Deep assessment of student learning gains is especially challenging in large lectures, where it is time consuming to quantify feedback from informal interactions or individual student responses, and faculty rely primarily on exam scores. To track learning gains on specific topics, and provide early, targeted intervention for struggling students, we created a pre- & post-course survey for our large “Principles of Chemistry” class.  As we gradually implemented course changes, we found that students in more interactive sections of the course significantly out-performed those in traditional lecture-only sections. Interactive sections included guided-inquiry learning groups, iClickers, group whiteboard reporting, enhanced Socratic discussions, and an intervention program for struggling students. After these changes, we saw higher course averages and a lower fraction of DFW (D, F, or Withdraw) scores in both the large (~250 student) and small (~100 student) sections.  Student surveys also indicated increased satisfaction, accountability, and understanding of their own learning process in the more active sections.  Digging deeper, we compared individual responses of more than 2000 students over that time. On certain topics, we found students’ retention and application dramatically improved after the pedagogical changes, while student performance on other topics showed little difference between interactive vs. lecture-only sections.  With this information, we are ascertaining which active-learning methods work best for improving retention and application of specific Gen Chem topics, and where future pedagogical improvements may be most impactful.  Furthermore, by tracking the learning gains of students starting from the first day of the semester, we are uncovering which intervention methods and pedagogies lead to the biggest gains for struggling vs. advanced students. The survey also highlighted differences in students’ learning gains based on how much high school chemistry they had previously completed and, more importantly, how long ago they had completed it.  The curriculum and student performance data shared in this work were taken from a first semester general chemistry course required for all majors at Colorado School of Mines, a 4-year engineering university.

Tracking improvements from interactive vs. lecture-style delivery of a large General Chemistry course: Topic-by-topic & student-by-student

2019 Spring National Meeting

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