Lecture for one, resource for many

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By Heather Travis
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Every day this summer, Physics professor Martin Zinke-Allmang stood in front of an empty room in one of the largest lecture halls on The University of Western Ontario campus and began reciting his lessons.
 
 
The lecture hall may be empty but Physics professor Martin Zinke-Allmang still has an audience. A pilot project to help a single ill student 200 kilometres away in Toronto is creating a bank of prerecorded lectures for all students. 
 
It’s not for practice; Zinke-Allmang has been teaching the first-year Physics course at Western for 10 years. He was conducting an exercise in teaching that is helping a student 200 kilometres away in Toronto keep on track with her academic goals.
 
And along the way he is demonstrating how teachers can be ready during emergencies – such as a flu pandemic.  
 
Tanya Boozary, a third-year Social Science student, thought an unexpected health condition would delay her undergraduate degree at Western. However, Zinke-Allmang’s creative physics has helped her stay abreast of her studies.  
 
She enrolled in Physics for the Life Sciences last year but was unable to finish the second half of the course because she had to return to Toronto for medical treatment.
 
Zinke-Allmang has been experimenting with online teaching tools for his Physics 1028/1029 course, Physics for the Life Sciences. As a highly subscribed class of 900 – enrolment often includes future medicine and dentistry students – he is constantly trying new ways to improve classroom management for instructors and students.  
 
Boozary’s unique case provided him with an excuse to push the boundaries of teaching.  
 
With special permission from the university to customize an online course for Boozary, Zinke-Allmang set up shop in North Campus Building, Room 101.  
 
Just as in the fall when the lecture theatre is a sea of faces, Zinke-Allmang clipped on his microphone. But now he was in an empty hall and walking through the lessons. He used a computer tablet to write out equations and highlight information of importance, all of which appears on Boozary’s computer screen.   Every word he speaks is digitally recorded and the changing computer screen is captured and available online using Wimba Live Classroom, an interactive online education application accessed through WebCT Owl.  
 
Although she is not sitting in the room with Zinke-Allmang, Boozary is listening to the lecture live online and watching the slides.
 
“It is very structured, just like taking it in a regular classroom,” she says. “The fact that I was able to have flexibility in the course, I was able to focus on what I needed to get done and the kind of help I needed with this health concern. It was very accommodating.”  
 
Boozary travelled to London to complete her lab component.
 
“They get exactly the same as a student in the room,” adds Zinke-Allmang. “The only difference is you don’t see the lecturer.”  
 
But if this can work for Boozary, it can also work for every other student in the class.  
 
Zinke-Allmang has pre-recorded lectures for the first semester of the course – spending a total of about 36 hours to complete the academic year.
 
The lectures are archived so students can review the material for a quiz or exam.
 
In the fall, Zinke-Allmang will continue to record his lectures giving absent students the choice to listen to the lecture live for their home or the recorded version at their leisure.
 
In the event an outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus hits campus, Zinke-Allmang isn’t worried. Having a bank of lectures prerecorded, he knows the show will go on whether he or his students are sick.  
 
“In this course you can now see, with the flu or without the flu, there would be absolutely no change,” he says.  
 
Recordings of the current and previous year’s tutorials will also be online.
 
This technology has allowed Zinke-Allmang to reach a wider group of students. Beginning this month, the course will be available by distance studies.  
 
This is the first large science course with a lab component offered by distance studies, he says.  
 
Students in the London area will complete the laboratory component in the evenings and weekend labs will be scheduled for those living out of town.
 
“Learning usually takes place in a comfortable environment,” he says. “The students can now listen to the lecture in their dorm or in their room ... It is no longer a lecture for 900, it is a lecture for one.”  
 
For Boozary, the online approach has made it easier to study.
 
“When Western is called the most student-friendly university, I really do think it is,” she says. “The profs really care about the students. It’s awesome.”    
 

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