Earned “grades” are the easily measured and quantified products of the “black box” of learning. Grades allow instructors to measure disciplinary content knowledge or “how well students learned”. However, grades do not provide any insight into how students learned such that an instructor may make informed decisions to potentially modify the instructional design. Rather, instructors need qualitative methodologies that provide ways of peeking inside the “black box” of learning. Using an interactional ethnographic perspective is one such option.  In this study, a chemistry instructor at an undergraduate institution takes up this different epistemology in order to conceptualize and make visible how students construct knowledge through their interactions in a General Chemistry classroom. Specifically, this study traces how a student learning team constructed in-common knowledge using Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) resources. Furthermore, this instructor provides a meta-analysis of this experience and how it transformed how he conceptualizes teaching and learning and his role as a chemist/educator.<br/>

Peeking inside the black box: Making learning visible using an ethnographic perspective

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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