Online Approaches to Chemical Education : A Decade of Using

Chapter 14

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A Decade of Using Technology for Teaching and Learning: A Personal Perspective from Singapore Roderick W. Bates* Division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, 21 Nanyang Link, Singapore 637371 *E-mail: [email protected].

Teaching has entered a period of profound change as information technology evolves. My own involvement began in harnessing online methods to provide students better preparation for laboratory work, including making lab videos for online delivery. The next step was to be involved in the making of a MOOC on Forensic Science and working on the challenges of using the MOOC material for degree credit. The final stage has been to employ online methods for teaching organic chemistry to chemistry majors. Throughout, the challenge has always been to find the right blend of face to face and online methods, the right balance between novelty and tradition, and to ensure that the technology truly enhances and enables the teaching.

How It Began I should begin this chapter with a confession. I don’t like technology. I admire it, but I am not comfortable with it. I do miss the old days of chalk, bound volumes of journals and actually talking to people. We are in the middle of an IT revolution, yet my sympathies are definitely with the Luddites, although, however tempted, I would not resort to violence. Even so, I am a realist. I appreciate that the students are from a very different generation and to them watching a video or playing a game on a smart phone is as natural to them as reading a book is to me. As I want to continue to be effective in my teaching in this brave new world, I know that I © 2017 American Chemical Society Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


have to use technology. As a natural skeptic – a sceptical chymist, even – I would never use technology for its own sake, but only where it delivers an advantage to the pedagogy. Upsetting my little apple cart, a few years ago, my University, Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU), announced ambitious plans, backed up by a substantial budget, to implement TEL across our campus. What is TEL? The T and the L seem quite clear, but I have variously heard both “Technology Enhanced Learning” and “Technology Enabled Learning”. There is an important difference. With this brave new world being mandated by our University leadership, I should have felt intimidated – defiant, even – but not so. Both accidentally and unusually, I found myself ahead of the curve, having been enhancing (or enabling) learning by using technology for the best part of a decade already. However did this happen?

Using Technology To Enhance Laboratory Courses In 2005, Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University embarked on a bold experiment: setting up Departments of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. For many years, NTU had been dominated by its huge Engineering and Business Schools. The first foray into science involved setting up a School of Biological Sciences in 2001; the other sciences followed and I was privileged to be a pioneer in the chemistry experiment. Up to that point, Singapore, an island city-state with only a few million people, had had a single University Chemistry Department at the National University of Singapore. We set out to be different and, of course, better! An essential part of any chemical education is practical work. This is particularly so in our case, as we soon grew to an annual intake of 200-250 chemistry majors. Many of these would, after graduating, go into chemistry careers. As medical schools in Singapore are undergraduate schools (with one small exception), unlike in the U.S.A., we would not have any pre-meds at all! With my colleagues, we set about writing courses that would provide our students with a solid practical training. Lab work never gets the hours in the timetable that it deserves, so we wanted to ensure that students were well prepared before they arrived at the lab to make sure that they could fill each timetabled minute with, to paraphrase Kipling, sixty seconds worth of distance run. We thought we produced a good lab manual; we illustrated it with diagrams and photographs, a task made easy as we could take pictures of the actual lab apparatus with digital cameras. We even had the X-Ray structure of iron oxalate determined – the synthesis of this complex is one of the student experiments. The original color photographs were posted on our e-learning portal, Pearson’s Blackboard. And, yet, it wasn’t enough. Something more was needed. What triggered the next step was thinking about the common questions that the students asked the teaching assistants. One of the organic experiments was designed to teach recrystallization, with the students first finding a suitable solvent for their sample. “Place a small amount in a test tube…” said the lab manual. “How much is a small amount?” asked the Singaporean students, anxious to get things right. That is when I decided to start making lab videos. Working with the University’s own video crew, we made 180 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


videos in our own labs. Sometimes (too often), I played the lead, occasionally I persuaded a colleague to star; at other times, we paid a student to do it. For first year labs, we made videos about the experiments; for the second year labs, we made videos about the different techniques: vacuum filtration, use of addition funnel, column chromatography, how not to do a reflux, even how to use free software to do a Fourier transform of an NMR Free Induction Decay. The videos, uploaded on the server, are accessible through links in the lab manual, in the e-learning portal and now also by QR codes. Producing videos was hard work, but, with the superb assistance of the University video team, we made a large number, building up our collection over several years. We now have more than thirty. We realized, however, that it is one thing to make videos, but another to get the students to watch them at the right time and in the right sequence. Just as structure is important to chemistry, we believe that structure is important to learning. Mindful of the saying about bringing horses to water, we also wanted to ensure that the students did actually watch the videos! On this we were wrong. Students watch videos because that is the world they live in. Getting them to read is the hard part!

Philosophy? This is what led us to come up with a philosophy for our online lab resources. First we have to give the students the content that they need, then we need to put in a little incentive for them to go through the content, and, finally, we need to give them something essential. This simple philosophy was then applied both on a weekly basis and to kick off the semester. At the start of the semester, the students need the lab manual. To get to the manual, available as a pdf file, they first have to go through online safety information, a safety video and a safety quiz. Similarly, each week, students need to get the “pro-forma”. From day one, we had decided not to make students write traditional lab reports, but to complete pro-formas, like filling in a form of their results and observations. It is a lot easier for the markers! These pro-formas were prepared as pdf files and placed online; since then, we have replaced them with fillable pdf files. To get to the pro-forma, students have to watch the video or videos for that experiment, read any posted notes and take a short quiz, all online. Thus, the pro-forma pdf file is the essential item to ensure that they go through the whole sequence. So we had content, we had video, we even had a philosophy, but how could we implement this in practice? We initially used Blackboard’s “adaptive release” function, but quickly found that it is not up to the job for anything even mildly sophisticated! At this point, luckily for us, the University adopted the “Learning Activities Management System” (LAMS) (Figure 1), software originally from Australia’s Macquarie University that works within Blackboard. This software is easy for the instructor to use and can handle quite sophisticated schemes. The author view is very intuitive, using drag-and-drop methods, so that a humble academic with Luddite tendencies and no IT background can quickly create blended learning sequences combining text, graphics, videos and assessment. In fact, it is so easy to use that I was able to create an interactive sequence about calculating oxidation 181 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


states of transition metals in organometallic complexes for my final year class during a particularly dull committee meeting! In this way, we employed online methods to deliver text, quizzes and videos to our students to make them better prepared for each lab session. By doing this, we felt, we had genuinely Enhanced Learning through the use of Technology.

Figure 1. LAMS sequences from the instructor’s point of view. (above) From the teaching lab. The students are assigned different versions of the experiment, hence the “branching activity” (inset) where they have to select the activity for them. (below) A sequence written to remind students how to calculate oxidation states. Boxes with specific titles provide content; boxes marked “multiple choice” are quizzes to test the understanding of that content. 182 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

The Curious Case of Forensic Science


In parallel with these developments in the teaching lab, curious happenstance and the inspiration of Tim Greene and Andrew Shaw, one time colleagues at the University of Exeter, resulted in me organizing and teaching Singapore’s first ever course on Forensic Science. This course was designed as a General Elective (specifically a “General Education Requirement Prescribed Elective” in the NTU jargon, or Gerpy to our students), suitable for students from all disciplines and at all levels. Riding the wave of CSI shows on TV, this course became bizarrely popular, regularly filling the University’s 1700 seat Auditorium as its classroom (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Class finishing in the auditorium. Funny how nobody wants to sit in the front row. When NTU decided to join the MOOC movement, signing a deal with Coursera, it was, perhaps, inevitable that they ask me to make one. Perhaps a MOOC is the ultimate in technology enabled learning – uploading content and assessment online and making it available worldwide. Why did NTU decide to make MOOCs? There are two answers. One is that NTU is a young University – about 50 years young – with ambition, and a MOOC is a way to become known worldwide, quickly and cheaply. The second reason was that NTU had decided to go into educational technology in a big way, and making a few MOOCs would be a way to get some experience. Why did I agree? Partly because you have to have a really good reason to decline when an Associate Provost asks, but also, and more importantly, because I felt that I could use the MOOC resources to benefit the NTU students as well as the MOOC learners. Making a MOOC alongside normal teaching and research work, not to mention administrative obligations, is hard. But, a dedicated technical team for support made it easier. A lot of time is taken by recording lecture content. I don’t know how TV people do it, but I found the experience of talking to a camera to be very uncomfortable. I was asked, in an e-mail interview from China, why I never smile when I lecture. Actually, I always smile when I lecture to real people; it is lecturing to a camera that is an unsmiling experience! With a student audience, especially with a subject like 183 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


Forensic Science, I can get a reaction. The camera, however, never laughs or goes “yuk”. We realized, though, that moving online gave us some advantages. Lecturing in a theatre, I had been able to do some demonstrations. I had used the Kastle-Meyer test for blood under the lens of a document camera. I had even brought a portable infra-red spectrometer and acquired the spectra in real time on a big screen. With reflectance instruments you can get people interested by analyzing real, everyday objects such as bank notes. A Singapore $2 note is a polymer banknote, a US $1 is paper – the difference in the IR is dramatic. All of these demonstrations could be done just as well in front of a camera. What is more, while making videos for the MOOC, we could bring the camera into the lab and show the insides of an HPLC or an atomic absorption spectrometer. In the MOOC, we could bring 10,000 learners, including 1,700 NTU undergraduates, into our lab, in a virtual sense. Quite impossible in the real world. Combining video with graphics enabled us to switch from reality to animation, so that, in a single video segment we could both show the instrument and show how it works. This was much more effective than static diagrams. The MOOC format enabled us to expand learning far outside the confines of the campus; the use of video and animation technology let us enhance that learning. The Problem of Assessment Teaching a course involves assessment. Moving the course online meant that we had to re-think how to do the assessment. Assessment is hard. It is hard to write good assessment. What do I mean by good assessment? It involves all of the students feeling stretched, but not to breaking point. This is particularly hard when, like us, your cohort spans a wide range of abilities. It also involves going beyond testing facts, but writing questions that make students think, and takes them outside their intellectual comfort zone, but not so far that they cry. Once the forensic science lecture course was written, the biggest effort that I put in each year was in creating each year’s exam paper. I admit that I could have written an exam paper that was entirely multiple choice questions, and with a class of 1700, I could have justified this. Displaying a hitherto unsuspected Stakhanovite tendency, I did not and insisted (to myself) that the exam should include a substantial short answer section, requiring me to create a crime scene each year. These became better each year as I became more practiced, the best being 2009’s question entitled “A Scandal in Ruritania” in which the students had to turn around and argue against their earlier answers. It is one thing to write a good exam question, administering an exam to 1700 students is another matter. Fortunately, final exams at NTU are still organized in the British way, with impeccably ordered exam halls and ample numbers of proctors provided centrally. Cheating is difficult! Midterms are different, with a crammed lecture theatre and a handful of teaching assistants to help. We do our best to minimize sharp practices. One way is to post the questions, one by one, on a screen using powerpoint, rather than handing out test papers. We introduced this method to save paper and work, and it succeeds in that admirably. Even so, monitoring a class of 1700 is challenging and even bringing binoculars, as I did one year, only helps a little. Perhaps, if I were less technologically challenged, I might try out surveillance drones. The uneasy 184 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


compromise is to keep the percentage of the overall mark for the mid-term low. Or should I move to online assessment? Naturally, in the MOOC, there was no alternative. For the MOOC, we employed polls, multiple choice questions and short answer questions with peer grading. Do people cheat? Of course they do. Whatever the MOOC providers may claim about their verification procedures, I remain deeply skeptical. The number of people who believe that the purpose of education is to gain a certificate, rather than to actually learn something, is astonishingly high. You only need to google “Bihar exam” to see what I mean! With the MOOC, however, there is no choice. With learners scattered worldwide, we have to use online assessment. A compromise must be sought. The benefit to the number of people who do wish to learn something far outweighs the issuing of certificates to the undeserving – but it does devalue those certificates. The choice to make a MOOC, and to use it for internal purposes, created a dilemma because we could not accept any devaluing of an NTU transcript. How could we take advantage of the MOOC technology for the benefit of the students, yet maintain the robustness of assessment? The answer came to me, oddly enough, while on a short sabbatical at the University of Zagreb in Croatia. A feature of our Forensic Science course had always been to invite experts from Singapore’s Health Science Authority, from the Singapore Police Force and from the AttorneyGeneral’s chambers to contribute from their experience. These contributions could not be MOOCed. In this way, the 2 + 1 = 3 concept came about. The students had the option of taking a 2 credit course, entirely online, which at the time was our MOOC. The assessment, a peer graded case study, was also online. To balance this, we made the module pass/fail, meaning that it did not count towards the GPA. They could then take a 1 credit module, which was mostly the guest lecturers – face to face, naturally; or the students could take the whole thing in one semester as a combined three credit module. The key to the whole plan was that those taking the 1 or 3 credit modules would need to take a formal exam, and that would be letter graded. In this way, we tried to get the best of both worlds – the enhancements and enabling that come from online lectures, but also the rigor of an old-style exam. We dubbed this a hybrid system and we feel that it works. Certainly, students’ responses to our exam questions are of similar standard as in the pre-MOOC days, and we feel that our assessment methods retain their robustness. Many students, on the other hand, can also opt for the 2 credit course and satisfy both their curiosity about the subject and some niggling graduation requirements.

Can It Work for Organic Chemistry? But there is a warning. This will not work for all courses. Forensic Science is, in many ways, an exceptional course. The reason is that most of the students want to study it. This is inevitable with any course containing dead bodies, backed up by the power of TV broadcasting. I would not try to teach my regular subject, organic chemistry, in this way. The raw material of organic chemistry simply does not have the same attraction for the majority of the students, nor would it bring the level of engagement that chemistry majors need. That does not mean that an organic chemistry course cannot benefit from technology. When the time came to 185 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


look at this course, I felt I should switch from enhancing to enabling. The organic chemistry course had been organized with three hours of lectures per week, plus a tutorial in alternate weeks. As academics we tend to put a great deal of misplaced faith in the lecture, although, if we are honest, we will realize that it exists more for administrative than pedagogical reasons. I will concede that a well planned lecture, delivered by a fine lecturer to motivated students will be very effective. But when do we ever have that combination of three factors? I believe that a tutorial, if properly organized, provides a better learning experience. Furthermore, it is a better preparation for the real life situations that await the students after graduation. Skills of group working, critical thinking and presentation are sharpened, and a closer engagement with the content results. I would submit that being able to hold your own in an intense discussion meeting is a more valuable skill than the ability to stay awake while someone else drones on and on (unless you are a member of the North Korean parliament). The first step was to timetable more tutorials: going from alternate weeks to every week. The second step was to use rooms with the right furniture: hexagonal or circular tables rather than rows of chairs, to change the focus of the students from the lecturer to their fellows (Figure 3). The third step was to redesign the activities: use the time for the students to work in groups on discussing and problem solving, then presenting solutions. All these changes are very good, but the problem of time then arises: timetable time, the professor’s time, and the students’ time. With overall class sizes of more than 200, but with tutorial capacities of just 25-30, the amount of contact time balloons. This is where technology comes in. Putting all of the content online meant that I could switch from spending my contact time lecturing to working directly with the students in tutorials: guiding them, encouraging them, dropping hints, and challenging them. All of these activities are a better use of what talents I may have than simply talking at them in a lecture theatre. The technology, therefore, did not enhance the learning, but enabled us to improve the learning through the pedagogy by creating time.

Figure 3. A tutorial in progress. The furniture and the layout of the room are designed to encourage group working. 186 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


Conclusion I first had access to the internet in the early 1990’s. The development of this technology, as well as the video and animation technology that goes with it, has been phenomenal. As a result, we are in the middle of a revolution in how we communicate, how we shop and how we entertain ourselves. It is a revolution as profound as the invention of radio, of the electric telegraph and of the printing press. Just as this revolution has changed how we access journals and how we submit and review papers, it must also change how we teach. When this technology is harnessed to enhance learning or to enable learning, it must be welcomed. Used for proper pedagogical reasons, it gives us and the students very powerful tools. If it is just the use of technology for the sake of using technology, then it is a waste, both of time and tuition fees! I believe that the ideas that we have put into practice as described in this chapter have been effective and resulted in better learning for the students. It is certain that this revolution is not yet over and poor old Luddites like myself will have to run to keep up with the changes yet to come.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank the staff of NTU’s Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching for their support of all that we tried to do. Special thanks are due to Paul Gagnon who originally persuaded me to try a little technology. I would also like to thank NTU for the Nanyang Award for Teaching Excellence and the associated cash grant, and the Chemistry Department of the University of Zagreb for their hospitality. Most importantly, I wish to thank the students of organic chemistry and forensic science at NTU since 2005, without whom this work would have had no point.

187 Sörensen and Canelas; Online Approaches to Chemical Education ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Online Approaches to Chemical Education : A Decade of Using

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