Course Awards
2019
Frederick has created his own “textbook” materials using Softchalk, and uses open educational resources to supplement the materials he has prepared. These include OpenStax Chemistry and Chemistry LibreTexts to support his sections of CHE 1083 and CHE 1093. OpenStax, a nonprofit affiliated with Rice University, works with faculty subject matter experts and funders like the Hewlett Foundation to create peer-reviewed, openly licensed textbooks that are free for students. Chemistry LibreTexts is a consortium operated through UC Davis to collect and disseminate freely available text sources at all undergraduate levels of chemistry.
More from Frederick:
“I spent last year on development leave essentially writing my own “textbook” which I have adapted as a multimedia presentation within SoftChalk. My learning content materials make use of text that I have written, graphics (various sources, but all either my own, or from creative commons sites), videos (largely from YouTube), and interactive activities of various kinds. This gives my students a rich learning environment that goes beyond what a standard text can offer, and it is free for them.
In addition, I provide them with links to alternative explanations of the materials in each lesson, and these usually connect them to free online text materials, such as OpenStax, or Chemistry LibreTexts, so that if my explanation does not work for them, they have another place that they can consult. I am interested in continuing to develop online learning materials for chemistry students using open educational resources. Although it is a time-intensive task, I believe that using more interactive and multimedia learning materials are superior to using a textbook in the sciences.
I would like to devote some time to curating a comprehensive set of instructional YouTube videos that can be used as either primary or alternative learning content for students in general and organic chemistry, courses that have large enrollments and high failure rates. This might be an effective way to supplement some excellent texts that are already available online through either OpenStax or Chemistry LibreTexts.”