The study strategies most students report using, reading over and highlighting the textbook or their notes, doing the same problems over and over, cramming right before the test, etc. are the ones that the research tells are least effective for learning. Moreover, most instructors have noted that students often struggle to assess their own learning. In recent years, we have seen many online chemistry homework and adaptive tutor programs developed with the goals of providing students with the necessary practice to support learning. However, the nature of these programs require students to find longer periods of time to sit down at a computer and work through the assignments. These do not encourage the regular and frequent review of concepts that the research tells us is important for learning. Further, although faculty are often more comfortable with our laptops and email for the purposes of work and communication, our students are far more comfortable with messaging on their mobile devices. This presentation will focus on a novel method for meeting students where they are: combining a text messaging app with Google forms for encouraging students to apply their knowledge frequently to conceptual problems which require analysis and explanation. This provides formative assessment data that can easily help guide instruction. Both the details of implementation as well as data concerning student use and correlations to student performance will be presented.

Meeting our students where they are: Using text messaging to both promote effective studying and provide formative assessment in introductory chemistry

255th National Meeting (2018)

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