Today April 6

Dog days of Orgo:
Well this morning it was clear that it sometimes does not matter what or how you teach, if the collective attitude of the class is that they don’t want to engage, they won’t. Students this morning clearly were NOT prepared, they “read”, they said, but they were NOT interested in being engaged. They wanted me to stand in front and lecture. Most frustrating.
I used group control for the first time which seemed okay, I wonder if the students just were so burned out by last weeks exam that they are trying to catch up on other classes or just wanted to rest from chemistry.

American Chemical Society Meeting

Well, our American Chemical Society meeting went without a hitch.  We are still here in Salt Lake City, but my poster on Sunday Evenign got some good comments and I met with folks who were interested in our assessment plan.  They were interested in how were were measuring student attitudes and correlated to student competance.  A picture of the poster is below.

I also went to some talks and and have been invited to participate in invesitgating Student preconceptions abotu organic chemsitry.  A Chem Ed. PhD. candicdate reported on a pilot of this project and was interested in subjects, and since I have asked a few questions about student perceptions, I felt it would be a good fit.

NITLE Meeting Presentation

The NITLE Meeting at DePauw last weekend was a great opportunity. We were able to present our foray into the arena with a talk,  a self-narrated version I recorded is below. we also got to talk with representatives from a  few colleges who are just beginning the process of exploring tablet use in the classroom, including Yale, Monmouth, to name two.  I am hopeful that we will be able to help folks, by either this blog and the resources posted herein, or by being invited to visit and talk with folks, demonstrate what we have done and collaborating with folks to see if this is right for them.

tabletteachingnitle

NITLE Meeting

Just am finishing up a fantastic meeting at DePauw about the use of Tablet PCs and inking technology in classrooms. I have learned all about using inking in PowerPoint, using PDF annotator, Using StickyNotes, and capturing audio and embedding in StickyNotes and using it as a presentation method for Chinese Language classes. 13 Colleges attended and we had folks with loads of experience using Ink based technology, and those with no experience but are trying to think about how to to take those first steps into this arena.