Teaching aids

Dr Matthew Juniper of the Energy group at the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge has created a set of online animations to supplement lectures for his students.

Initially Dr Juniper was keen to save time when repeating basic concepts and problem solving techniques in supervisions. He decided to create animations that show him describing a concept in real time, with a tablet PC recording both his handwriting and a running commentary.

Often there are many ways to explain a concept but in a lecture there may only time for one explanation. The animations allow students to explore another version that might make more sense to them.

Dr Juniper went on to create animations of worked examples related to the example paper questions that the students do before supervisions. Students who are stuck on a particular part of an examples paper question can watch the worked examples at their own pace and may get the hint they need to complete the question by themselves. This can free up time in supervisions for discussion of the concepts.