The combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest turned education on its head this quarter. To keep students engaged, a plethora of techniques were employed, ranging from synchronous lectures and activities via the Zoom platform to the asynchronous online discussion board Piazza. Consideration of students' nonacademic struggles also…

An upper-division undergraduate polymer chemistry course was developed as a blended/hybrid course. The students met face-to-face once a week for 75 min with all other components being available online. Face-to-face meetings were used for class discussions/problem-based lectures, student presentations, hands-on activities, and examinations. Online…

Active-learning environments such as those found in a flipped classroom are known to increase student performance, although how these gains are realized over the course of a semester is less well understood. In an upper-level lecture course designed primarily for biochemistry majors, we examine how students attain improved learning outcomes, as…

The flipped classroom is a relatively new approach to undergraduate teaching in science. This approach repurposes class time to focus on application and discussion; the acquisition of basic concepts and principles is done on the students' own time before class. While current flipped classroom research has focused on student preferences and…

Inverted teaching, not to be confused with hybrid learning, is a relatively new pedagogy in which lecture is shifted outside of class and traditional homework is done in class. Though some inverted teaching (IT) designs have been published in different fields, peer-reviewed reports in university chemistry remain quite rare. To that end, herein is…

Three emerging technologies were used in a large introductory chemistry class: a tablet PC, a lecture capture and replay software program, and an online homework program. At the end of the semester, student usage of the lecture replay and online homework systems was compared to course performance as measured by course grade and by a standardized…

This paper describes a teaching experiment designed to examine the learning (i.e., retention of content and conceptual development) that takes place when public scientific web lectures delivered by scientists are utilized to present advanced ideas in physics to students with a high school background in physics. The students watched an exemplary…

Previous research has linked poor student performance with the depersonalized feeling of large lecture courses. Various forms of enhanced communication have been tried that appear to enhance personalization in large courses. For general chemistry classes taught in a 365-seat lecture hall at the University of Georgia, we have attempted to enhance…

Face-to-face bioinformatics courses commonly include a weekly, in-person computer lab to facilitate active learning, reinforce conceptual material, and teach practical skills. Similarly, fully-online bioinformatics courses employ hands-on exercises to achieve these outcomes, although students typically perform this work offsite. Combining a…

When a college instructor goes out of town and must miss a lecture, the standard options are to cancel the class meeting or to enlist a colleague to fill in. In the former case a teaching opportunity is lost; in the latter the substitute may not lead the class in the same way as the instructor. Some students routinely skip lectures by a guest…

Technology expands instructional options for faculty, and this study examines the differential learning effects of offering a lecture on physics to students in a traditional classroom versus internet video formats. Based on an experiment conducted in a natural educational context, results indicate enhanced transfer of lecture information in the…

The lecture content of a Plant Biology class for non-majors was transformed from a traditional on-campus lecture to an asynchronous website for use both as a stand-alone internet-based course and as an adjunct to the on-campus course. Additional information and examples of the online interactive activities included in PLB 108, Concepts in Plant…

This study is an experimental introduction of web-based lecture delivery into a majors-level introductory biology course. Web-based delivery, achieved through the use of prerecorded Voice-Over PowerPoint video lectures, was introduced on a limited basis to an experimental section while a control group, with the same instructor, received standard…

This study describes the efficacy of a novel tool, mini-lecture movies, in teaching Web based general chemistry. The analysis shows a marked improvement in student learning, as evidenced by a corresponding increase in homework and final exam scores. Students with access to mini-lecture movies scored 11.2% (p = 0.016) higher than students who did…

A blended learning approach to the teaching of a level 2 inorganic chemistry module is presented. Lectures were replaced by study packs, which were supported by formative on-line assessment delivered via Blackboard and a programme of 20 workshops. Learning activities written using the Lockwood format were included in the study pack to facilitate…