Article pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Hybrid Course Design: A Different Type of Polymer Blend Spence C. Pilcher* Department of Natural Science, Northeastern State University, 611 North Grand Avenue, Tahlequah, Oklahoma 74464, United States S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: An upper-division undergraduate polymer chemistry course was developed as a blended/hybrid course. The students met face-to-face once a week for 75 min with all other components being available online. Face-to-face meetings were used for class discussions/problem-based lectures, student presentations, hands-on activities, and examinations. Online components included study guides, the Macrogalleria, and online quizzes. This course is appropriate for students who have had one year of organic chemistry. KEYWORDS: Upper-Division Undergraduate, Polymer Chemistry, Computer-Based Learning, Polymerization
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INTRODUCTION A “blended” course is a course that is a hybrid between the traditional lecture course and an online course. In many instances, the contact hour time is split 50/50 between meeting in class and the online component, although the ratio may vary from 30 to 70%.1 Most courses today are web-enhanced courses in which the instructor has the majority of instructional materials posted in the learning management system (LMS), but the class still meets with a contact time equal to the credit hour associated with the course. A blended course differs from the traditional mode of delivery in that the face-to-face (F2F) meetings are less frequent, allowing greater time flexibility for students and leveraging online exercises so that students can learn on their own time. This is especially useful for working adults or students with family obligations. A blended course differs from a fully online course in that a blended course benefits from F2F meetings. The F2F interactions provide opportunities for active learning that are not available in a fully online course. Thus, a blended course provides the best of both online and traditional settings: the flexibility and convenience of an online course combined with the F2F interactions with peers and with an instructor. Francine Glazer was able to reveal that blended learning combines synchronous and asynchronous methodologies, resulting in significantly better student learning compared with learning in a traditional classroom setting.1 She showed that students in blended courses make deeper connections in what they are learning and revealed eight characteristics of successfully blended courses, namely, that blended learning:1
(3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
Blended strategies have been most often used in chemical education to transform general chemistry courses2−4 and, more recently, to offer a general chemistry lab in a hybrid format to help combat the problem of laboratory capacity5 and a firstsemester organic chemistry course to match the lifestyle of today’s student.6 The need to include polymer chemistry in the undergraduate curriculum has long been recognized by the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Polymer Chemistry, as reported in the article by Jefferson and Phillips in 1999.7 In 2015, the ACS Committee on Professional Training (CPT) officially recognized the importance of macromolecules in their content requirement for curriculum leading to an ACS-certified degree.8 This requirement for coverage of the preparation, characterization, and physical properties of polymers may be distributed across multiple courses or taught in a stand-alone course. Presented here is the development of a polymer chemistry course appropriate for upper-division undergraduate chemistry students that is offered in a blended/hybrid format. The coverage of Special Issue: Polymer Concepts across the Curriculum Received: October 27, 2016 Revised: March 16, 2017
(1) demands active learning (2) supports numerous pedagogical approaches © XXXX American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
creates time encourages self-directed learning gives every student a voice maximizes the value of face-to-face time helps students organize their knowledge layers coursework
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between the average peer assessment and the grade from the instructor. Although a student was free to pick any topic, most selected a topic from a list provided by the instructor. The topics used for this project are available in the Supporting Information.
synthetic polymers and biological macromolecules meets the content requirements set forth by the ACS.
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COURSE OVERVIEW The polymer chemistry course is offered at Northeastern State University (NSU) every other spring semester as an elective offering for our ACS-certified degree track and is appropriate for undergraduate students who have had one year of organic chemistry. The course has been offered twice now in the blended format with 18 and 19 students, respectively. The course serves as an introduction to polymer chemistry with an emphasis on polymer structure and properties; nomenclature; theory and practice of step-growth polymerizations, radical polymerizations, ionic polymerizations, ring-opening polymerizations, and polymerizations catalyzed by transition metals; and an introduction to selected processing and characterization techniques. At the end of the course, students should be able to define the various terms associated with polymer chemistry, discuss the different polymerization techniques, classify the individual structures of various polymers, apply correct scientific nomenclature when naming polymeric molecules, differentiate the concepts of molecular mass and its distribution, assess results obtained from polymer characterization, and show how polymers relate to their everyday lives. Each face-to-face meeting was one 75 min period on one evening of each week (to allow even more flexibility for working adults) during the semester and were reserved for problem-based lectures, discussions, student presentations, fun hands-on activities, exam reviews, and examinations. The online component available through the LMS was divided up into learning modules and included study guides, checklists of tasks to be completed each week, the online Macrogalleria, and online quizzes. A major project required that students collaborate with another student to prepare a poster relating polymer chemistry to everyday life. The course contained three exams and a comprehensive final exam. The first exam covered basic principles, polymer molecular weight, chemical structure and polymer morphology, and the evaluation, characterization, and analysis of polymers. The second exam was over vinyl polymers and covered radical polymerization, ionic polymerization, vinyl polymerization with coordination catalysts, and further reactions of vinyl polymers. The third exam covered non-vinyl polymers and included step-reaction and ring-opening polymerizations, polyethers, polysulfides, polyesters, polyamides, and formaldehyde-type polymers. After the third exam and before the final exam, inorganic and natural polymers were introduced. Grades were based on assessment of the hour exams (45%), activity worksheets (15%), online quizzes (15%), poster project (10%), and comprehensive final examination (15%).
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The Macrogalleria
The Macrogalleria is a web site developed by the Polymer Science Learning Center and is available on the Internet9 or on a CD purchased through the web site. Within the Macrogalleria, students explore various topics related to polymer chemistry. The site is organized into interactive levels, with each level building upon the previous one. The designers of the Macrogalleria incorporated humor into the text, making it engaging for the students as well as educational. During various weeks throughout the semester, the students were asked to explore one of the levels of the Macrogalleria. Questions from the Macrogalleria were incorporated into the online quizzes used for the assessment within the learning modules. Other Online Activities
Other material available online included notes/study guides covering the material, checklists of the activities to be completed each week, course-level and module-level learning objectives, and online quizzes administered through the LMS.
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FACE-TO-FACE MEETINGS
Lectures/Class Discussions
Some class periods were designated for discussion of the online study guides and included working sample problems that involved calculations (i.e., number- and weight-average molecular weights, rates of polymerization, copolymer equation, etc.). Old exams were available online to help students prepare for the in-class examinations. The face-to-face meeting before each exam was used for review, in which the old exam was worked. Students were encouraged to work the exams beforehand to be more familiar with the problems and to see whether they had worked each of the problems correctly. Active Learning
To aid in student engagement in the course, three worksheets were designed to provide more hands-on learning that involved fun activities that the students completed during the semester (one for each of the three exam sections). Two of the worksheets involved activities that were performed in the lab and completed in two of the 75 min face-to-face class periods. The first worksheet (available in the Supporting Information) had five different activities. The first activity, in which students identified various plastics found around their homes by the recycling code on the plastic, was completed away from class. Three of the activities could be performed in the laboratory or in the classroom as long as there was a requirement for students to bring goggles with them that day. At the first station, students dissolved a Styrofoam cup in acetone, demonstrating the solubility of a plastic in an organic solvent as well as how much air is in Styrofoam. The next station involved making slime and Gluep, revealing the effects of cross-linking on a polymer chain. The third station involved a demonstration of a superabsorbent polymer and its ability to absorb water, which led to a discussion of how a superabsorbent polymer works. The last station had to be performed in the lab because it required the use of a fume hood. In this activity, the students made a glyptal resin encapsulating a penny. The students completed the second worksheet at home while watching YouTube videos over various topics (i.e., introduction
ONLINE ACTIVITIES
Collaborative Poster Project
Each student was required to collaborate with another student to prepare an informational poster with references relating polymer chemistry to something they encounter on a relatively daily basis. The students customized the slide size in PowerPoint to a height of 36″ and a width of 48″ and submitted their poster to the instructor electronically. All of the posters were uploaded into the course LMS, and the students were required to assess all of the posters in the course, including their own poster. The total grade for the collaborative poster assignment was split evenly B
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Figure 1. “Start Here” tab to introduce the students to the course and online activities.
Figure 2. Link to the Polymer Science Learning Center.10
Figure 3. Learning outcomes for the first module.
to polymers, radical polymerization, and modern-day uses of polymers). The third worksheet was completed later in the semester and correlated to the lecture material over step-growth polymerization and inorganic and natural polymers. To demonstrate step-growth polymerization, students made Nylon-6,10 by an interfacial polymerization and a polyurethane
foam. The students then could see an example of a natural “gummy worm” polymer (sodium alginate) and prepare a silicone super ball as an example of an inorganic polymer. Student Presentations
Although the course was designed for undergraduates, it was cross-listed as a graduate course in our M.S. Natural Science C
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.6b00809 J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
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Figure 4. Checklist for the first learning module.
Figure 5. Additional materials included in the first learning module.
over the module (Figure 3). A checklist was provided in each module to ensure that students would be aware of all that they needed to accomplish that week (Figure 4). Additional materials for the module were then included, such as the study guide, a link to the Macrogalleria web site, and assessment as shown in Figure 5. The text from the screenshots can be accessed in the Supporting Information.
interdisciplinary program. The students who took the course for graduate credit, in addition to having a take-home portion to the regular exams that was given to undergraduate students, had to give three presentations in which they reviewed recent journal articles devoted specifically to polymer science.
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ORGANIZATION IN THE LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM The “Start Here” tab of the LMS (Figure 1) included the traditional elements of an online course such as technology needs, meet the instructor, syllabus, etc. Some pictures of polymer experiments, many of which the students would be performing that semester as hands-on activities, were included to get students excited about the course. A link to the Polymer Science Learning Center covering the basic definition of the polymer10 was included in the introduction to provide a refresher for the student on the basics of polymer chemistry (Figure 2). Each module was then created as a tab in the course LMS showing the inclusive dates for the module so students would know the due date for completing each module. Within each module, a summary of the learning outcomes for that module was provided along with the instructional materials and assessment
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RESULTS
Pre/post-test results from the final exam showed a learning gain for all students enrolled in the course (Table 1). Additionally, a survey was completed by the students at the end of the semester. One question asked whether the student would rather take the course in a traditional format (three days a week), the current blended format, or purely online. All of the students responded that they preferred the course in the blended format. One free response question asked what aspects of the course they enjoyed the most. Ninety-two percent mentioned the hands-on activities as one of their favorite parts of the course, 31 percent responded that they liked meeting just one day a week, and 15 percent replied that the Macrogalleria was one of the aspects they enjoyed the most. Selected student comments were: D
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Table 1. Comparison of Pre- and Post-test Scores Illustrating the Learning Gains by the Students Enrolled in the Course
Table 3. Student Evaluation of Course Results
a
Parameter
Pretest
Post-test
Average Minimum Maximum
23.4 12.0 34.0
85.7 47.5 126.0
The course objectives were clearly presented My instructor had high expectations of student learning My instructor presented course concepts in a way that helped me learn. This course was well-organized. I knew what I was supposed to learn in this class. My instructor challenged me to think critically and independently. My instructor used a variety of methods for conveying the material. Overall, this instructor was an effective teacher.
The range of possible pretest and post-test scores was 0−150.
Labs were very interesting and seeing how the coursework applied to real world scenarios made the material easier to learn. I liked how the course wasn’t just lecture; it was lab, multimedia, www, book, lecture, summary, quizzes, and exams. Also, class was 1 day a week allowing me to easily fit it into my schedule. Hands on activities, was able to see material discussed and understand better! It wasn’t just something on paper to read! The in-class activities (labs) were very enjoyable and educational...online checklists and macrogalleria were useful. The labs were a lot of fun. Having class only 1 day a week was awesome! Conversely, the survey had another free response question asking about the aspects that they did not like. There were only two items that students listed multiple times. Thirty-one percent indicated that they did not like the exams, and 31 percent replied that there was not anything that they did not like. One comment from this question was: I don’t enjoy tests so that’s obvious, but I can’t say I like a ton of homework either. I think you have a pretty good balance between quizzes which force students to at least look at the material and tests. Another section of the survey listed various items that were a part of the course, and the students were asked to identify the items as useful, not useful, enjoyable, and not enjoyable. The results are listed in Table 2. From these results, it can be inferred
a
Attending class Exams Textbook Worksheets (hands-on activities) Online quizzes Online study guides Macrogalleria Online checklist a
Students Listing Item as Usefula, %
Students Listing Item as Enjoyablea, %
100 100 27 91
73 9 0 100
100 100 100 100
36 36 64 27
88 88 75 88 88 88 75 100
N = 17.
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DISCUSSION There are a few challenges when transforming a course into a hybrid format. One of the pitfalls of the blended learning environment is that students will often not see the two components (online and face-to-face) as equal in value, spending the majority of their time and effort on just one of the two approaches.1 In the anonymous survey given at the end of the semester, 46% of the students reported that they spent only 1−3 hours outside of class on course preparation per week, and 38% spent 3−5 hours. Only 8% of the students completing the survey reported that they spent over 5 hours outside of class on course preparation. This indicates that many of the students enrolled in the course just saw that the class met less often and did not spend an adequate amount of time being engaged in the material outside of class, which was often reflected in their course grade (for the two semesters, course grades were 11% A, 19% B, 36% C, 11% D, and 22% W). An important consideration is that the instructor should convey the idea that additional time not meeting in class should be spent engaging in the online materials. Reminding students about due dates for upcoming assignment via e-mail and posting an announcement in the LMS is recommended. Another danger in developing a blended course is not adequately layering the course. An example would be where the notes are just posted online and the students are allowed to just deal with the material themselves. To truly blend a course, one of the major challenges is to engage students in the online material, and as Behnke notes, to vary the course content, bringing it together in both a complementary and reinforcing role.11 The author recognizes this challenge and will continue to improve upon the reported course design. The next time that the course is taught in the blended format, discussion board posts will be required in order to further engage the students in the online material. The revamped course will include four discussion board posts. The first discussion board post that will be graded will be an introduction where the students will be required to introduce themselves and indicate their hometown, major, reason for taking the course, and something unique about themselves. Immediately following each of the three in-class examinations, the students will be required to post to the discussion board reflecting upon the three most important things they feel they have learned up to that point in the course, what they would do differently if they had to go through the material and take the exam again, and what topic they feel warrants further discussion. Ungraded discussion board forums will include a help forum to clarify assignments and post
Table 2. Survey Results from Usefulness of Items Associated with the Course Item
Overall Positive Response Averagea, %
Selected Evaluation Category
Scoresa from Comprehensive Polymer Chemistry Exam Administered to the Two Blended Courses, N = 27
N = 15.
that the students thought the majority of items incorporated into the course were useful for their learning. The one exception was the textbook. Most students did not find the textbook useful, and no students indicated that the textbook was enjoyable. By far, the part of the course that students enjoyed the most was the handson activities. Table 3 lists selected items from the student evaluations displaying that students felt the course was organized in a way that was conducive to their learning. E
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ORCID
technical and content-oriented questions. The benefits of using a discussion board include building connections within the class, developing writing skills, and giving the students the opportunity to think about what they have learned so far during the course. Another change that will be made in the course will be the inclusion of short problem-based lectures. These videos will be recorded, posted on YouTube, and uploaded into the LMS. Students will then be able to watch online at whatever time is convenient for them, which will allow more time for class discussions when meeting face-to-face. Also, it was obvious from the results of the survey that students did not find the textbook useful. Therefore, either the class will be taught without a textbook or a new textbook that is more student friendly will be selected. This may mean that the topics are covered in a different order. The results from these additional changes will be reported in a communication in this Journal after the completion of the semester in which the course is taught. Pre/post-test exams and grade comparison with previous blended formats will be reported.
Spence C. Pilcher: 0000-0002-9830-2482 Notes
The author declares no competing financial interest.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the students enrolled in the course at Northeastern State University for their input on course development.
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SUMMARY Despite the challenge of having not all students fully engaged outside of the classroom, there are some key takeaways from this development of the polymer chemistry course in a blended format: (1) A blended polymer chemistry course is a popular format for students because of the increased time flexibility and convenience offered in today’s blended society, where so many things are instantly at the student’s fingertips. (2) Students prefer fun hands-on activities of polymer chemistry during the course to keep them engaged and help them relate to the material they are studying. (3) Having the students prepare a poster relating polymers to their everyday lives is an effective method to get students to see that relationship and familiarize them with preparing a poster in PowerPoint. (4) The Macrogalleria can be a valuable resource when developing a blended/hybrid polymer chemistry course. In conclusion, blended learning has the advantage of being able to teach from multiple perspectives incorporating some high-impact learning strategies. The face-to-face meetings can allow for reinforcing discussions over material presented online, and the hands on activities keep students engaged in the course.
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ASSOCIATED CONTENT
* Supporting Information S
The Supporting Information is available on the ACS Publications website at DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.6b00809. Worksheet 1 (PDF, DOCX) Worksheet 2 (PDF, DOCX) Worksheet 3 (PDF, DOCX) Materials used in hands-on activities (PDF, DOCX) Course syllabus (PDF, DOCX) List of topics for the collaborative poster project (PDF, DOCX) Text from the screenshots in the figures (PDF, DOCX)
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REFERENCES
(1) Glazer, F. Introduction. In Blended Learning: Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy; Glazer, F., Ed.; New Pedagogies and Practices for Teaching in Higher Education Series; Stylus Publishing: Sterling, VA, 2012; pp 1−11. (2) Amaral, K. E.; Shank, J. D. Enhancing Student Learning and Retention with Blended Learning Class Guides. http://er.educause. edu/articles/2010/12/enhancing-student-learning-and-retention-withblended-learning-class-guides (accessed March 2017). (3) Hogan, R. Blended Learning Examples in Education and Chemistry. In Blended Learning across Disciplines: Models for Implementation; Kitchenham, A., Ed.; Information Science Reference: Hershey, PA, 2011; Chapter 5, pp 74−98. (4) Amaral, K. E.; Shank, J. D.; Shibley, I. A.; Shibley, L. R. WebEnhanced General Chemistry Increases Student Completion Rates, Success, and Satisfaction. J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90 (3), 296−302. (5) Burchett, S.; Hayes, J.; Pfaff, A.; Satterfield, E. T.; Skyles, A.; Woelk, K. Piloting Blended Strategies To Resolve Laboratory Capacity Issues in a First-Semester General Chemistry Course. J. Chem. Educ. 2016, 93 (7), 1217−1222. (6) Ealy, J. B. Development and Implementation of a First-Semester Hybrid Organic Chemistry Course: Yielding Advantages for Educators and Students. J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90 (3), 303−307. (7) Jefferson, A.; Phillips, D. N. Teaching Polymer Science to ThirdYear Undergraduate Chemistry Students. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76 (2), 232−235. (8) Undergraduate Professional Education in Chemistry: ACS Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures for Bachelor’s Degree Programs; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2015; https://www.acs.org/ content/dam/acsorg/about/governance/committees/training/2015acs-guidelines-for-bachelors-degree-programs.pdf (accessed March 2017). (9) Polymer Science Learning Center. The Macrogalleria: A Cyberwonderland of Polymer Fun! http://pslc.ws/macrog/maindir. htm (accessed March 2017). (10) Polymer Science Learning Center. What Is a Polymer? http:// pslc.ws/macrog/kidsmac/wiap.htm (accessed March 2017). (11) Behnke, C. Blended Learning in the Culinary Arts: Tradition Meets Technology. In Blended Learning: Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy; Glazer, F., Ed.; New Pedagogies and Practices for Teaching in Higher Education Series; Stylus Publishing: Sterling, VA, 2012; pp 13− 30.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. F
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.6b00809 J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
