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Cooperative Electronic Mail: Effective Communication Technology for Introductory Chemistry
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Laura E. Pence Department of Chemistry, University of Hartford, West Hartford, CT 06117;
[email protected] Cooperative learning is an excellent tool for improving classroom communication and is a method of intervention that enhances students’ ability to master the content of a course. In the past several years, cooperative learning has been adapted for a wide range of chemistry classrooms from small classes to the large lecture environment (1–3). Cooperative electronic mail is another adaptation that moves the very personal interactions of cooperative learning onto the Internet. The combination of cooperative learning and electronic mail provides a new means of allowing students to interact and simultaneously encourages them to polish skills of communication through technology, which will be of great importance in the future. By transferring cooperative learning to the computer, it is also easier to ensure that classroom experiences are consistent for students in different sections. Because nearly a third of all college classes incorporate electronic mail to some extent (4), faculty are faced with challenges that range from encouraging technophobic students to become proficient computer users to stimulating the inclusion of course content into electronic communications. Simply announcing the opportunity for electronic interaction may produce a rapid influx of messages, but it does not necessarily provide sufficient incentive for students to acquire both a computer account and the expertise to use it. A high volume of messages does not imply that a large percentage of the class is participating. Similarly, the ability to communicate via electronic mail does not necessarily mean that the major topic of the messages will involve chemistry. In addition to introducing students to cooperative learning activities, cooperative electronic mail provides incentive to become computer literate and a reason to include chemistry in electronic messages, and produces electronic participation of 90% of the class. Experimental Details The cooperative electronic mail project was implemented on a bonus basis in the middle of the spring 1996 semester and was required for the three subsequent semesters. It was used in one of three or four sections of general chemistry taught each semester. The general chemistry classes at the University of Hartford average about 40 students whose majors include biology, chemistry, engineering, and physical therapy. The high proportion of women in the physical therapy program leads to a substantial number of women in the general chemistry classes, usually ranging from 50 to 70%. The time commitment required to scan and acknowledge messages approaches an hour a day for the week of the assignment, but if large lecture courses are supported by teaching assistants, the project should be adaptable to both large and small class sizes.
Before each exam in General Chemistry I and II, a single cooperative electronic mail activity was assigned, making a total of three or four activities per semester. The students were given a week to complete the assignment, and each exercise was worth four points on the exam. The four points were not enough to significantly damage a student’s grade if he or she refused to participate, but it did provide sufficient incentive for most students to make an effort to complete the assignment. Three varieties of cooperative exercises were used, one before each exam. The first exercise was an example of an open-ended question in which characteristics of a system were supplied, and the students were asked to calculate a new quantity from the information given. For example, the unit on gas laws included a wide variety of calculations and therefore was quite appropriately coupled with the question, “Given 25.0 g of O2 gas at STP, calculate another quantity.” The open-ended question removed the focus on obtaining the correct answer and allowed the students to examine several of the different quantities, such as number of moles and volume, that could be found from the given information. It also emphasized how a variety of quantities were related, since the students were allowed to change one component at a time in order to use Charles’ law or Boyle’s law. In the second exercise, the students filled in the blank in the question, “The thing that confuses me most on the next exam is _______. Can you help me?” The partner acted as a personal tutor and supplied an explanation of the uncertain concept. This interaction was based on the theory that one of the best ways to solidify understanding of a concept is to teach it, and in this way, both students benefited from each exchange. This activity was consistently rated as the most helpful during the four semesters of the project. The results of this activity provided an additional form of assessment similar to “one-minute questions” (5). By recording the subject of each question, the instructor was able to identify consistent weaknesses in the students’ comprehension of the material. The most common questions were clarified either by sending an email to the entire class or by taking a small amount of class time to work through the difficulties. The third exercise was an effort to get the students to think about how material might be presented on an exam and to provide additional practice in reading problems. Many students memorize information without considering how a question might be asked on an exam, and word problems may be particularly difficult because students do not know how to read the questions. To address these weaknesses, the students were asked to write an exam question for their partners, and their partners were to answer the question. In
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 76 No. 5 May 1999 • Journal of Chemical Education
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addition to having an extra practice question, the students had the opportunity to decide what they thought was going to be important to study for the exam. Assessment was carried out through the use of anonymous questionnaires at the end of the semester and through archiving the messages from the students. The average participation rate in the cooperative electronic exercises was consistently 90% or better for the four semesters. Participation beyond the required messages ranged from a low of 49% in the fall of 1996 to a high of 70% in the spring of 1997, resulting in an average of about 8 messages per student per semester. The overall result of the project was quite positive according to the evaluations. Each individual exercise as well as the benefit of having access to electronic communication with the professor was rated very favorably. The most significant result was the overwhelmingly positive response from the female students. With the exception of the first year of data, the evaluation scores from the women were higher than those of men for each assignment and for the general benefits of being able to set up or cancel appointments as well as ask questions. It is hypothesized that cooperative electronic mail provides the required incentive for women to overcome reservations about technology and to acquire the necessary expertise to make electronic mail routine. This familiarity and frequent use results in the discovery that electronic mail is an extremely comfortable, convenient, and nonthreatening means of interacting with the professor and with other students. In conclusion, cooperative electronic mail provides an alternate format for cooperative learning that has the simultaneous benefit of training students in the important skills of interpersonal communication in the absence of face-toface interaction. The project has been effective at obtaining a high participation rate for using electronic mail, and the student response has been extremely positive. Note W Supplementary material including experimental details, sample exercises, examples of student responses, and assessment results is available on JCE Online at http://JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu/Journal/Issues/1999/ May/abs697.html.
Literature Cited 1. Cooper, M. M. J. Chem. Educ. 1995, 72, 162. 2. Dougherty, R. C.; Bowen, C. W.; Berger, T.; Rees, W.; Mellon, E. K.; Pulliam, E. J. Chem. Educ. 1995, 72, 793. 3. Kogut, L. S. J. Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 720. 4. Bragin. V. M. J. Chem. Educ. 1996, 73, 747. 5. Harwood, W. S. J. Chem. Educ. 1996, 73, 229.
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Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 76 No. 5 May 1999 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
