Dr Jonathan Agger Email [email protected] Developing Virtual Labs – Bringing a Physical Chemistry MOOC to Life 1 Developing Virtual Labs – Bringing

Dr Jonathan AggerEmail [email protected]

Developing Virtual Labs – Bringing a Physical Chemistry MOOC to Life 1

Developing Virtual Labs – Bringing a Chemistry MOOC to Life

■ Introduction to the MOOC

■ Hosting the MOOC on the Coursera platform

■ Statistics

■ Creating the virtual labs

■ Outcomes and further development

2

Introduction

Developing Virtual Labs – Bringing a Physical Chemistry MOOC to Life

■ Acknowledgements

3

MOOC: Introduction to Physical Chemistry


Aimed atfirst year

undergraduates

Academically rigorous

Physical Chemistry

MOOC

Inclusion of three virtual

labs

ThermodynamicsKinetics

Quantum Mechanics

UniqueSellingPoint?

■ Thermodynamics – Jonathan Agger

4

Teaching Styles


■ Voiced over, animated Powerpoint presentation

5

Teaching Styles


■ Kinetics – Mike Anderson■ Voiced over, presentation + annotations

6

Teaching Styles


■ Quantum Mechanics – Patrick O’Malley■ Voiced over, annotation and modified interactive quizzes

■ Each of the three sections comprised two formative and one summative ten question multiple choice tests (with full worked solutions).

7

Quizzes


■ The thermodynamics virtual lab involves the student carrying out two chemical reactions in a calorimeter.

8

The Virtual Labs: Thermodynamics


■ The first reaction produces a known amount of energy which causes the temperature inside the calorimeter to rise. Measurement of this temperature rise, in conjunction with the known amount of energy released, allows calibration of the calorimeter via the determination of its heat capacity.

■ The second reaction produces energy which also causes the temperature of the calorimeter to rise. Measurement of this temperature rise, in conjunction with the calculated heat capacity, allows the determine of the quantity of energy produced and thus quantification of the second reaction.

■ The student is then expected to use the various equations presented in the lectures to perform the necessary calculations based on the quantity of each chemical reaction and the measured temperature rises.

■ A traditional distance learning approach would present the student with the reaction concentrations and the temperature rises thus enabling them to perform the calculations.

■ What we wanted was for the student to be able to record the actual data for him / herself.

9Developing Virtual Labs – Bringing a Physical Chemistry MOOC to Life


■ After shooting the footage of this experiment it quickly became apparent that it was impossible to read the thermometer so our eLearning team came up with a superb simulation, even showing the light glinting off the glass!

■ Images of the original video footage showing preparation and measurement.



■ A graph of temperature inside the calorimeter versus time.

11

Analysing the Data



The Virtual Labs: Kinetics

■ The kinetics virtual lab involves the student measuring volumes of oxygen gas released during the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen.

■ The oxygen volumes are measured using a gas burette which involves lowering a reservoir in order to equilibrate the height of two water columns then reading off the corresponding volume and time.

■ The students are then expected to use the various integrated rate laws, presented in the lectures, to plot a variety of graphs to determine the order of the reaction and subsequently the rate constant.



The Virtual Labs: Kinetics

■ A linear graph of natural log of concentration versus time – 1st order kinetics.


Analysing the Data


■ The quantum mechanics virtual lab involves the students recreating Nobel prize winning science to measure and understand the position of lines in the Balmer series of the emission spectrum of hydrogen.

■ The line positions are measured by our undergraduates using a Bellingham direct vision spectrometer and for this virtual practical our eLearning team created an accurate simulation of the view through the lens of the spectrometer.

■ By means of two arrow keys the students could scan through the spectrum, just as our own students do, in order to locate and accurately measure the position of the four lines.

■ The students are then expected to use the Rydberg equation from the lectures in order to calculate the Rydberg constant and the ionisation energy of hydrogen.

The Virtual Labs: Quantum Mechanics


The Virtual Labs: Quantum Mechanics



Analysing the Data

■ A linear graph of the energy of each line in eV versus the inverse square of the upper quantum number, enabling determination of the Rydberg constant from both the slope and the intercept.

■ The first iteration of the course was hosted on Coursera from■ 2nd June to the 21st July 2014.

■ The second iteration of the course will be hosted on Coursera from■ 2nd February to the 23rd March 2015.

18

Hosting the MOOC on Coursera


■ The course will subsequently be hosted on Coursera in an on-demand format.

■ We hope to run a third iteration hosted on Coursera with date to be confirmed.

■ Enrolment

19

Statistics: Enrolment and Demographics


Enrolled ActiveAwarded

PassAwarded

DistinctionCountries

Emerging Economies

Forum

Posts14,867 10,455 148 320 158 30% 2,075

other

37% Female63% Male

20



0100200300400500600700

Have you taken any of following online courses or programmes?

21



Which of the following descriptions best characterises you?

Curiousamateur

Industryprofessional

Researchscientist

Studentor pupil

AcademicTeacher

Other

22



What is the highest level of education you have completed?

Primary

Secondary

Vocational

Undergraduate

Postgraduate

■ Satisfaction

23

Statistics: Satisfaction


Excellent Good Satisfactory Poor Terrible0

50

100

150

200

250

Overall, how would you rate this course?

Excellent or Good = 94%

79% would recommend this MOOC to a friend / colleague62% interested in other MOOCs from The University of Manchester24% interested in pursuing an online or campus-based course in this subject

from The University of Manchester

■ Highlights

■ A TINY selection of the feedback…

24

The Virtual Labs


I liked seeing how the labs were implemented - that can be difficult to set up, so good job!

The virtual labs were a novel addition to the MOOC, the closest thing I've gotten to lab experience so far…

The experiments were fantastic... What a clever idea!!!

The virtual labs were awesome :)

The labs, that was a nice touch and well done! Some people are disadvantaged when they get to university if they have not been to a good school prior to entry.

I thought the virtual labs were great, very well thought out and imaginative - congratulations!

The virtual labs were vital to understanding the course better, and they were cool!

I really enjoyed the virtual labs. It's an amazing idea because it's difficult to have access to these kind of instruments in some places. I'm almost finishing a technical course in Chemistry and I have never even seen some of the instruments used.

The lab exercises were superb. They provided a much deeper understanding of the subject at hand than that obtained from merely studying a textbook.

■ What did you enjoy most about this course?

25

Statistics: Wordle


■ Over 10,000 students gained a positive experience of The University of Manchester.

26

Outcomes and Further Development


■ Over 30 members of staff now have a far better idea of the requirements needed to develop and run a MOOC.

■ The Introduction to Physical Chemistry MOOC is being used by Coursera as an example of best practice, owing to the virtual labs.

■ Invited by Coursera to present at their annual conference in California in March 2015.

■ The Introduction to Physical Chemistry MOOC has been re-purposed for the eTekkatho project (http://www.etekkatho.mimas.ac.uk) for distribution on standalone PCs in Burma.

■ The Distance Learning Strategy Group of The University of Manchester has recommended a further call for 5-6 more MOOCs to be produced in 2015.

27

Outcomes and Further Development


■ A further 20k of funding has been secured from the University’s Centre for Higher Education Research, Innovation and Learning (CHERIL) to produce more virtual labs.

■ Filming is due to commence next week.

■ Creation of further MOOCs a possibility in the future, subject to central policy – particularly foundation year chemistry and nuclear magnetic resonance.

■ Mike Anderson and Patrick O’Malley (co-presenters)

■ Ian Hutt (project management)

28

Acknowledgements


■ Stephen Wheeler (filming, post-production + a million and one other things!)

■ Sharon Gardner (spectrometer animation)

■ Steve Davis (calorimeter animation)

■ Rachel Smith, Nathan Beal, Lucy Jones, Josue Ayuso-Carillo■ Gotfried Uiseb, James Amphlett and Giles Edwards (forum moderation)

■ All the staff at Coursera who have made running the course a highly enjoyable experience.

Documents

Dr Jonathan Agger Email [email protected] Developing Virtual Labs – Bringing a Physical Chemistry MOOC to Life 1 Developing Virtual Labs – Bringing