Participation Patterns of Chemistry Teachers in an Online Nanotechnology Course

This study examined chemistry teachers’ online learning in a nanotechnology course delivered through an information-rich environment Moodle website. The website consisted of several technological tools: video lectures, a discussion group, topic-related animations and a cooperative Padlet board. Two cohorts comprised of 66 teachers participated in this course in 2016-2017. The main goals of the research were to evaluate the course and explore how different learners use the course materials. Pre-post questionnaires were used to evaluate teachers` knowledge in nanotechnology concepts. The “SOLO” taxonomy (Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome) which classifies learning outcomes in terms of their complexity was used to assess learners’ assignments. The course’s online activity reports were also analyzed. The reports included various data on learner activities in the course website that reflected students` behavior and identified which activities drew the highest attention. Subsequently, we interviewed teachers who took the online course to assess how they organized their learning activities. Our findings show that: 1. Group participation stabilized after the middle of the course. 2. Teachers’ participation was higher in units related to the high school curriculum. 3. The course was effective in improving teachers` knowledge of nanotechnology concepts. 4. A few months after completing the course, several teachers returned to the course website for preparing their own classes. We thus conclude that future online professional development courses should strive to maintain a strong link between their content and the existing curriculum, and remain available for teachers long after their completion, even in extracurricular topics such as nanotechnology. These findings contribute to designing the curriculum of future nanotechnology courses in terms of the intended learning outcomes. They also highlight an important advantage of analyzing online activity reports – the ability to identify the frequency and timing of material usage and thus their relevancy to the learners.