Dr. Bwalya Lungu, Associate Professor of Teaching at UC Davis, presented a recorded session at ASMCUE entitled “Integrated Approaches to Teaching Improve Overall Student Learning and Engagement in Large Classes.” Lungu spoke about the origins of this study and the need to improve the course based on feedback from student evaluations and technological advances. They teach large enrollment food science courses. Lungu started this project in 2016 with no tech and only “think-pair-share” and now uses various teaching technologies such as student response systems, videos, quizzes, polling, and online learning. Lungu incorporated assessment methods that link learning objectives. They collected data from TopHat used in their course. Interestingly, TopHat is part of the equitable access program at UC Davis. Lungu collected data from class surveys, three midterms, student evaluations, and assessments online via the Canvas LMS.. The course Lungu taught and studied is “FST10: Food Folklore and Health.” The control class was winter 2019 without TopHat and then TopHat with midterms with different software. Data over several semesters including during the pandemic suggest an increase in midterms from midterm 1 to 3. Lungu also used a video assignment. Student surveys suggested that TopHat made the course better and prepared learners for the midterms. Students appreciated the video discussions and TopHat questions. Lungu mentioned that TopHat was well-received and added real-time feedback. I have been trying to improve the feedback, and this requires time to edit the TopHat questions and provide hints. I enjoyed this session because I am using TopHat again in metagenomics this semester and do appreciate several features. I have considered converting the TopHat questions to Moodle quizzes, and I now wonder what the drawbacks would be.
