A presentation on the development of e-learning resources for teaching university level chemistry. Originally delivered by Dr Dylan P. Williams at Variety in Chemistry Education 2011.

1. Department of Chemistry
Chemistry Clips - Multimedia Resources
for Supporting Student Learning in
Chemistry
Dylan P. Williams and David L. Davies
dpw10@le.ac.uk

2. CHEMISTRY CLIPS
Aim: To develop a series of short „enhanced lecture‟
resources particularly focused at distance learners
• Short, focussed video clips based on PowerPoint
slides with a spoken soundtrack
• Clips are assembled using Adobe Presenter
• Piloted in 2010-11 academic year with wider
implementation planned for 2011-12 year
• We aim to develop a range of enhanced lecture
and interactive tutorial clips

3. PILOT STUDY FINDINGS
Clips were piloted in a second semester year 3
(Metals in Organic Synthesis) module in the
2010-11 year.
• 70 % of students looked at the clips
• 86 % of those who watched the clips agreed
that they were very useful
• 75 % of those who tried the tutorial clip
agreed that they liked the opportunity to
request a hint and try the tutorial again

4. PILOT STUDY FINDINGS
“audio lectures was brilliant, really helpful for the auditory
learners. able to understand note mores. recommend to
carry on with it. thanks dr davies”
“the audio lects were the best thing since sliced bread! if
only all distance learning modules had them, and what is
stopping other lecturers recording audio from their lects
and releasing it for students”
“I thought that the audio lecture was extremely useful and
think that if every lecturer was able to produce these it
would be extremely helpful for the distance learners.”

5. THE NEXT STAGE
• More video recordings and interactive tutorials will
be introduced in the 2011-12 academic year
• Some screen capture will be included
• Evaluation will take the form of course
questionnaires and focus group interviews
• Some chemistry and i-science final year students
will be working on this as part of their final year
projects (supervised by DPW)
• Chemistry clips will also be developed for use in
our interdisciplinary science degree course
• Full evaluation will take place in 2012

6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• University of Leicester
Academic Practice Unit
for providing funding for
this project
• University of Leicester
Media Zoo for providing
training and advice
• Prof Derek Raine for
advice and for practical
support