Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking

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Chapter 5

Using Technology To Flip and Structure General Chemistry Courses at a Large Public University: Our Approach, Experience, and Outcomes Melissa A. Deri,1,* Donna McGregor,1,2,* and Pamela Mills1,2 1Department

of Chemistry, Lehman College of the City University of New York, New York, New York 10468, United States 2Ph.D. Program in Chemistry, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, New York 10016, United States *E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

One major challenge when designing General Chemistry courses is how to cover all of the material in such a content-heavy class while simultaneously engaging students in such a way that they develop an interest in the subject. Within a large university these challenges are exacerbated by the need to offer courses for several hundred students at once. Furthermore, in an urban public university system the level of college preparation and study habits of the entering students span a large range, from students who have had no chemistry in high school to those who have excelled in Advanced Placement chemistry courses. In the face of these challenges, we designed a technology-driven flipped classroom model with a significant online component that includes a backbone of custom chemistry videos for content explication. The course design—including the detailed components, their justification, and the basis of our pedagogical learning theory—is presented herein. In addition, we include a brief discussion of the results from the first few years of running this new model with a specific focus on student and faculty perceptions.

© 2017 American Chemical Society Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


Introduction and Background (Why We Chose To Flip with Technology) The 21st century is ripe with new technology that has enabled educators to rethink how they structure their classrooms to enable student learning. This is particularly interesting in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields where the need to diversify and increase competence among students persists (1). The need for competence in the STEM workforce is a particularly important issue as it has been predicted that by 2018, 9 of the top 10 fastest growing jobs will require a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field (2). It is also widely-accepted that many more college freshman who exhibit an interest in science (or medicine) believe that they want to be Biology majors than believe that they want to be Chemistry majors and that student’s choice of college major is largely dependent on the experience they have in their introductory level college courses. For General Chemistry instructors then, the task is two-fold: teach students the specific chemistry content (to create competence) and create opportunities for them to become interested in the subject in general (to increase the number of majors). In a content-heavy course like General Chemistry, making time to both explicate and garner interest can be challenging. In a large, urban public university system the challenge is further compounded by the variability in preparation among the incoming study body, where students will vary from those who had no high school chemistry experience to those who have excelled in Advanced Placement chemistry courses. In addition, the ever-increasing class sizes that often arise (>100 students) mean that instructors must work harder to keep their students engaged and actively participating (3). One approach that has a proven record of both improving student outcomes and increasing student interest is the Flipped Classroom. In a flipped classroom content explication is moved out of the classroom and face-to face time is repurposed for more active learning practices. The literature contains countless examples of successful flipped classrooms (4–9) and a plethora of active learning strategies (10–16), many of which make use of videos for content explication (17–19) and some form of online learning platform (20–22). It has also been shown that the use of online homework leads to increased student performance (23–25) and that personal response devices (or clickers) result in increased passing rates, increased student satisfaction and more engaged classrooms, especially in large-enrollment courses (26–28). In fact, clickers have been found to play a particularly important role in the retention of students with lower grades because the use of the clickers increases their interest in the subject matter (29). Of utmost importance is not only the surge of technological advances, but the generation of students that has grown up within it. The current wave of millennial and centennial students is overwhelmingly technology-savvy and they are inundated with information constantly available at their fingertips. These students naturally approach learning in short bursts and have access to a plethora of open access educational software (30). Their expectations about learning do not involve reading a text to understand information. Rather, they are heavily driven by video and use the internet and smart devices as their primary mode of 76 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


information discovery. The widespread availability and awareness of popular educational resources on the internet means that students very quickly find alternatives to their course texts or notes to supplement their learning. In an attempt to capture and engage this technology-driven student body while also facilitating students’ transition into the rigor of science classes, we chose to combine a series of pedagogical strategies to build a new structured, flipped classroom model for our ultra large (600+ students) General Chemistry courses. We created a series of custom videos for initial content delivery that serve as the backbone for the flipped course and then supplemented them with carefully structured, scaffolded learning assignments to facilitate the development of soft skills as well as content knowledge. The impetus behind this redesign was ultimately to better fit the needs and preferences of our students. The use of technology complements their inherent tendencies toward looking to the internet for answers and the increased structure helps to level the playing field by supporting those students who come in with less college preparation through incorporating time management strategies. The video backbone was embedded in a commercial online platform and carefully linked to online homework problems, while class time was repurposed for small group workshops and a modified form of peer instruction using clickers. It was our hope that this combination of technology and pedagogy would help improve student performance, increase student interest in chemistry, and lower course withdrawal rates. In this chapter, we discuss the structured, flipped course and video backbone design, provide details about the in-class active learning components, and give anecdotal student commentary about the successes and challenges that they (and the instructors) faced when using this new model. Our student performance data are not discussed here as they have been published elsewhere (31).

Context (Who We Are) The City University of New York (CUNY) is the public university system of New York City and the largest urban university system in the US, consisting of a network of 11 senior colleges, 7 community colleges, and 5 graduate and professional schools. This project was initially conceived at Hunter College, which is one of the most selective of the CUNY Colleges and is located in Manhattan. In 2015, the authors moved to Lehman College, the only senior college in the Bronx and began implementing the new course design at the second campus. Due to the cooperative nature of the CUNY system, we have had the opportunity to study the same course sequence simultaneously in these two senior colleges and are currently working to expand to include Bronx Community College (one of the CUNY community colleges). The structured, flipped classroom design we will discuss has been implemented by multiple instructors for both General Chemistry I (Gen Chem I) and General Chemistry II (Gen Chem II) courses at both senior colleges. In 77 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


all instances of the course, instructors at the two institutions replaced traditional lecture instruction with a custom video backbone for content explication coupled to two forms of active learning classroom activities (a modified form of peer instruction and small group workshops). The implementation of the course at two senior colleges serves as a natural laboratory for study as the student demographics are different. Instructors at both institutions used identical course assignments and co-written exams in order to maintain consistent standards and draw valid conclusions.

Course Details (How We Design the Structured, Flipped Classroom) We realized very early on that in order to reach the students of the 21st century, flipping the classroom could not just mean giving the students something to watch or read before class. Rather, we had to rethink and redesign every aspect of the course. This redesign involved the re-sequencing of the material according to a custom learning logic (see Table 1 for new content flow), the inclusion of an expanded teaching team that consists of a course instructor combined with a team of teaching assistants and embedded tutors, and the integration of a variety of technologies both in and out of the classroom. Specifically, these technologies involve the use of a single online platform to house all course components, the custom video backbone, the linking of the videos to the online homework system and the inclusion of student response devices (clickers). Additionally, designing a course where students were responsible for more work outside of the classroom led us to develop a much more structured curriculum with frequent assignments and weekly (or even daily) deadlines. In 2014 Eddy and Hogan found that “increased course structure improves student achievement” (32). We believe that the inclusion of many short term assignments with specific due dates increases the course structure, specifically providing a built in study schedule and constant graded feedback so students can track their progress as they move through the course.

Online Components Course Website When we began this project, we decided to design a custom CUNY platform that conformed to our course specifications. CUNY built the platform and for 2 years we used it with huge success in the classroom, but as the course expanded to include more students and more institutions we made several important observations about the limitations of a custom platform and decided to switch to a commercial platform instead.

78 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Table 1. The topics covered are highlighted to present the flow of content in the flipped classroom courses.


General Chemistry I and II Topic Coverage General Chemistry I

General Chemistry II

1

Matter, Models and Math

Chemical Equilibrium

2

Atoms and Orbitals

Predicting Chemical Change

3

Basic Bonding Principles

Acids and Bases

4

Introduction to Covalent Bonding

pH Calculations

5

The Chemical Equation

Polyprotic Acids

6

Energy Considerations

Buffers

7

Periodic Trends

Titration Curves

8

Atomic Spectroscopy

Heat and Work

9

The Electron

Enthalpy

10

Molecular Geometry

Entropy

11

Valence Bond Theory

Free Energy

12

Molecular Orbital Theory

Applications of Free Energy

13

The Mole

Redox Reactions

14

Stoichiometry Calculations

Batteries

15

Empirical and Molecular Formula

Chemical Kinetics

16

Phase Change and IMF

Arrhenius Theory

17

Gases

Nuclear Chemistry

18

Applications of Stoichiometry

Our foremost observation was that maintenance of the platform and providing technical support to all students was a difficult and time consuming task that we could not sustain without significant extra resources. Furthermore, our students were expressing an explicit desire to have a single log-on that would connect them to both the required course materials and their online homework as well as an accurate and up to date gradebook at all times. In year 3 of the project we thus decided to switch to a commercial platform and partnered with Sapling Learning (our online homework system) to design a custom course within their online learning environment. Our custom Sapling course contains all the required course components within a single online environment and can be further customized for each instructor and institution. Figure 1 shows the landing page of the Sapling custom course and indicates all the flipped classroom course components that are contained within the Sapling interface.



Figure 1. A complete topic page from the course website illustrates all the course components for a given topic.

Self-Assessment of Learning Goals Before students begin a topic, we ask that they complete a self-assessment of their prior knowledge relating to the learning goals for that topic. This learning goal analysis (LGA) takes the form of a series of Likert-type questions touching on each learning goal. Students rate their familiarity with the concept or concepts in each learning goal with the clear understanding that they are not expected to know all the concepts when they begin each new topic. Students are encouraged to revisit the learning goals often while working through the topic and once more after completing all required assignments to ensure they have grasped each learning goal through their studies. The LGAs are graded for completion only (1.2% of 80 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

the course grade). It is our hope that this exercise will help clarify the expected content knowledge for each topic as well as increase our students’ metacognition and self-awareness as they develop their individual learning skills (33). Table 2 shows the learning goals for Topic 14: Stoichiometry as an example of the types of learning goals built into the course and presented in the LGAs.

Table 2. The 8 learning goals associated with Topic 14 are shown here as a representative example.


Topic 14: Stoichiometry Calculations 1

Identify the limiting and excess reagents in a chemical reaction based on the given amounts of reactants

2

Use the chemical equation to compute the maximum amount (theoretical yield) of products produced

3

Use the chemical equation to compute the amount of reactants needed to produce a 100% yield

4

Use the chemical equation to predict all masses of all components after a reaction has run to 100% completion: i.e. amount of reactant reacted, amount of reactant unreacted (excess), amount of product produced

5

Recognize the actual yield in a chemical reaction based on the wording of a problem

6

Compute percent yields for any chemical reaction from actual yields and theoretical yields

7

Incorporate limiting reagent calculations into all stoichiometric calculations starting with given amounts of reactants or given amounts of products

8

For any given set of conditions, compute the amount of reactants and products in the reaction vessel (including mole, mass, % yield and or number of particles)

Custom Video Backbone The primary mode of content delivery was a series of short videos that were custom-made to match the desired topics and flow of the Gen Chem I and II curricula. The content was divided into 34 topics (18 for Gen Chem I and 16 for GenChem II) and these were subdivided into a series of 176 videos. Each topic includes between 4-8 videos, each between 2 and 10 minutes in length, that introduce and convey increasingly complex content knowledge for that topic. Each video was designed to build upon knowledge from the prior videos (within the topic or even from prior topics in the course) and students were instructed to watch these topic videos before coming to class. On average students watch about 50 minutes of video per week in Gen Chem I and 60-70 minutes of video per week in Gen Chem II. In order to help students learn to better organize and manage their time they are provided with a detailed Table of Contents (TOC) that outlines all the videos in a given topic along with the length of each video and the total amount 81 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

of footage for each topic. Table 3 shows an excerpt from the TOC for Topic 14: Stoichiometry as an example of how a topic is broken down into a series of videos.

Table 3. The 5 videos associated with Topic 14 are shown here as a representative example. 39 min 01 s


Topic 14: Stoichiometry Calculations Video A

Limiting Reagent

9 min 14 s

Video B

Mole Based Calculations

6 min 31 s

Video C

Mass Based Calculations

9 min 25 s

Video D

Percent Yield calculations

8 min 56 s

Video E

Advanced Stoichiometry Problems

4 min 55 s

Using videos as the vehicle for content delivery is beneficial to the students because they are given control over the amount of time they spend with the content explication. Students watch the videos on their own schedules, as many times as they need, while pausing or replaying for clarification. Additionally, online videos are a widespread and common source of information for 21st century students who use video for everything from gaining technical knowledge to watching tutorials and the news. The course videos were required viewing in our flipped course and, as incentive, students earned points for confirming that they had in fact started watching the videos and taking notes by a required deadline every week. Our course platform did not allow for monitoring of individual student’s viewing habits. Instead, students completed a Video Certification assignment each week to earn their points. Videos could be watched on any device with a working internet connection. When designing our videos, we opted to use voice-over PowerPoint presentations without a talking head; the only exception being a pair of small filmed sections in the very first video of the Gen Chem I course and in the very last video of the Gen Chem II course meant to bookend the experience. A concerted effort was made to make the videos feel dynamic with substantial animations and plenty of visuals instead of blocks of bulleted text. Particular care was taken to make the slides visually appealing by including custom graphics and detailed custom animations to more clearly convey certain course content (particularly to illustrate molecular level simulations). It was important to us that the videos had a consistent look and feel to ensure that the student experience with the content flow felt both sequential and coherent, so every video begins with the same slide layout and each topic is infused with a custom graphic that illustrates the topic content. Based on our initial observations with student video usage and in-class student polling we decided to make the pacing and cadence of the videos purposefully slow, with the voice speed being well below typical conversational speed. This 82 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

was an unexpected design, but students made it very clear that “normal speed” felt too fast and that they wanted to be able to take detailed notes while watching the videos. The videos include English subtitles to accommodate students with language or hearing difficulties. Additionally, to facilitate note taking and review, PDF documents of all the slides contained within a given topic were made available to the students for download through the course platform.


Guided (Let’s) Practice While required assignments are the norm in our structured, flipped classroom, we believe that some ungraded, low-stakes problem solving is important. To achieve this we included at least one “Let’s Practice” question in every video. The “Let’s Practice” problems are identified for students and intended to engage them in optional problem solving during the content delivery. These guided practice questions prompt the student to pause the video and try to solve a given problem independently. Upon resuming the video the solutions and explanations are presented. Typically, these problems rely on content that was presented in the video, but because chemistry content builds cumulatively students must often access additional content knowledge gleaned from prior videos. Let’s Practice problems are not graded nor checked for completion, but are meant to be used exclusively as a learning tool to move students toward independent problem solving. Students who choose to watch the solutions as examples before trying to solve the problem are never penalized. Figure 2 shows an example of a guided practice problem and its solution slide.

Online Homework To ensure that students were practicing the course content outside of class, we linked every course video to an online homework assignment inside the Sapling Learning platform. Sapling contains a database of chemistry questions, but also allows instructors to author their own questions if they so choose. To match our course curricula, we used a combination of Sapling database questions and our own authored problems. We estimate that we authored about 25% of the homework content. The online homework assignments were split into two distinct types: Skills Practice and Synthesis. Skills Practice assignments are each three questions long and correspond to a specific video, with questions usually focusing on a narrow topic or content area. These assignments are meant to be completed as students move through the material. Synthesis assignments are longer assignments of about 8-10 questions that pull together the content from all the videos in a given course topic. The synthesis assignments are meant to be the capstone to each topic and thus tend to contain more challenging questions. 83 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


Figure 2. A guided Let’s Practice problem from topic 14 is shown here with its detailed solution.

Homework questions were graded in real time to give the students instant feedback about correctness. One wonderful feature of the Sapling homework system is the inclusion of hints and the availability of tutorials when students submit incorrect answers. Our utilization of the system does not penalize students for multiple attempts after an incorrect response. Students can make a mistake and then use the hints or tutorials to come to the correct response, and still receive full credit for the problem (even after several incorrect response cycles). We chose this format because we believe that homework is an extension of the learning experience and not an assessment of student knowledge. We include some of our most difficult problems as part of the online Synthesis homework because these assignments are due after all class work has been completed and students can work these problems slowly while fully utilizing all of their resources to solve them. Figure 3 shows an example of an online homework problem and its worked solution.



Figure 3. An example of an online homework problem and its explanation are shown here.


Electronic Textbook


An OpenStax electronic textbook was included in the online course platform but there were no required reading assignments. The book was made available as an additional resource for those students whose learning style preferences include reading a text, but it was not specifically referenced in the course. Ultimately, we found the number of students who chose to use this resource to be incredibly low (see Student Perceptions section below). The text does not necessarily match the order of the topics covered in the course, but the online homework platform does link the sapling database homework problems to relevant book sections for students to directly access when desired. In-Person Components Teaching Team To further support our students in their learning, the in-class components of the course were designed to rely on a teaching team that consists of a course instructor combined with a team of teaching assistants (TA’s) and embedded tutors. The TAs are typically chemistry graduate students who are interested in the education initiatives of the department or post-baccalaureate students who are hired as adjunct lecturers. The embedded tutors are typically upper level undergraduate students who have successfully completed the course and are paid per hour to work as part of the teaching team. It is well known that access to external tutoring services and learning support networks are an important resource for students and that helping students learn to use these resources effectively is an important part of the learning process. At Lehman, we have two Learning Centers that provide tutoring services to students in the sciences - the Lehman Science Learning Center that provides tutoring and organized study groups based upon the Peer Led Team Learning model (34, 35) and the Supplemental Instruction (SI) model (36, 37). Both models were initially developed to support traditional lecture-style classrooms and we have worked with the programs to begin developing a formal embedded tutors program for our structured, flipped classroom. The embedded tutors work closely with the course instructor, and are trained formally as either SI Leaders or as classroom facilitators.

Clicker Class Clicker class is the main in-class component of our structured, flipped classrooms and involves a modified form of the original Mazur Peer Instruction cycle (12, 38). Peer instruction modifies the traditional lecture classroom by dividing it into a series of short mini-lectures, each followed by a related question (originally conceived as a method to explore physics concepts and called a ConceptTest). Students are given a short amount of time (usually 1-2 minutes) to formulate individual responses to these questions and then submit their individual answers to their instructor. Students are then encouraged to discuss their answer 86 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


choices with the students who are sitting with them (usually 2-4 minutes) and then they submit a new round of individual responses. The instructor then explains the question and moves on to the next mini lecture. We have modified this cycle in 2 distinct ways: 1) we do not begin every cycle with a mini lecture and 2) we skip the initial individual response phase. Instead we encourage students to think about the question alone for about 1 minute before they begin discussing with their peers. In this modified form of peer instruction responses are only submitted after a round of class discussion. During a typical two-hour Clicker class the entire class of 100-1000 students (depending on the college and section) meets with the course instructor and (based on the class size) with several TAs and our undergraduate embedded tutors. The entire teaching team has seen the clicker questions before class and is made aware of any misconceptions or common student errors that might need to be addressed. The instructor presents a series of multiple choice questions using PowerPoint (Figure 4). The questions are designed to increase in difficulty and serve as the backbone for class instruction. Once a question is presented to the class the students are given a fixed amount of time, usually 1-5 minutes based on the difficulty of the question, to work through the problem in small groups using their notes before entering their answers using handheld personal response devices, in our case iClickers. Students are encouraged to work with their peers and use any available resources at all times. The instructor, embedded tutors, and TAs walk through the classroom and are available to answer questions and explain concepts during this problem-solving time. Once the allotted time has elapsed and the class has submitted their responses, the overall class results are displayed as a distribution. Based on this distribution and the difficulty of the question, the instructor walks through the solution in detailed steps and talks about both how to approach the problem and any particular errors or embedded concepts. In the case of particularly difficult problems or when the majority of the class doesn’t agree on the correct answer choice, the question is reopened and students are instructed to discuss the problem with the students around them to try and come to an agreement. Although students receive a grade for their performance in clicker class, the problem-solving exercise is not meant to feel like a quiz, but rather each question is viewed as a chance for students to apply knowledge from the course videos. Clicker class is an opportunity for students to engage in problem solving during class time, when they are surrounded by resources and people able to help them learn. Typically, students are not required to get every clicker question correct to earn full points for a session. For example, students need to accumulate 8-10 correct answers to earn full credit for the day, but there may be 10-14 questions covered in each class. The number of questions covered in a given class depends on the preparedness and performance of the students and how much explanation is provided by the instructor. When a high majority of the class answers a question correctly the instructor may briefly reinforce the concept and guide the class through the solution, but when more of the class is struggling the instructor may opt to spend more time discussing a question and going over the solution in more detail to stress the individual steps and thought processes. Furthermore, the 87 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.


instructor’s explanations of clicker questions are linked to the larger framework of the course, emphasize problem solving techniques, and address common misconceptions.

Figure 4. An example of a clicker question and its explanation are shown here.



The questions used in clicker class are carefully selected to include a variety of difficulties and cover as much of each topic as possible given the limited class time. Each individual question is explicitly identified by its level of difficulty and at least one learning goal that it covers. This helps the students keep track of their progress and explicitly link concepts back to the learning goals. Difficulty is ranked by level, from 1-4, with Level 1 questions being focused on foundational knowledge and single concepts (often recall of facts) and Level 4 questions presenting students with a novel question type that requires them to make connections beyond what they’ve seen in the videos or homework. Another important design feature of the clicker questions are the answer choices. When the instructor displays the students’ responses it is important that they can glean meaning from the results. This means that the incorrect choices have to be selected to match common mistakes in the solving of that problem. This could be the inclusion of common misconceptions in conceptual questions or frequently forgotten steps in calculations. The point is for the instructor to be able to identify the mistakes being made by the class in real time in order to address them as necessary.

Workshop The second in-person component of the flipped classrooms is what we call workshop. Workshop allows students to meet in a smaller class setting of about 20-45 people with more direct interaction with an instructor or TA (graduate or post-baccalaureate student). In these one-hour sessions, small groups of 3-5 students work together on hand-written problem sets which are handed in and graded for correctness. Workshop problems often involve more complex problems and require students to draw structures and write out their work while they grapple with conflicting or even opposing ideas. Workshop also provides students with an additional opportunity to interact with their peers and ask questions of the instructor or their TA. The TAs move between student groups to answer questions, provide guidance, and talk to students about how they approach problem solving. The problem sets used in workshop are typically a series of open-ended short answer questions that guide students through a concept by breaking it down into smaller steps. Workshop also includes more complex problems that require higher level thinking while the students have time and support to solve them. The problem sets are made available to students prior to their scheduled class meeting time through the course website and each workshop group is responsible for printing and bringing their own workshop assignment to class. Grading The structure of the flipped classroom offers students many ways to earn points throughout the semester. Points are assigned to all assignments with strict deadlines to incentivize students to keep on schedule and complete all the coursework. Table 4 shows the contribution of each course component to the 89 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

overall course grade. The attribution of points to the individual learning activities are meant to encourage and reward students for completing small tasks, but the bulk of the grade still comes from exam scores.

Table 4. The overall course grade distribution is highlighted here.


Flipped Classroom Grade Breakdown 2%

Learning Goal Analysis

2%

Video Certification

8%

Clicker Class

8%

Workshop

10%

Online Homework

70%

Exams

Outcomes (What Happens When We Apply the Structured, Flipped Classroom) Student Perceptions Over the course of our normal clicker sessions we occasionally include ungraded, optional survey questions to probe student’s use and perceptions of the course materials and design. Below we outline two of the more interesting student perspectives found from these surveys. First, when asked about their primary source for course information, 76% of students cited the videos while only 3% cited the electronic textbook. Interestingly, 12% of respondents said they used the online homework as their primary source. Second, when asked about what course model they would prefer for the following semester, the vast majority (77%) of the students request the same flipped model with videos, clicker sessions, and workshops. Only 3% of the class voted for a return to normal lecture and 19% suggest a combination of standard lecture with video support and clicker integration. This speaks volumes about students’ feelings toward the new course model. Additionally, we encouraged students to complete the regular college mandated course evaluations at the end of every semester. As part of these standard evaluations students were asked to comment on “the best features of the course,” the “learning activities that most influenced your learning in this course,” and “specific ways this course could be improved” as well as questions about individual instructors. These evaluations provided a more detailed perspective on student perceptions. For the most part, the student comments supported the data from student surveys. The majority of the feedback consisted of positive comments on the benefits of the different course components and the model overall with the clicker sessions and videos specifically getting the most praise (Table 5). 90 Christiansen and Weber; Teaching and the Internet: The Application of Web Apps, Networking, and Online Tech for ... ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2017.

Table 5. Excerpts from our course evaluations are highlighted below to give an overview of student feedback about the course.


Student Feedback from Course Evaluations Students like the model overall.

“It was the first time I had ever taken a course in a "flipped classroom" setting and I love it! I was skeptical at first to whether or not it would work but it has!!!!! It is a great way to learn.” “I think the class is structured very well. It is challenging but not overwhelmingly so. … They allow us to put everything we know together and allow us to think for ourselves. We have to make the connections, and learn to use what we already know … And when we don’t know how to solve it, it lets us know that we are missing something foundational in our knowledge, or are unclear about something and therefore lets us know we have to go back and find out what it is, or ask for help so that we can understand.”

The structure of the course was helpful.

“I really appreciate how much structure there is in this course because it has been crucial for me in terms of staying on track. … For me it kept me accountable.” “[The course] websites greatly enhanced my learning ability. They allowed me to see exactly what I was supposed to know and allowed me to master the skills necessary to succeed in the course.”

The online components helped make the course more flexible.

“Being able to learn the concepts at home at whatever time we wanted to.” “The fact that I can go at my own pace and teach myself the topics is a huge plus.” “The ability to go back and review topics whenever I wanted to or whenever it was unclear.” “Being able to review the lecture since they were videos online. The multiple ways to connect for help and the resources available.”

They liked the videos.

“The best features of this course were the videos, although they were long, the majority were very thorough in teaching me the material.” “The topic videos were great. They are clear and allow you to visit them whenever you need to study for the exams.” “The video lectures were very concise and kept me engaged” “The videos were really helpful. Short and to the point.”

They preferred the videos over a textbook.

“I like that [the instructor] puts videos up and sapling questions because I think that makes it easier to learn than from learning from a textbook.” “I enjoy [the videos] so much more than reading a textbook.”

Workshop was helpful.

“The best feature was the workshop because I got to understand how to solve problems from workshop and working as a group helps you understand even more.” “Workshops was very helpful because you can ask classmates to explain things to you as well as asking [the instructor].” Continued on next page.


Table 5. (Continued). Excerpts from our course evaluations are highlighted below to give an overview of student feedback about the course. Student Feedback from Course Evaluations


Clicker class was helpful.

The homework was helpful.

“I really liked the iClicker sessions because they were presented in an enjoyable manner and it really helped my understanding of the topic which further reinstated my motivation to excel in this course” “[The best features of this course were the] I clicker sections even though I hate working under pressure during the iclicker sections.” “The clicker sessions, they got me very caught up on material I might have been previously confused on.” “I liked the clicker review questions because they helped me/us to better grasp the material learned.” “Sapling was great because after watching the videos I could try the questions to see if I understood what I watched. If not I’d watch the videos again.” “The homework problems really gave me a lot of problems to practice for the exam.” “The sapling learning assignments were great! It made learning the material fun rather than overwhelming.” “[The synthesis homework] really helped with putting all the concepts of the chapter together.”

Some of the most helpful comments came from students’ responses to what could be improved in the course (Table 6). These were a mix of time management struggles, technological issues, and the inherent discomfort due to trying something new. Typically, we have found that some students are uneasy about the model at the beginning of the semester but then embrace it as time goes on. Often the students who were the loudest about not liking the model at the beginning are some of its biggest advocates at the end. However, there remains a subset of students who never embrace the idea of the flipped classroom. While the idea of lecture as the ideal way to convey information has long been dismantled in the education literature, it is still prevalent in the university setting on both the faculty and student sides. Anecdotally, we’ve noticed that the students who are most averse to the loss of lecture are those who have had previous higher education experience and feel that if no one is giving them a lecture, then no one is teaching them. An advantage to starting this model in the introductory chemistry courses is that a larger cohort of the students are still figuring out what college is so they come in with fewer preconceived notions. Just as the recruitment of faculty to the importance and value of other methods of teaching and learning requires time and data, students need time and convincing to get on board as well.


Table 6. Excerpts from our course evaluations are highlighted below to give an overview of student criticisms of the course.


Student Criticisms from Course Evaluations Some students needed time to adjust to the model.

“Honestly.... the entire course was pretty cool after I adjusted to the heavy load of work I needed to do.” “I was skeptical about the flipped classroom model but having been through it twice now I absolutely love it!” “the flipped classroom takes time to get used to. This model is very annoying.”

A few students expressed a feeling of not being “taught” sufficiently.

“start by teaching instead of sending us home to do everything ourselves. Videos are fine for guidance but we need to be taught by our professor as well to actually retain the knowledge.” “I learn from lectures/standard teaching styles. I understand some may learn from this self teach model. I however do not and have suffered greatly this semester because of it.”

The course was very time intensive.

“Although the videos were informative and helped in my learning, the time necessary to really get through the videos was just too much.” “it required many hours to understand and deal with the work load. It’s very hard for someone like me who has to work full time.” “The flipped model uses up a lot of your time, so it is very hard to study for other classes.”

Workshop needs improvement.

“I believe the workshop was a waste of time since I felt like there wasn’t much to study during that short amount of time allotted for that section.” “I think workshop needs to be reconsidered… What generally happened with my group was that one person (namely me) would do the majority of the work” “I wish [workshop] would have just been dissolved and clicker session extended.”

Students wanted to be able to use mobile devices for online homework.

“hw should be do able on mobile devices for those who lack WiFi at home or due to unforeseen circumstances.” “My laptop was broken so I only had my iPad to work with or computer in the library and the homework can’t be done on an iPad so I would have to get the homework done outside of home”

Performance Outcomes A detailed evaluation of student performance outcomes in our flipped classroom compared with traditional historical data from both institutions has shown the model to be successful with improved student performance in both courses and at both institutions.31 One of the most notable outcomes is the significant increase in the passing rate at Lehman College where the passing rates in General Chemistry I and II went from about 35% passing in the traditional classrooms to about 80% passing in the structured, flipped classrooms. This is a truly impactful outcome and has opened the science bottleneck at our institution.



Conclusion Overall, we feel that our technology infused and structured, flipped classroom has helped us both improve student competency and increase student interest in chemistry. We have been able to implement the course model at two different institutions with high fidelity despite differing student demographics and overall class sizes. The student commentary about the course is very positive and the number of chemistry majors at Lehman College has tripled since the implementation of the flipped model. We postulate that the success of the model is a consequence of the increase in course structure combined with the infusion of 21st century technology and a carefully designed video backbone that is linked to online homework and active learning activities. The peer instruction model encouraged in clicker class has helped to build a more cooperative, less competitive atmosphere in the classroom. The use of clickers to submit responses has kept students engaged during class and motivated students to come to class prepared. The constant grade feedback from the online platform has made students more self-aware of their performance and has helped instructors identify struggling students early on in the course and intervene while there was still enough time for students to change their behavior and recover their grades. This has led to increased student success and a generally more optimistic attitude in the class. The overall feeling of the class has been more engaged, more interactive, and more optimistic than in previous iterations of the same chemistry courses. There has been an open dialogue about the model between the teaching team and the class and the assertion that so much effort is being put into how to teach the class seems to provide the students with a sense of well-being. The teaching team has helped to foster a feeling of community and support within the courses. From an instructor perspective, the model has also been incredibly fun and interesting to teach. There has been more direct interaction with students during class and the positive student attitudes create a fun and wholesome learning experience. As of this report, our structured, flipped General Chemistry course has been taught by 14 different instructors, including both part-time and full-time faculty, all with different personal teaching styles, but all with positive results for both students and instructors. Perhaps most importantly, the success of the students has been catalyzing a culture change in our institution. Students less prepared for the traditional lecture hall can now succeed in chemistry and proceed through the STEM pipeline. Other instructors have been asking questions about how to apply the model (or pieces of the model) to their classrooms and their disciplines. As we align technology, video instruction, and active learning to create a modern STEM classroom we begin to reach more students and renew our sense of purpose as educators in the public urban setting.


Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Nadya Kobko and Gabriela Smeureanu for their time and energy as instructors for the flipped courses discussed. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation (DUE-1525032 and MSP-1102729).

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