Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, 800 E. Kirkwood Ave. Bloomington, IN 47405. afeig@indiana.edu
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THE CLASSROOM IS A PLACE FOR DISCUSSIONS – NOT LECTURES. Class time is run as a Socratic discussion, modeled after the teaching style the professor who taught me organic chemistry. I bring prepared overheads with me to class, but I ask the students to help me interpret the information and encourage them to ask questions that deepen their own exploration of the material. To make this effective, I learn the names of all of my students in the first couple of weeks of the term. I can then call on the students by name, even if they are not volunteering to answer the question. If a student does not know the answer, I try to ask additional questions that help lead the students through the thought process through which they might understand the concept. Since the class sessions are run as discussions, I push the students to read material prior to class and to bring their questions with them. The problem sets also force the students to think about concepts in advance of class sessions. I began using this methodology last spring in a different course because I found that it dramatically improved the quality of class discussions, especially pertaining to difficult concepts, because the students come to class with a more detailed picture of the issues that must be clarified in their mind during the discussion. The fact that the class sessions are dominated by discussions helps create an atmosphere of collaboration for the course. Students feel free to ask their neighbor for assistance during class if there is something they do not understand. My knowing all of their names also makes it easier for the students to approach me with their questions and concerns.
AVAILABILITY OF COURSE MATERIALS. Handouts are provided as an accompaniment to practically every class session. These handouts contain miniaturized versions (3 to a page) of a subset of the prepared overheads. I want the students to be thinking about the topics and participating in the discussion during class time. I have found in my other classes, that the students focus too much on copying down verbatim the contents of the overheads if they are not provided. Thus, class handouts dramatically improve the quality of class discussion as well as promote much broader participation. All class handouts are available as PDF files through the course web page for anyone who missed class. Also available on-line are lecture outlines that highlight the topics I intended to cover in any class period.
COOPERATIVE LEARNING AND GROUP EXERCISES. I strongly encourage cooperative learning and try to foster a level of team spirit in the classroom. A class list with names, majors and email addresses is distributed to the class at the end of the first week. Although every student must turn in their own problem set, I recommend that students work together with their classmates on these assignments, preferably in groups of 3-4. I do ask that students inform me regarding with whom they work on any problem set so that I can identify any significant misconceptions that are being perpetuated through a study group. Students are given the option of being assigned a study group the first week if they feel uncomfortable initiating the process on their own. I also try to promote the development of more active study habits among my students, encouraging them to present topics to their classmates as part of their exam preparations.
INQUIRY-BASED EXERCISES. Active inquire is an essential part of science and I like to have a portion of my class reflect this process of discovery. Open-ended, inquiry-based assignments have been incorporated through the use of bioinformatics exercises. These exercises are based on a “pet protein” concept. Each student receives an unknown protein the first day of class. This protein becomes theirs for the entire term. Every two weeks or so, they must do another task that further analyzes the structure, function or activity of their unknown. More detail on these projects can be found in the appendices by examination of the problem sets or the excerpted bioinformatics exercises. A preprint of a pedagogical paper describing these exercises can also be obtained through the appendices. Together, these exercises force the students to grapple with the vast amounts of biological data available on-line. They learn to use the tools necessary to find specific pieces of information and use very sophisticated methods to compare biological molecules at both the primary and tertiary structure levels. The assignments are designed to promote integration of learning. Very detailed instructions are provided for most of these exercises to insure that the students obtain the necessary output files. The goal is for the student to spend about 20% of their effort on obtaining the output and then 80% of their time interpreting and understanding that data. In this way, the computer should be a transparent window on the bioinformatics world to avoid frustration and student discontent. This lesson was learned the hard way in previous renditions of these exercises where students thought that obtaining the output was the primary purpose. Now, each of the exercises includes follow-up questions that lead the students to think about and describe the concepts that underlie the actual exercise.
ACCESSIBILITY. Providing students with ample opportunities to get their questions answered outside of class is an important consideration for a class this size. The associate instructor has two 1-hour office hour blocks every week and I have a single 90-minute block that regularly extends to over two hours. The time slot was moved from that originally scheduled as more than half of the class could not attend the original time slot I had allotted. I encourage my students to ask questions by email, especially just prior to problem set due dates and exams. I use a class email list to forward anonymously particularly relevant questions with their answers to the entire class list. Since many students have the same questions, this allows me to expediently respond to common concerns and head off some that might otherwise arise.