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Hello, my name is Bill Fowler. I'm one of the instructors of organic chemistry
here at Stonybrook and the reason we're here is to discuss these large enrollment
courses which uh... can be somewhat intimidating to students but they also
present a considerable challenge to the faculty as well.
This year we had over a thousand students and the three of us taught.
This is Nicole Sampson and Joe Lauher. And Joe
why don't you start?
Well this is quite a thing we're doing. I'm not sure how
we all got into this but
it kinda grew on us is what happened.
But the course is big and
we've been working hard this past year and I guess what we're doing here
today is just discussing some of the things that we've discovered in some of the things that
we were planning for the future...and some of the strategies for students to
succeed that we've tried to introduce into the course because
one of the myths is, right, that this course's really hard. It's not really hard. It's
really really really hard.
Takes a lot of time
and uh...
students often think that there's no good reason for them
to be here but I think there are a lot of compelling reasons--maybe not
organic chemistry--
but we tried to teach the course so that
students use teamwork.
lectures aren't really lectures. They are
major problem solving sessions with...
how many people are in there, Joe? Oh these are big lecture rooms
so they may hold five hundred seventy students.
We usually have about four hundred fifty students there at
any given lecture. It's quite a scene.
And how many TAs are in the room
at one time? We have
two or three graduate TAs and
as many..
oh, a half a dozen undergraduates when it's going on.
So Bill
you're the champion of these aisles.
So you should see this scene of him
walking up and down the aisle with his pad
and it's quite a sight. How do you pull it off?
Haha, well I think that the model that we use is a little different--it's more
of a student-oriented education
in that
the students communicate to us with these clickers and you have a room
with five hundred and fifty students and yet each one has this clicker and
can individually send their responses to us as well as the whole whole class
and that's very important because not all students are comfortable in a
room of six hundred
raising their hand and shouting out an answer but they can give us a response
by clickers and we can hear whether or not
(hear figuratively) whether or not they're getting it without them having to
identify themselves as
not understanding the material
because the clickers are pretty anonymous.
I think these clickers have turned out to be a lot of fun actually. I mean,
it's a little
bit of a video game for the students and for us. I'm
always amazed with what the answers are. I mean sometimes I'm amazed about how good
the answers are.
Sometimes I'm amazed how the students are totally clueless. You know it's
always a bit of fun to add an element of
suspense
but, of course, organic chemistry is all about participation and
it is work
and one of the things is it's the
paper and pen which have to be working together
the solve a problem. So how do we we get them to do that with a clicker?
Well..
each lecture is essentially
nothing but uh... it's a series of clicker quizzes
uh...
We do between six and twelve clicker quizzes so
in a
period
and working with the pen is absolutely essential and uh...
That's, I think, one of the keys to succeeding is
to get engaged, to start writing
uh...
something down to try and respond uh... as to what we uh...
what the question is and particularly talk among the students uh... it's
very social.
When we do in these clicker quizzes it's not you and me,
it's just me
and you and everyone around you working on these clicker quizzes.
And I think
it's a very
powerful constructive tool
using this student oriented
model as an approach to education.
I've been really impressed at how these
groups of students basically come together
and they always sit in the same seats and they are always there. If one of them doesn't show up
their friends miss them
and they get into these clicker quizzes.
"Oh! What is the answer? Is it B??? Is it C?" and the correct answer or sometimes the
incorrect answers spreads like wildfire across the room.
and uh... You know it's simply--it's a game but they're thinking.
So the bad news is it's very noisy but the good news is it's
very noisy
in that room because everybody's talking chemistry.
It's not just one person out there talking but it's the whole crowd is
discussing it
and trying to convince people in their answers. Oh that's that's right. It's so
different than the old days. I mean, in the old days we were up there on the stage
you know babbling on about goodness knows what
and if the class was talking we were really upset.
Now we're upset if the classes isn't talking so it's a very
different scene.
so uh... What is the role of the TAs in the room?
Well
along with us, the TAs are walking the aisles and uh... answering questions,
helping the students because these clicker quizzes--although we call them quizzes
we don't really do evaluation with them. There's a small component of
evaluation but the main thing is just to participate, to be part of the
course because you are not there you just
don't have a chance. You will not be able to learn
any organic chemistry at all.
TAs...we have a lot of resources..it's a thousand students but we
have uh... huge number of resources devoted to this course.
In addition to the three of us, we have twelve graduate TAs
and fifty to sixty undergraduate TA's that took the course last year and
did very well.
They are very helpful at helping students uh...
uh... succeed the following.. In many cases, the undergrad TAs know more about
what's
tripping up students than we do. Oh absolutely.
And they know all the things that helped them just
a year ago. I'm very impressed by how eager the best students are to be a TA
the next year. Every spring we get inundated with
all these requests "I want to TA the course next year. Can I, can I?"
and of course you can.