A university graduate student, developed podcasts so students such as sophomore animal science major Christina Betta (above) can view lab demonstrations on iPods and iPads.

After watching his chemistry students continuously struggle with glass beakers and microscopes, graduate student and teaching assistant Pedro Bueno decided to tread into new teaching territory.

In spring 2007, Bueno started making video lab tutorials to help his students grasp complex lab techniques before they even stepped into the classroom.

Students taking lab courses typically read experiment procedures in their lab manual and often have to take a pre-lab quiz. But Bueno decided he could do more.

“Regardless of what level the students were at, there always seemed to be an issue with getting a handle on what they had to do when they got to lab,” he said.

Bueno developed video podcasts in the General Bioanalytical Chemistry lab that his students could download as podcasts from iTunes and put on their iPods. Bueno said the accessibility of the videos — they can be viewed on laptops, lab computers and personal iPods — enabled students to get a better grip on some difficult techniques and concepts.

“There isn’t a lot of time for demonstration [in labs],” Bueno said. “I thought if I made the videos, it would give [students] an advantage in the sense that they would see what they were supposed to do and come to lab and hit the ground running.”

But Bueno said although he received overwhelmingly positive feedback from students about the videos, his teaching method has yet to spark a classroom revolution.

Similar university-sponsored programs such as iTunes-U and Wimba allow instructors to upload videos or other multimedia content for students, but officials said there aren’t many similar options for lab courses.

Chris Higgins, the Office of Information Technology’s Learning Technologies group manager, said professors have reserved 40 spaces on iTunes-U this semester for computer and sciences courses, but not necessarily for labs. There was no data available for Wimba.

Bueno said instructors haven’t jumped on the multimedia bandwagon because many lack the time necessary to produce videos.

“I thought it would have caught on a lot more, but with the amount of time it requires I can see why a lot of people aren’t doing it,” he said.

Chemistry professor Bonnie Dixon, who supervised Bueno when he made his podcasts, said one shortfall of the podcasts is that they aren’t adaptable from one semester to another if instructors have different teaching methods or emphasize different concepts.

“We could probably use them term-to-term if there was more continuity between professors,” Dixon said.

Chemistry lecturer Lee Friedman, who uses podcasts in some of his classes, said students are able to reap benefits from video instruction that they wouldn’t be able to get from a pre-lab lecture, such as the ability to rewind and see someone handling equipment or performing procedures.

Friedman added podcasts likely haven’t caught on with other professors because they want to avoid stepping out of their comfort zones.

“There’s a certain comfort level you get doing the same thing over and over most semesters,” he said. “Sometimes breaking out of that isn’t the easiest thing to do.”

Despite reasons that might hold professors back, many students said they would welcome a change from the standard lab teaching methods.

Senior material sciences and engineering major Tricia Alward was disappointed to not have instruction videos in her lab courses after transferring from Michigan Technological University, where such techniques were readily used.

“My [MTU] professor always had pre-labs recorded, so we always went in knowing what to do,” she said.

Sophomore computer engineering major Tyler Baicar recalled that a difficult physics lab he took would have been easier with help from videos.

“A lot of the time we would jump in, and it would be equipment we didn’t know how to use,” he said. “The professor was running around, group to group, answering a lot of questions.”

Higgins said the university is working to offer new media resources in anticipation of more professors hopping on board.

“We get requests for using media all the time all over campus, so I have no doubt it will grow,” he said.

saravia at umdbk dot com