Spotlight on Provost's Teaching Award winner Prof Andrea Sella & team

What does this award highlight?

There’s a longstanding problem with a lot of practicals: they often seem a pointless chore. Everyone does the same thing, gets essentially the same result, typically knows what the answer is “supposed to be” in advance, and writes up exactly the same report. The result is that labs can sometimes seem a tedious rite of passage where students learn little and which is forgotten the moment the lab script is submitted. There is also no sense of real inquiry – students are simply verifying known data. Practicals also impose very substantial cognitive loads on students simultaneously coping with unfamiliar equipment and procedures whilst also trying to collect and interpret data.

The conclusion is students learn less than they should from practicals. We wanted to experiment to see whether we could improve learning. We wanted students to get more into a spirit of inquiry, to make the lab more personal for each student, and to give the entire class a sense of purpose and ownership of the data. More importantly we wanted to get the entire class to look at each other’s results and consider bigger-picture issues like error analysis and statistics, intermolecular forces, spectroscopy and other key ideas for chemists.

Each student did a variant of the same procedure. For example, they might determine the iron content of a dietary supplement bought on the high street or online. Or they would look at the response of one of six different acids to an alkali. In doing so our students would collect a small piece of a larger puzzle that could be later assembled in a whole class seminar.

The new practicals were supported by a set of lab videos taking students through the entire practical. Students could see how apparatus was assembled and used, and got practical tips in a way that is impossible with a traditional lab manual. Viewing figures for the videos were extremely high and students rated them as ‘very valuable’ to ‘essential’ in evaluations. Pre-qualifying quizzes made sure they had understood key points.

Databases to collect student results were crucial. At the end of practicals, students had a week to analyse their data and then upload values, graphs and other information to a database. Thus the actual labscript and write-up was not submitted but formed part of the student’s learning portfolio. Instead the uploaded data formed the basis of a postlab seminar where they were discussed, interpreted further and commented on. Each lab seminar focused on one or two different aspect of the lab: error analysis, graph plotting, intermolecular forces, NMR spectroscopy, reaction mechanisms etc.

Finally, the practical was assessed through an open book online assessment where students submitted calculated values, spectral interpretation and answers to questions concerning the theory. The questions came with extensive feedback for students to review. The assessments suggested that this approach discriminates well between better and less prepared students.

What does this award mean to you?

It’s highly gratifying to receive recognition. As this is a new approach in the department it also shows the value in trying a new teaching method.

What new ways of teaching are you looking into at the moment?

We are looking to move away from formulaic labs and textbook practicals – students become focussed on the correct answers in order to pass assessments. We would like them to take on new experiments, where there is no known answer, to give them the opportunity to undertaking research very early on.

We are hoping to begin a new project where students explore air pollution in London in conjunction with school classes in the local area. This ‘citizen science’ opportunity encourages them to communicate with different groups, undertake new research and analyse real data. They also become role models and explore the possibility of teaching themselves.

Learning becomes relevant both socially and societally.

What advice would you give to a colleague who would like to be more innovative in their teaching?

That teaching innovation is worth trying. As we do experiments in research, so we should do experiments in our teaching - students are often intrigued when you explain what you are doing and why. If you want to try something new, build alliances and then try it out quietly. Remember that often if things go “wrong” the fallout is modest. And if things go right you can broaden and extend it.