EDIM 508 u03a2 Student Learning Centre

In what practical ways can a media-infused presentation like the one you created help foster the development of both the disciplined and synthesizing minds?

I had a very difficult time deciding on a topic to focus on for this project. I wanted to find a current topic in my curriculum that students find difficult and traditionally has not been viewed by students as an ‘interesting’ topic (although very necessary for further study in chemistry). I wanted to find an area in the curriculum that I felt needed revamping. I was also conscious of a class that I could spend some extra time with incorporating this student learning centre. My idea was to make this student centre not only a place for students to review curriculum content but also to present the students with a project that would allow them to display their mastery of the content through a synthesis driven project. By having to construct a flowchart that displayed all of the information they were exposed to, students would have to quite literally make the connections and devise their own organization scheme for the information.

To many students, chemistry is just a subject where you have to memorize formulas and equations. However if students learn the basics of the subject, all of the topics can be seen as interrelated and dependent on one another. Students cover organic chemistry as a part of the NS Chemistry 11 course. The topic of organic nomenclature would definitely fall under the guise of a disciplined mind. In order to be successful with this topic, students must first draw on their background of chemical bonding before they learn the numerous rules of naming that apply to the more than ten types of organic functional groups. These rules will then be used as they continue their studies in Chemistry 12 and at university/college. I did settle on creating a student centre for organic nonmenclature as I felt that students would first have to use their disciplined mind to master the topic and then use their synthesizing mind to create the connections and to show deep understanding of the material.

By allowing students to see and hear chemical nomenclature explained in a variety of fashions and via a series of different media I hoped that students would be able to attain an even greater level of success with this topic. Students are bombarded with a variety of media in their everyday life and I think will respond very favourably with their exposure here.

I had started this project wondering what the difference was between a media-infused presentation and a regular interactive webpage. I now see that working with PowerPoint has its benefits as it is a user friendly application that does not require any special computer knowledge to use; it contains features that can easily be manipulated; media features can easily be added or removed; students can access to the program at school or at home; it can be saved as a single file web page; and help is readily available to answer questions that may arise

Here is a link to the student part of the presentation that I uploaded on my homepage.