Discussion boards in the sciences are always a bit different from those in the social sciences. However, when teaching on-line, the Quality Matters rubric encourages discussion and student interaction. To accomplish this for an Environmental Chemistry course, students post and answer textbook questions and other students respond by checking the answers provided. A third student is encouraged to check both answers. This process is called PACCA for pose-answer-check- check-again. To grade the discussion posts, each submission is worth a number of points and students are encouraged to complete a full PACCA (worth 10 points) before doing any other submissions. Using a 17-chapter textbook, students are encouraged to earn up to 20 points per chapter and up to a total of 200 points during the course of the semester. Most students accomplish the point goal prior to the end of the course while some take to the last chapter to complete their point total.

Alternate assessments: On-line discussion boards in the sciences

256th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.