Teacher Spotlight

Dr. Alistair Dias
Associate Professor
University of Toronto
Class Size: 250 Students

Dr. Dias is an instructor for various lab and lecture courses in the Department of Human Biology at the University of Toronto. He is also conducting research focused on teaching – students experimenting on themselves in a lab course and new and innovative ways of conveying information to students.

When working with SharpScholar, Dr. Dias knew that the lab preparation videos are critical for students to consume before the lab. Instead of just giving them passive videos, he employed SharpScholar to create engaging video lessons that students can engage and consume before attending the lab.

How Dr. Dias Used SharpScholar

Dr. Dias creates video content for his lab classes and wants to ensure that the material is being consumed and understood by his students. To measure his students’ understanding, he used SharpScholar’s Understanding Meter and his own questions to implement proven strategies of meta-cognitive and self-questioning teaching.

As a result, students were able to consume interactive videos that allowed them to measure their understanding and give the teacher feeedback. 

Teaching Pedagogies used by Dr. Dias

Formative Evaluation

Formative Evaluation is diagnostic testing for both the teacher and the students to identify areas of strength and weakness. It is one of the most proven teaching strategies, based on the ground-breaking research by Dr. John Hattie. Dr. Dias is able to create a formative assessment at end of lesson questions to test his students’ understanding of concepts just reviewed in the video. This low risk and stress-free form of assessment is a proven strategy to increase student’s learning outcome.

Meta-Cognitive Learning

Dr. Dias knows that the most challenging parts of the video lab occur at about 2, 5 and 7 minutes of the video. To measure his students’ understanding at these times, he has his students indicate their level of confidence with the material using SharpScholar’s Understanding Meter, which ranges from “Confused” to “Understood.” This allows students to think about how well they understand the material that they are watching, and to rewind if they don’t understand. As a result they are better prepared for the labs.

Successful Outcomes

Actionable Insights

Dr. Dias is able to determine his students’ level of understanding and adjust the labs accordingly, if need be.

Student Preparedness

With SharpScholar, students came better prepared for labs. Thus, making the most of the lab time and the teacher to advance their learning.