USING VIDEO LECTURES IN E-LEARNING PLATFORM TO IMPROVE PHYSICS TEACHING AT UNIVERSITY LEVEL

The aim of this work is to improve the quality, flexibility and effectiveness of the teaching in the scientific degree courses at the University of Camerino (Italy). The main specific goals of the project here presented are: (i) Counteracting the first year drop-out of the students; (ii) Improving learning outcomes of the students in terms of quality and with higher marks in average; (iii) Analyzing and understanding the behaviour and perception of the students on the use of the on-line video lectures. As a first case study and practical realization, we have chosen the Physics course in Classical Mechanics for the first year undergraduate students, enrolled either to the Physics degree or to the Mathematics degree at the University of Camerino. We offered the students the opportunity to use online video lectures recorded during the frontal lessons and embedded in the e-learning Moodle platform of our university, together with supplementary teaching material and with interaction tools. To monitor the validity and the outcomes of this project, we have realized a detailed analysis on how the students used the e-learning platform containing the full video of the lectures. In order to increase the understanding of the behaviour of the students and to acquire information on their perception about the video lectures, we have asked the students to fill in an open ended questionnaire. We believe that the recorded video lectures delivered by the e-learning platform represent a powerful tool for improving learning outcomes and reducing the drop-out of the first year students.