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Over the Fall semester, 1997, I converted materials that I use to teach "The Biochemical Basis of Diseases" into a Powerpoint presentation. The presentation consists of 52 slides which incorporate patient histories (case studies), diagnosis, treatment and basic biochemistry. The presentation is designed for Bio 305: Biochemistry and takes 50 min.
Report
The goal of the project was to combine some of the written materials
and 2X2 slides for some of the topics in Biochemistry into an
integrated presentation. In the past, the material was presented
in 3 formats: slides, overhead transparencies and blackboard with
students looking in 3 directions for this "multimedia"
presentation. Now, most of the information is consolidated and
I am hoping that it will be easier for the students to follow.
I have completed as much of the project that I could accomplish
for this semester since I will use it right after Thanksgiving
break. It will be relatively easy for me to add to the Powerpoint
program and I would eventually like to include diagrams of metabolic
pathways from the textbook. Although the project seemed straightforward,
there were a number of setbacks and I spent more time than I had
planned overcoming some technical problems. Brenda Molden was
very helpful and I still would not be able to replicate some of
the things she did to get the presentation to work. But overall,
it would be much easier for me to put together a Powerpoint presentation
in the future as I think about some the potential of an integrated
presentation in of my other courses. It was a learning experience
and I probably would not have persisted without the support of
your committee. My plan for assessment is very simple: I will
include a question or two on the course evaluations which addresses
the Powerpoint presentation of the material. There are no plans
for dissemination and I did not put the presentation on the Web
because the slides ( as well as the metabolic charts I plan to
use) are copyrighted materials.
Addendum
to Report
Now that I have seen the course evaluations for Bio 303 (Biochemistry)
I can add the following information with respect to assessment
of my project: N.B. class size = 8 students, all completed the
evaluations.
On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the highest, I asked students
how valuable the Powerpoint presentation was in terms of their
learning the biochemical principles. 4/8 rated it 5, 3/8 rated
it 4 and 1/8 rated it 3.
When I asked students if they would like access to the presentation
via a course folder or other mechanism, 6/8 responded yes.
When I asked if it would be useful to have other topics covered
in a similar format, 4/8 replied "yes", 1/8 replied
"no", and 1/8 replied "possibly". In addition,
students wrote comments about the Powerpoint presentation such
as "organized", "concise", "visual aids
are useful".
Last updated
on 11/26/00
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