In the 1990s the author of this presentation had his first opportunity to develop a distance learning chemistry course with broadcast cable television as the means of delivering lectures to students. For his traditional on-campus sections he found himself merely repeating that which was recorded in the studio. This led him to require his on-campus students to watch the pre-recorded lectures before coming to class. This enabled class to be used primarily as a time of interactive study and hands-on/mind-on activities. This gave the on-campus students a tremendous learning advantage. It also made clear the distinction between “content delivery” and “content facilitation”. Through content delivery the student passively receives information, which is done well-enough outside of the classroom. Content facilitation is where students attempt to articulate what they think they have learned from the delivered content. This is a more difficult phase of learning best accomplished within the classroom with classmates under the expert guidance of the course instructor. Since embracing this mode of teaching, the presenter has specialized in the creation of chemistry content in multiple formats, including textbooks and video tutorials now embedded within a structured hypermedia-learning environment located at ConceptualAcademy.com. The textbook is where students can read. Conceptual Academy is where they can watch and listen. When tightly integrated, these two complementary formats provide a robust means for delivering content to a broad range of student learning styles. When held accountable, students thus come to class fully prepared to learn. In this session, the presenter will showcase the online resources available through Conceptual Academy. In addition to hundreds of video tutorials, quizzes, and other online study supplements, this includes a library of student-centered learning activities that the instructor might use for on-campus classes to complement to a lighter emphasis on lecture presentations. Many of these on-campus activities, including team-based learning, are now being ported into Conceptual Academy for the benefit of the purely online student. So, while online courses have inspired innovations for the traditional on-campus classroom, the reverse is also true: on-campus innovations can impact the online environment as well. These two seemingly different avenues of teaching are fertile ground when blended together.

Development of an online hypermedia environment as a complement to the traditional textbook and its impact on the on-campus classroom

249th National Meeting (2015)

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