Abstract:

The development of abilities oriented to manage analytical techniques for studying environment`s chemical composition is a relevant aspect of Environmental Sciences studies. The Environmental Sciences Degree at University of Extremadura (2) has focused the development of such competences within a compulsory subject named “Analytical techniques for pollution assessment”. The curriculum of the degree also includes an optional subject named “Basic Analytical Chemistry”, belonging to the Chemistry degree (3). In the limited time available for the task, it’s expected that the students will acquire the basic skills of the analytical chemistry science (analytical properties and associated techniques, calibration, data quality, data interpretation tools, etc.), and also know and manage the varied specific techniques and methodologies applicable in environmental monitoring (4) for obtaining accurate and representative results. This implies working with theoretical concepts, numerical problems, laboratory experiments and field exercises.

For these reasons we, as members of the teaching staff presently on charge of the aforementioned subject “Analytical Techniques for Pollution Assessment” belonging to the Environmental Science Degree at UEx, have developed a set of self-learning and self-assessment materials to help the student acquiring theoretical and practical abilities, with the aim of alleviating the need of expositive contents. These materials consist on: a) Introductory contents (text documents, slide presentation, video explanation, or a combination of these); b) questionnaires with feedback; c) self or peer assessment conclusive activity.

We are using didactic tools as:
1) eXe Learing, a freely available Open Source authoring application to assist teachers and academics in the publishing of web content;
2) Socrative, a student response system designed to engage the classrooms through a series of educational exercises and games via smartphones, laptops, and tablets;
3) Moodle learning platform available at UEx.

About practical activities, we have created distributed assessment tools for laboratory practices, namely an evaluation rubric for students’ lab reports.
Additionally, we are interested to know the students’ opinion about the tools used to create the self-learning and self-assessment materials, and the use of the evaluation rubric. So we have included a survey form associated to each material.

In this communication, we’ll present and discuss the results of the use of described learning materials by the students, including the students’ records and the results of the satisfaction surveys

References:
[1] Libro Blanco http://www.aneca.es/var/media/150340/libroblanco_ambientales_def.pdf
[2] http://www.unex.es/conoce-la-uex/estructura-academica/centros/ciencias/archivos/planes_estudio/extensos/0121.pdf
[3] http://www.unex.es/conoce-la-uex/estructura-academica/centros/ciencias/archivos/planes_estudio/extensos/InformefinalANECAVerificaGradoenQumicaSeptiembre2013.pdf
[4] http://www.environmental-expert.com/monitoring-testing

Keywords:

Environmental Science Degree, Practical abilities, Socrative, Evaluation rubric.