Teaching with Technology Example

Example: Lingua Formula

One of my main teaching with technology projects this semester has been the development of Lingua Formula, a web-based educational tool designed to help students study technical material more coherently. The project grew out of a practical problem: in subjects such as mathematics and statistics, students are often asked to learn many terms, formulas, and definitions, but those items are frequently encountered as disconnected pieces of information. This makes study feel fragmented and harder than it needs to be.

Plan for the approach

My goal was to build a tool that would help students organize course material in a way that reveals relationships between concepts. I wanted students to be able to work with the same body of material in more than one mode: reviewing, self-testing, and preparing exam reference sheets. The learning problem I was trying to address was not simply lack of information, but lack of structure. If students can see how terms and formulas fit together, they are better positioned to understand and remember them.

The learning outcomes I had in mind were these:

• students would be able to organize important course material more clearly
• students would better recognize relationships between terms and formulas
• students would be able to use self-testing to identify gaps in understanding
• students would prepare for exams using materials that are structured rather than improvised

Description of the implementation

To implement this idea, I worked on a website that allows course content to be displayed and reused in several ways. Students can review terms and formulas, generate a printable exam reference sheet, and test themselves on the same material. One feature I have focused on is the connection between the self-testing flow and the exam-sheet flow. The aim is to let students verify whether the content and order of their study materials actually support recall and understanding.

This project is still under active development, but it already serves as a concrete example of my interest in using technology to improve how students interact with technical knowledge. Instead of treating definitions and formulas as static content, the system is designed to let students revisit the same ideas from multiple angles.

Multimedia artifacts

The portfolio version of this page will include one or more artifacts such as:

• a screenshot of the Lingua Formula interface
• a screenshot of the exam-sheet view
• a screenshot of the self-testing interface
• optionally, a short screen recording showing the workflow from review to self-test to printable reference sheet

Analysis of outcomes

Because this project is still in an early stage, my analysis is necessarily preliminary. Even so, the work has already clarified several things for me. First, students benefit when study materials are structured around relationships rather than presented as loose fragments. Second, self-testing becomes more meaningful when it is tied directly to the materials the student has prepared for review. Third, educational technology is most promising when it helps students see what they do and do not yet understand.

What has worked well so far is the central concept of linking study organization and self-testing. What has been more challenging is interface design: the tool has to remain simple enough to use easily while still supporting several different learning tasks. As the project develops, I would like to improve usability, expand the range of course content, and gather more structured feedback from learners.

If I continue this work, I would like to expand it in at least three ways: better artifact collection for the portfolio, stronger student feedback loops, and broader support for additional courses and learning activities. More generally, I want to keep testing the idea that technology is most useful when it helps learners see structure.

For the broader ideas behind this project, visit the Teaching Philosophy page. For context about my current teaching roles and interests, visit the About page.