discussions, debates. To include active learning method in designing the courses and laboratory is one challenge of this user case.
Local context (specific)
Faculty of Chemistry, UB is a traditional institution. The applied teaching methods are obsolete. At lectures or at laboratory sessions, the presentation method is used, without discussions or interactions with students, and the activities are not supported by digital tools. Traditional does not means that everything it should be limited to writing with chalk on the blackboard. Teaching methods must be adapted to the present. In this context become more difficult to keep the student attention during the lecture and to keep them coming to the lectures. The student participation is reflected, as well at the low rate for passing exam and even worst, on not requiring an expected cognitive level.
Another problem is the reorganization of the content of the lessons. When UB adopted the Bologna program, the bachelor 4-year program at the Faculty of Chemistry was reduced to 3 years, without restructuring the content. More does not mean better and we can see this from the student evaluation. Related with this, two question rises, how we prepare our students for the present and how we prepare them for the future?
Local CPD goals
- to modernize the process of teaching and learning chemistry
- to motivate students and lecturers
- develop critical thinking
- change misconceptions and mentalities
Needs defined in STEM-CPD Roadmap
Competences
Attitudes
Activities
CPD activities at the local university
The CPD activity to achieve the local CPD goals are organized in out of class and in class type activities.
First category will include discussions with the lecturers, preferably before starting a new semester (2h), indicating them by readings and video that an interactive lesson is preferably to a traditional one and showing that a change in that direction can be done by own effort or with a mentoring help (2h). The including of the general remarks from the student evaluation and their analysis in this discussion could be important in this moment. The out of class type activities will involve the organization of a workshop on CPD, inviting a guest lecturer, or expert, to explain how to adopt an active teaching approach and how to engaged student in lectures. The workshop will include discussions with lecturers and mentoring activities in small working groups having as goal the simulation of active learning class and the designing a lecture using active learning methods, based on their own materials realized in a traditional fashion. The workshop will be followed by periodical on-line or face to face teachers meeting (1-2h), going to the creation of microMOOCs for specific chemistry subjects and why not for the implementation of educational innovation project. All the activities will be peer reviewed by teachers and students.
Teaching and learning materials
Evaluation forms before and after activity, individual active seminar
As teaching and learning materials we try to develop a collection of video focused on a specific chemistry subject or experiment type which can be use during an active lesson or in a blended learning type. This collection started in the covid period and continue to grow in the post covid as support for on-line event promoting chemistry. The materials will be created as a common effort by the teachers and student. The engaging of student in essentials, because this change is for the and can be done with them.
Sustainable implementation
There are already small steps in the implementation at the university level.
The Senate of the university include in the annual Senate Awards the following categories: “The professor of the Year” (based on the student evaluations forms), “The best university program”, “ The thesis (Diploma, Master or PhD) of the Year”
It is important that these changes will be rewarded, acknowledge in the periodical evaluation of the lecturers and more important to be sustain at the department of faculty level.
Scenario canvas
Expected impact of the CPD User Case
The expected impact of the CPD User Case is that all lecturers in the chemistry study program start to use active learning methods and to include Think-Pair-Share (TPS) as a cooperative learning activity. The CPD User Case will have an impact on increasing motivation of the students. The students can be engaged to improve such activities.
Plans for eventual continuation of the CPD within the same topic
In this direction we did also some small step in organizing of a mixt master program dedicated to the STEM teaching, where many of the students are already familiar with active learning concepts.
To continue the CPD within the same topic imply to create a mentorate activity as a nucleous at the level faculty, capable to help the faculty members and to spread new learning methods.
Developing confidence in sound course design, interactive teaching, learning facilitation, and use of technology in facilitative teaching (type P1-1, P1-2, P1-3, P1-4)
This CPD scenario describes a User case in which lecturers develop their competence in sound course design and teaching in higher education and designing interactive teaching and facilitating problem solving and how to engage and motivate students and how to facilitate discipline specific thinking and how to facilitate student’s deep learning and development of higher cognitive skills and how to use blended learning.
The approximate duration of a User case that follows this scenario is several months.
In this CPD scenario the participants are using a very short open online course, a micro mooc (μmooc) and professionalize in a close connection to their own teaching practice (at their workplace) and meet in person on location with the training staff and with other participants.
Competences
Attitudes
Learning environment
Time
Several months
Creative Commons 3.0 BY SA applies to all content on Starfish.
Starfish-education support for the publishing on Starfish-education.eu does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors and Starfish-education cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. Starfish-education cannot be held responsible for the content published by authors that is not conform with Creative Commons 3.0 BY SA.