DrKirill Nikitin

In my lectures, without compromising the depth and the detail, I tend to engage with the audience by using day-to-day life examples. To challenge the forgetting curve, I would revisit the content in a number of ways, which helps to absorb the content over a period of time making it potentially a permanently skill set.. This approach should be blended with accessibility and support via standard eLearning online facilities, and gamification which is still in its infancy.
Practical demonstrations in the lab, where applicable, are in my view an often underestimated recourse of hands-on targeted learning. It is in fact a tremendous teaching platform where the link with reality is firmly established and the course content is put to the test. Just consider for example that typically students would clock more hours in the lab than in lectures. During this time, I would endeavour to engage with as many students as possible to help with their experiments and to hear their feedback. I would generally greatly encourage learners to share their feedback re specific labs, as well as lectures and tutorials, ideally during the course and after its completion.
Experience at UCD
In the past 10-15 years I have taught “Organic chemistry for chemical engineers” CHEM20060 as Module Lecturer. For this medium size class, I completely re-design the lecture course, tutorials and exam papers. As a co-Lecturer of “Introduction to the Chemistry of Biomolecules and their reactions” CHEM10010, I worked on the physical chemistry aspect of the module. In doing that I commissioned a new version of the lab manual, tutorials and exam papers. I have also contributed the CHEM30110 module “Introduction to the Instrumental Analysis”. As a Tutor of “Principles of Scientific Enquiry” (SCO10010, groups of 5-6 students) I have engaged in face-to-face and distance seminars and presentation coaching.
In 2022, I was pleased to be appointed as co-Lecturer on the “Equilibrium and Kinetics” module CHEM10030 - an Introductory chemistry component for the 1st year Engineers class of 300+ students. This time, after the 2020-2021 global pandemic, this module was delivered on the face-to-face basis including lectures and labs. My task was to review the material, deliver lectures, review the lab manual, renew weekly practice quizzes, continuous assessment graded quizzes and the final exam questions. The challenge was to get the message across to the mixed-background freshman class in which large proportion of students may not have chemistry background but would typically be of good standard in terms of math and physics training.
Student Feedback
Gratifyingly, most of the class were concentrating in the lectures albeit the attendance could be better. The students did well in the weekly practice quizzes as evidenced by >80% class average mark. The graded quizzes week 6 and week 10 reached 66 and 73% on average. The final exam went well with ca 68% mark on average. An analysis of final exam stats demonstrated that there were cases of questions requiring slightly more time to complete which resulted in somewhat lower marks for certain randomly selected questions. This aspect has to be looked at and all efforts be put to eliminate a possibility of imbalanced assessment.
Having completed the evaluation and grading, it was important to look into students’ feedback. It was broadly positive with 12% of students taking part in the survey. However, individual student’s appraisals were diverse ranging from “fun and entertaining“ to the fairly tough “I did not understand” comments. Few important common issues have been flagged by many respondents: fast pace of the “Equilibrium and Kinetics” section lectures; difficulties to follow which can be attributed to lack of chemistry training in school; practical sessions material being ahead of lectures. All issues will be looked at closely together with the Module coordinator. The comments will be taken on-board and efforts will be put to refine the course design and delivery techniques.
To sum up, it has been a substantial teaching experience at UCD. However, potentially I could have done more.