Summer is coming!

Hello,

 

So, I am kind of curious if anyone actually reads this blog! I suppose we’ll see! I thought I would post a short blog post about my preparations for Chem 1210 for the coming AU17 term. The main reason I am posting this is to say – if you see my older posts – they apply to my AU16 course as several things have changed. I also thought this might be a nice place to sort of outline what has changed, to give you sense of what exactly is in flux and why so. I also didn’t want to delete old posts, I think it’s interesting to look back at things I did in the fall, especially as I think about what I should and maybe shouldn’t replicate this summer and this coming autumn.

 

First things first, I switched to Mastering Chemistry from Sapling. I had used Sapling for 3-4 years. It’s not bad – the problems in Sapling are probably better than in Mastering. However, the system is not very versatile. They have good end-of-chapter style problems, actually I’d say these are great, however they don’t have much that would be good to assign before class. Now for the longest time, I have not had any reason to assign work before class. I feel on one hand, if I say, “read sections 1.4-1.6 before class”, that everyone should read these sections ahead of time, but I’m not sure how many do or really how many are even good at that kind of thing. Now what if I asked to read a few short passages and answer a few questions instead? In a way, I have done this in the past just not electronically. I have said many times, “the practice problems in the textbook, the shaded-box problems, are the most under-rated problems in the book – do these before class!”. But again, is this a task everyone is prepared to do without some coaching or some feedback?

 

So Mastering Chemistry has a ton of tutorials. The small downside is they are not exactly written from our textbook. Rather, they are written for the 5-10 Pearson general chemistry textbooks. As an aside, there are at least 20 different common general chemistry textbooks used today. They are kind of the like the supermarket of books – they have a ton of useful stuff in them but you have to look really hard to find what you’re looking for!

 

So where does reading come in, should students read the book? The short answer is, I don’t know… After completing the tutorials, I have to believe some will either feel confident, confident that they were able to answer all the questions without a ton or hopefully any of googling, or some will feel like they had to look each problem up. This is where another strength of Mastering comes into play – they have easy to make quizzes. Hopefully, they are easy to take though that will depend on how well a student knows the material on the tutorials and/or how much extra work you put into studying. The complexity level of these quizzes will fairly basic. Most problems are related to the multiple-choice practice problems in the 13th edition textbook. So I think the simple answer on reading is to do as much or as little as you need to in order to succeed on your assignments.

 

To bridge the gap from what is done before class to what ultimately students should be able to do on exams, I hope the lectures will help prepare students by focusing on what the key concepts are first, working up from the common mistakes on the quizzes, and leading into the homework problems that are of highest importance to be able to solve for exams. I hope that we can spend at least a half hour, maybe closer to an hour, working homework problems in class. This work will not only save student’s time outside of class, but also allow you to work with your classmates with assistance as needed from me. I think the main method I will use is a 3-4 minute introduction to a set of questions followed by 8-10 minutes of group problem solving, and repeating as much as we can fit into class. This lecture format is a flip from my previous lecture style that I’ve employed for years. I think having a student-centered classroom will directly benefit learning by putting the emphasis on the ability of students to solve the problems instead of simply having them watching me solve the problems!

 

Another change is the number of midterms we offer – only two this semester. I’ve given five in a semester (even once in a seven week summer term!). I feel exams are one way to motivate students to study. Until recently, I have pretty much thought these are the most natural ways to motivate students to learn. I actually still feel pretty strongly that our exam schedule is the major culprit of complacency – if we insist on not cramming, then why on earth would we offer only one or two midterms in a class? If you are supposed to student every week, why don’t we give an exam once a week? Unfortunately, I no longer am able to hold the number of exams I want and my classes are limited to two midterms and a final during summer terms and three midterms and final during the regular term.

 

 

Our exams though each have 4-5 chapters of material on them. If students delay a majority of learning to the few days before an exam, I am sad to say this usually doesn’t work very well! Plenty of research has shown that most effective learning takes place in short, frequent study sessions. Self-assessment is very important – by quizzing yourself or trying to assess the areas you understand well or maybe the areas you need to re-visit. Peer-learning is another helpful tool, sometimes if a student shows a classmate how to do a problem, it will stick better than if I show them the exact same problem. I hope my new course this summer motivates the class to learn in shorter, more frequent sessions, with plenty of assessment designed for the students to interpret, and with plenty of opportunities for peer learning.

 

My recitations are also changing to feature quizzes as the primary mode of instruction, through a short quiz first followed by a group quiz afterwards. These quizzes hopefully give students one more way to get some feedback on their learning and another opportunity for peer instruction. There is also a grade for just participating so hopefully even students who may come in struggling can learn from their mistakes and still receive a fair grade.

 

There will only be 75-100 students in this course, compared the usual 300-350 students. I’m not really sure how all of this would translate into a larger course. I am always interested in new ideas and other ways to improve my courses. Feel free at any point if you are in my summer course to let me know what you think! What would you change? What would you keep the same? Will this all work in a larger class? If you are just a casual reader of this blog, let me know you think (and really, you should probably find a better blog to read!).