Development of a MOOC To Enhance Student Preparedness for

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Chapter 4

Development of a MOOC To Enhance Student Preparedness for College-Level General Chemistry Kim R. Woodrum* and Allison S. Soult Department of Chemistry, University of Kentucky, 505 Rose Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0055, United States *E-mail: [email protected]

Many students coming into college-level general chemistry are unprepared for the rigors of the course. Despite ongoing efforts to increase success rates once students are enrolled, there is still much to be done. Two courses were developed as Massive Open Online Courses for students to use prior to their enrollment in college chemistry. The potential uses of the courses by students and teachers, challenges faced by students, and components of the courses are discussed.

Introduction This chapter examines the use of Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, to address the issues of lack of preparedness by students to meet the rigors of college-level general chemistry. Over the years, much time, energy, and resources have been applied within college classes to improve success rates. However, we designed our MOOCs to reach students prior to attending college. This chapter addresses why we designed the courses in this way, what features were incorporated, and the outcomes of the courses, both for the participants and the authors. As happens at many public and private universities and colleges throughout the country, the University of Kentucky enrolls many students who plan to take general chemistry, but are ill-prepared for the rigors of the course. With 38 combined years of teaching college chemistry to freshmen, the authors of this chapter have invested much thought and energy in the improvement of teaching and learning both inside and outside of the college classroom, and have often wondered what could be done to help students before they arrive on campus. © 2016 American Chemical Society Sörensen; Online Course Development and the Effect on the On-Campus Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.


Learning Platform Coursera is an online education platform which partners with universities and colleges to offer digital courses for anyone to take, free of charge. In the spring of 2013, Coursera approached the University of Kentucky as part of an effort to recruit public universities to develop new courses for their site. We participated in the initial conversations and considered Coursera as a tool we could use to tackle the student preparedness issue. Many of Coursera’s offerings are high-level and/or focused on very specialized topics and fields, but we began discussions about a “preparedness course,” which was a new idea for them. The concept appealed to Coursera and to administrators at the University of Kentucky. However, this was a huge undertaking for us as instructors as well as for the university’s academic technology support team. It also required a considerable financial commitment for the University of Kentucky. Let us give an account of why we felt so strongly that it was necessary.

Our Experiences Throughout our many years of teaching, we have listened in amazement to the high school experiences of some of our students from rural Kentucky schools. One determined young lady spoke about her high school teacher, who created assignments to “write as many words as you can with the letters on the periodic table.” When she asked this teacher if he would teach them dimensional analysis, he assured her that she would never use that skill. The student ended up being a success story because after the first day of General Chemistry (and after a few good tears), this student got the help she needed to compensate for her weak background and is now well on her way to completing a medical degree. We fear many other students just change their major and move on. Another student came up after a class on galvanic cells to say, “I know I am in trouble. My teacher pronounced cations as…” well, imagine the word “nation” with a k. We laugh as we retell these stories, but they are actually quite sad. Furthermore, instructional issues with high schools are not limited to rural schools. An example from a suburban magnet high school with an emphasis on math, science, and technology, involved a chemistry teacher who often made mistakes in the material being taught. This teacher was well-educated, but young and inexperienced. Anecdotal stories like these are no doubt accumulated by many who teach college chemistry, but Kentucky may struggle more in this area than other states.

Education in Kentucky Kentucky is probably not the first state people think of when the phrase “high quality education” is mentioned. According to the 2010 Census, the percentages of high school (83%) and 4-year college graduates (21.5%) lag behind national averages (86% and 28.8%, respectively) (1). Fortunately, the quality of education is improving in Kentucky despite the challenges faced in some communities, particularly those in Eastern Kentucky, where there are high 38 Sörensen; Online Course Development and the Effect on the On-Campus Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.


poverty levels (63% of students in Eastern Kentucky vs. 49% in the state as a whole), historical patterns of educational unimportance, and small school districts (Eastern Kentucky high schools average 608 students compared to 855 for the state) (2). Standardized tests may not be the best measure of academic achievement, but since the ACT became required for all Kentucky high school juniors in 2012, it provides one way to monitor progress over time for all students, not just those who are college-bound. Over the last five years, ACT scores of high school juniors in Kentucky have been increasing, but continue to lag behind national averages for the comprehensive and subject scores (3). While there is a gap for science scores (0.8 points lower), the gap for math scores is even greater (1.5 points lower). Given the amount of math involved in chemistry, it is no surprise that many students struggle in college-level chemistry. According to the Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board High Quality Teacher Report, the number of chemistry classes taught by teachers who are not considered “High Quality Teachers”, as defined by the Federal Department of Education, is four times higher (1.1%) than the corresponding value for all subjects, and the highest of any individual subject (4, 5). Furthermore, an amendment to the definition allows teachers to become “highly qualified” either in a particular subject or in the general category of “science.” While data is not available to provide a specific number, it is thus likely that the percent of classes being taught by teachers who are not highly qualified in chemistry is significantly higher. A closer examination of the data we do have reveals that in high poverty schools (those with more than 55% of students eligible for free or reduced lunch) 2.1% of chemistry classes are not being taught by a highly qualified teacher, with a potentially larger percentage of classes not being taught by a highly qualified chemistry teacher. The situation is not significantly better in other parts of the country. The report “Education and Certification Qualifications of Departmentalized Public High School-Level Teachers of Core Subjects: Evidence from the 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey” indicated that 51% of teachers whose main teaching assignment was chemistry did not major in chemistry in college, which translates to 54.1% of high school students nationwide being taught by a non-major (6). Holding a major in chemistry does not guarantee quality teaching, nor does a lack of that major guarantee otherwise. However, teachers who did not major in chemistry may not have completed courses with the full breadth and depth of content as a chemistry major would have. Additionally, the same report found that high poverty schools were twice as likely to be taught by an out-of-field teacher (6). This has particular meaning in Eastern Kentucky schools, where 63% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch and unemployment levels reach well into the double digits in some counties (7, 8). Attracting quality teachers to economically depressed and often rural areas can be a daunting task. This staffing challenge is further complicated by school size. In many small schools, having multiple science teachers, each teaching in their own field, is not economically feasible. Therefore, small numbers of teachers teach multiple subjects for which they may or may not have sufficient background. Additionally, 39 Sörensen; Online Course Development and the Effect on the On-Campus Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.


teaching multiple subjects with minimal time for preparation means that despite their good intentions and considerable knowledge, teachers may be unable to adequately prepare for all of their classes. As we all know, teaching takes time, both in and out of the classroom. One additional consideration is weather; schools in rural areas are frequently interrupted by weather-related cancellations (often multiple days at a time), which can impede student learning regardless of teachers’ skill and preparedness. We decided to create two online courses, “Chemistry” and “Advanced Chemistry” to help address these concerns.

Our Goals When we planned our MOOCs, we wanted to offer courses that would better prepare students for college chemistry. With that goal in mind, we developed content that could either be used to enhance their chemistry experience in high school, or between high school and college. One way to improve students’ chemistry experience is to improve their teachers’ understanding of chemistry topics. Even if a teacher completed a high-quality chemistry course in college, we knew that there are always topics that he or she could brush up on prior to teaching them to others. We envisioned that the MOOCs could be used by teachers as such a refresher, or could even be a part of their own continuing education. Another way to enhance the chemistry experience in high school is for instructors to assign material from our MOOCs to their students as part of their class assignments. We envisioned instructors assigning lectures to enable students to spend more in-class time on activities to enhance their understanding of the material, or assigning practice problems or assessments from the MOOCs to provide additional practice on problem solving. Beyond high school, we intended the courses to be used to prepare students for the rigors of college general chemistry prior to entering college. If a student had taken an Advanced Placement chemistry course, or two years of high school chemistry, the MOOCs would provide a review of many of the topics, which would bring these concepts back into the forefront of the student’s mind. A student with only one year of high school chemistry, could review those topics and push ahead to new areas of learning with the Advanced Chemistry MOOC. Although we did not intend this class to be equivalent to General College Chemistry I and II, the MOOCs do encompass a majority of the topics covered in college chemistry.

Student Resources When planning our two courses, we thought both about content and about how we would present material to the students. The topics were chosen based on the concepts and principles that we have seen students struggle with the most in college-level general chemistry (Table 1). Selecting topics was the easy part; next we had to think about what types of materials would be most useful to students enrolled in the course. We created several types of resources so that the course 40 Sörensen; Online Course Development and the Effect on the On-Campus Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.

content would support students of all learning styles and be applicable in a variety of situations, e.g. students learning content independently, teachers using content as a resource in their class, or teachers reviewing content for their own benefit.


Table 1. Course Topics Chemistry

Advanced Chemistry

The Atom and its Electronic Structure Periodic Trends Compounds Reactions Stoichiometry Covalent Bonding Thermochemistry

Kinetics Chemical Equilibrium Acid-Base Equilibria Aqueous Equilibria Thermodynamics

Video Lectures Over 100 video lectures, each 5-15 minutes in length, contained lesson content, worked examples, and embedded questions. They were recorded and edited to provide information in small chunks so students could focus on learning one thing at a time. The embedded questions helped keep students engaged during the video and allowed them to gauge their own progress as they watched. In addition to their use for students completing the entire MOOC, these videos can also be provided to students making up missed work from absences, since teachers may not have the time or resources to work one-on-one with a student or create a video themselves each time a student is absent. Keeping students up-to-date on the course material is essential for success since new topics depend so much on previous content. Student Notes A printable student version of the presentations used in the video lectures, which omitted some content and solutions to many of the problems, was made available to the students. It provided an outline for taking notes while the students watched course videos. This allowed students to focus on the content and annotate existing content, especially visual elements, in the printed copy rather than just transcribing the lectures. Since a significant portion of chemistry is explained with graphical elements, we felt this would be very beneficial to students. This is also what we recommend to students in our face-to-face classes. Worked Problem Videos One of the biggest challenges students face in chemistry is solving problems. Students need to do more than memorize definitions and ideas; they must also be able to apply them. To foster that process, we created many videos with worked problems. We tried to mimic the style we would use in talking to students in 41 Sörensen; Online Course Development and the Effect on the On-Campus Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.

person, including posing questions, pausing to give them time to consider and answer questions themselves, and showing all the work stepwise. In order best to simulate this experience, we used a touch screen device so we could write out the problem as we explained how to solve it.


Practice Problems Once students have covered the content and seen the worked problems, they need to practice solving problems on their own. While watching someone else solve problems is helpful in the beginning, students must be able to do this independently in order to master the material. The practice problem-sets developed for the MOOCs covered all the topics presented in the courses. Worked solutions, not just answers to the problems, were available in a separate document to encourage students to try to work through the problems themselves before looking up the solutions. Quizzes Each unit contained a quiz to review all the covered content for that unit. This multiple-choice quiz, similar to those used to test students in our college courses, gave students the opportunity to challenge themselves and to see which areas they understood and where they needed to do more work. Final Exam An end-of-course exam was also offered in both courses so students could assess their overall understanding of all concepts taught in the course.

Outcomes While students in our MOOCs learned chemistry, as instructors, we also benefited, as did our students in our face-to-face classes. The process of creating the course and considering learning outcomes for each topic encouraged us to think carefully about what we wanted students to learn and about the best way for them to learn it. Initially, this process seemed to be just an investment in time with no real purpose, but having those learning outcomes at hand when developing course content caused us to pause and think about our approach and determine which resource(s) was best suited to a particular topic. This opportunity to reflect on what and how we were teaching was very useful. Consideration of learning outcomes also required that we think about the breadth and depth of each particular topic for both our MOOCs and our face-toface students. Broad outcomes are hard for students to digest and challenging to cover in a 10-15 minute video or teach in a face-to-face lecture. The effort to narrow our topics has honed our skills as lecturers both online and in the classroom. Overall, the process of developing learning outcomes resulted in our face-to-face courses being more focused on the learning outcomes we wanted our students to 42 Sörensen; Online Course Development and the Effect on the On-Campus Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.


achieve. In addition, when provided to students in our face-to-face courses, the learning outcomes provided explicit expectations to students of what they should be able to do upon completion of a particular unit. Another positive outcome for us as instructors was the creation of content that could serve as additional resources for all of our students. Specifically, the worked example problems have proven to be particularly helpful for our face-toface students and their use of them has prompted us to make additional videos. The course resources were also available for use this past semester when we lost several instructional days due to an exceptionally harsh winter (by Kentucky standards). Having ready-made content to share with students eased the chaos that arose from missed class and a looming exam date that could not be altered. One of our main goals in developing the two MOOCs was to increase college level preparedness for general chemistry. While we plan to quantitatively evaluate the course effectiveness, we have ample anecdotal evidence that the courses may have addressed this goal in some cases. Feedback from students outside of the University of Kentucky has also been very rewarding, particularly when it is unsolicited. This feedback has been a very positive outcome for us and has allowed us to see our impact beyond our own institution. Teaching general chemistry can often be a thankless job since many students treat the course as a hurdle to "what they really want to do," so appreciation about the helpfulness of our courses has been welcomed. We heard from a high school teacher in Kentucky who used the course to prepare for her national boards. She not only appreciated the chemistry content, but complimented us on our methods, some of which she planned to incorporate into her classroom. We have received correspondence from high school and college students, high school and college educators, and learners both young and old from across the globe. While the course is taken by thousands, knowing that one student benefited in a special way makes a strong impression. The message that stands out most in our minds comes from our first offering of the course. We received an unsolicited email from a teacher in North Carolina who supplemented his Advanced Placement high school chemistry class with our MOOC and wanted to let us know that the site was great. Here is the portion of the quote that meant so much: “I actually have a student who got leukemia right before Christmas as we were finishing kinetics and now we are on equilibrium - he is using the lectures from the hospital to keep up!”. Receiving such positive feedback has been very rewarding.

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United States Census. http://quickfacts.census.gov (accessed June 30, 2015). State Report Cards. http://www.edweek.org/ew/qc/2014/ state_report_cards.html?intc=EW-QC14-TOC (accessed June 30, 2015). ACT Profile Report – State, Graduating Class 2014, Kentucky. http:// www.act.org/newsroom/data/2014/pdf/profile/Kentucky.pdf (accessed June 28, 2015).

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Education Professional Standards Board 2013-2014 HQ Summary Report. http://www.epsb.ky.gov/documents/Stats/HQSummary20132014.pdf (accessed June 27, 2015). New No Child Left Behind Flexibility: Highly Qualified Teachers. http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/methods/teachers/hqtflexibility.html (accessed July 2, 2015). Hill, J. G. Education and Certification Qualifications of Departmentalized Public High School-Level Teachers of Core Subjects: Evidence from the 2007-08 Schools and Staffing Survey; U.S. Department of Education: Washington, DC, 2011. Kentucky Depart of Education School Report Card. http:// openhouse.education.ky.gov/ (accessed June 28, 2015). Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics Map. http:/ /data.bls.gov/map/ (accessed June 30, 2015).

44 Sörensen; Online Course Development and the Effect on the On-Campus Classroom ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2016.

Development of a MOOC To Enhance Student Preparedness for

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