Abstract:

Incorporation of the Spanish University System to European Higher Education Area has been a substantial change in the way of understanding the teaching-learning process. In this new context, it is expected students to get used to work in an autonomous way (ECTS) and for the professors to effectively help and advise the student and supervise their work in the context of every particular scientific subject. The University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) is concerned to this challenge of adaptation of the lessons from grade to the new important methodological requirements [1].

UIB introduced for the first time during the academic year 2009-2010 the undergraduate degrees in Chemistry and Biochemistry. Students in these grades jointly attend classes in General Chemistry, sharing not only the same program content and teaching guide, but also classrooms, teachers and instructors. Consequently, teachers have large numbers of students in the subject groups, nearly a hundred, which makes extremely difficult the individual control of every student by using exclusively face teaching methods.
In order to give an answer to this situation, we have launched a blended-learning project for the subject of General Chemistry for that undergraduate level in Chemistry and Biochemistry degrees. The project seeks to build upon the good practices of face teaching methodologies and resources of fully ICT-learning projects on-line. The advantages of blended learning mode on both, purely face teaching and virtual teaching methodologies, have been widely studied and documented in other educational contexts [2a, 2b]. This blended-learning project in General Chemistry is part of a much larger project: Campus Extens Project [3], an integrated semipresential educational project at UIB, since it uses model systems for student to work inside and outside the university campus. Campus Extens uses the Moodle platform for the management of on-line educational process.

This communication explains which the use we have made of the various facilities of the Moodle tool for the educational process: generation of web pages, resolution of questionnaires, use of forums, creation of wikis, etc. We give a capital importance to the use of the "textbook" as a fundamental tool for structuring course contents, both conceptually and for troubleshooting. Likewise, it highlights the extraordinary importance of the teacher as transmitter of knowledge and adviser and tutor of the students in the acquisition of good practices. For the success of the project, face and personalized tutoring via email are essentials. Finally we present data on the level of student success and briefly compared with results obtained by students in similar courses that use a different teaching methodology.

References:
[1] Orientacions i Criteris de la UIB per adptar la docència a l’EEES. Universitat de les Illes Balears. ISBM 978-84-8384-090-0.
[2] (a) A. Heinze and C. Procter (2004). Reflections on the use of blended learning education in a changing environment. Univ. of Salford. Salford, Education Development Unit, Available on-line: http://www.ece.salford.ac.uk/proceedings/papers/ah_04.rtf) (b) March, G,E., Mc Fadden, Anna C. y Price, B.J (2003) Blended instruction: adapting conventional instruction for large clases. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration (VI) number IV, winter 2003. http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/winter64/marsh64.htm
[3] http://campusextens.uib.cat/

Keywords:

higher education, blended learning, general chemistry.