Communication pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
ConfChem Conference on Flipped Classroom: Spring 2014 ConfChem Virtual Poster Session Robert E. Belford,*,† Matthew Stoltzfus,‡ and Justin B. Houseknecht§ †
Department of Chemistry, University of Arkansas Little Rock, Little Rock, Arkansas 72022, United States Chemistry Department, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, United States § Department of Chemistry, Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio 45501, United States ‡
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S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: This communication describes the virtual poster session of the Flipped Classroom online ConfChem conference that was hosted by the ACS CHED Committee on Computers in Chemical Education (CCCE) from May 9 to June 12, 2014. During the conference’s online discussions, it became evident that multiple participants who were not presenting papers had been involved with various flipped activities that could also be presented. So the CCCE decided to run an experiment, and half way through the conference put forth a call for presentations for a general poster session during the last week of the conference. The idea was to allow anyone involved with flipped classroom activities the opportunity to present their work during the ConfChem. An announcement was made half way through the conference and three participants were able to generate the following posters for the session: (i) A Year of Organic Chemistry Group Work with iPads, by Justin Houseknecht; (ii) Implementing Peer Instruction in a Flipped General Chemistry Classroom, by Matthew Stoltzfus; and (iii) Can Flipping Introduce New Cognitive Artifacts to the Classroom?, by Robert E. Belford. This communication starts with a description of a virtual poster session as a form of scientific communication, followed by a brief description of the topics of each of the three posters, and a brief discussion of our experience with this experiment in scientific communications. The complete posters and discussions are attached to this communication as Supporting Information. KEYWORDS: High School/Introductory Chemistry, First-Year Undergraduate/General, Collaborative/Cooperative Learning, Computer-Based Learning, Internet/Web-Based Learning, Second-Year Undergraduate, Learning Theories
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INTRODUCTION This communication summarizes the posters of the Spring 2014 online ConfChem conference on the Flipped Classroom, held from May 9 to June 12, 2014 and hosted by the ACS DivCHED Committee on Computers in Chemical Education (CCCE). The posters were discussed from June 6 to June 12, 2014, with the complete posters and discussions attached to this communication as Supporting Information. ConfChem conferences are open to the public and can be accessed at the CCCE Web site.1 Learned societies seek to advance knowledge by enabling communication between practitioners of their disciplines.2 Publications and conferences are two ways of fulfilling this mission, and the ACS CHED CCCE online ConfChem conference can be considered to be a hybrid between these two forms of communication. A challenge for symposia organizers is the difficulty of providing all participants a moment at the podium to share and discuss their own work. In a ConfChem, this is partially fulfilled by allowing participants to describe their work as the comment of another paper, but this is done in the context of someone else’s work. During the Spring © XXXX American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
2014 Flipped Classroom ConfChem the CCCE tried an experiment, and after the conference started offered participants a chance to present a “poster” at the end of the conference, when any new and novel work could be presented and discussed. This communication describes the poster session, with the original posters and discussions attached as Supporting Information. Poster 1: A Year of Organic Chemistry Group Work with iPads
In the first poster, A Year of Organic Chemistry Group Work with iPads, Justin Houseknecht presented the structure and results of a flipped full-year organic chemistry course. Students and the instructor prepared for class sessions using a hybrid version of just-in-time teaching (JiTT).3−5 Class time was split approximately 50−50 between minilecture responses to the muddiest point JiTT question and group work (Figure 1). The Explain Everything app6 and Moodle courseware were used throughout the academic year.
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DOI: 10.1021/ed500968v J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
Journal of Chemical Education
Communication
Downloaded by UNIV OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO on August 27, 2015 | http://pubs.acs.org Publication Date (Web): July 21, 2015 | doi: 10.1021/ed500968v
Figure 1. Format for in-class collaborative group work.
The goal of this poster was not to report on new work, but to present a question for discussion. Unfortunately, the discussion was more centered on articulating the difference between a learning object and a cognitive artifact, a concept most of the participants were unfamiliar with, and the question remains unanswered.
Class sections varied in size from 24−36 students. Students were allowed to choose their own groups and could rearrange after each exam. Each group of three or four students used a numbered iPad with an external microphone and stylus. Participation grades were assigned based on engagement in the group activities, not the quality of solutions produced. Exam scores increased by one-half to two-thirds of a letter grade and the first-semester DFW (drop, fail, withdraw) rate fell from a previous five-year average of 26% to 6%. Scores on the cumulative ACS Organic Chemistry exam were similar to previous years, though the presence of serious uncontrolled variables obviated any meaningful statistical analysis.
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CONCLUSION Although the poster session fulfilled the mission of allowing new papers to be discussed, there were multiple problems. For example, placing posters as different sections of the same Web page made it difficult to navigate and slow to upload. Nonetheless, there is clearly a need for this type of activity, and the CCCE is working to develop a better way to integrate posters into future ConfChems.
Poster 2: Implementing Peer Instruction in a Flipped General Chemistry Classroom
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Matthew Stoltzfus presented the second poster, Implementing Peer Instruction in a Flipped General Chemistry Classroom. Sal Khan’s TED Talk titled “Let’s Use Video to Reinvent Education”7 encouraged many instructors, including this author, to flip their classroom. In its simplest form, the students in a flipped classroom watch the traditional lectures for homework and what students traditionally complete as homework is now done in class, in the presence of a content expert. Due to the title of Khan’s talk, much attention has been given to the lecture videos, but this poster discusses why instructors executing a flipped classroom should not devote their time to traditional lecture videos, but instead they should devote their time to creating content in which students are actively engaged. One such method of active engagement is peer instruction. It has been shown that peer instruction has the largest benefit for students when a student first answers a question individually, then when a student has ownership in their answer, they discuss with their classmates in groups.8 This study investigates best practices of peer instruction in a flipped classroom.
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
S Supporting Information *
The actual ConfChem paper with discussion included. This material is available via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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REFERENCES
(1) American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education Committee on Computers in Chemical Education. http://www.ccce. divched.org/ (accessed Mar 2015). (2) Belford, R. E.; Meyers, F. On the Realm of Virtual Colloquium. Chem. Int. 2013, 35 (5), 2−6 DOI: 10.1515/ci-2013-0503. (3) Lage, M. J.; Platt, G. J.; Treglia, M. Inverting the Classroom: A Gateway to Creating an Inclusive Learning Environment. J. Econ. Educ. 2000, 31 (1), 30−43. (4) Novak, G. M.; Patterson, E. T.; Gavrin, A. D.; Christian, W. Justin-Time Teaching: Blending Active Learning with Web Technology; Prentice-Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1999. (5) Simkins, S. P.; Maier, M. H., Eds. Just-in-Time Teaching: Across the Disciplines, across the Academy; New Pedagogies and Practices for Teaching in Higher Education Series; Stylus Publishing: Sterling, VA, 2009. (6) Explain Everything App, version 2.31, Developer: MorrisCooke, Wroclawski, Poland, 2013. (7) Khan, S. Salman Khan: Let’s Use Video To Reinvent Education. http://youtu.be/nTFEUsudhfs (accessed Mar 2015). (8) Crouch, C. H.; Mazur, E. Peer Instruction: Ten Years of Experience and Results. Am. J. Phys. 2001, 69, 970−977. (9) Project Speak-Up 2013 National Report: From Chalkboards to Tablets: The Emergence of the K−12 Digital Learner. http://www. tomorrow.org/speakup/SU12_DigitalLearners_StudentsTEXT.html (accessed Mar 2015).
Poster 3: Can Flipping Introduce New Cognitive Artifacts to the Classroom?
Robert E. Belford presented the third poster, Can Flipping Introduce New Cognitive Artifacts to the Classroom? During the Flipped Classroom ConfChem discussions, this author began to wonder if in the context of the “second-level digital divide”9 there was evidence that students were introducing new cognitive artifacts into the curriculum. This poster distinguished cognitive artifacts (tools used in cognitive processes) from learning objects (artifacts, virtual or real, designed to teach a lesson), and then attempted to elicit a discussion on the topic. The question was put forth inquiring whether there was evidence that students were generating new schemas for problem solving and information representation that were based on new cognitive artifacts the students generated as they transferred technologies from the flipped online component to the face-to-face classroom component. B
DOI: 10.1021/ed500968v J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
