Assessment of Chem2300
Instructor: Cheng-Wei Tom Chang
Course Description: Chem2300 is the one-semester organic chemistry designed for non-science
major students. It includes more concise material as compared to two-semester organic
chemistry. The general learning objectives are listed in the syllabus. I use my own teaching
website and Canvas for students to gain access to course materials, previous exams and answers,
reviewing materials, supplemental data, and links to useful resources in learning organic
chemistry.
My teaching philosophy is based upon these understandings:
(1) Learning objectives outline upfront followed with course content builds accordingly.
(2) Introduction of fundamental concepts from different aspects that implications and
applications to be foreseen.
(3) Engaging in discussions and encouraging questions to enhance the participation in the
classroom.
(4) Recruiting various teaching means for multi-dimensional learning.
Assessment Method: To encourage students' participation, the assessment is conducted n the
form of bonus quiz. There are ten multiple choice questions for the bonus quiz with a total of
twenty points. Nine of these questions will come from three previous exams. One question
comes from the new material which will appear in the final. Comparison of the statistic from
these questions provide the learning and knowledge-retaining assessment. Example of
assessment outcome from 2011 is shown below:
Assessment Result, Fall 2011
Question in
% correct in
Question
% Correct in
Difference
Bonus Quiz
Bonus Quiz
Originated
Exams
(%)
1
86.8
Exam 1, Q 13
56.8
+30.0
2
81.1
Exam 1, Q 18
48.6
+32.5
3
93.4
Exam 1, Q 25
57.7
+35.7
4
79.2
Exam 2, Q 4
54.1
+25.1
5
81.1
Exam 2, Q 25
52.3
+28.8
6
53.8
Exam 2, Q 26
19.8
+34.0
7
81.1
Exam 3, Q 3
8.3
+72.8
8
60.4
Exam 3, Q 15
39.4
+21.0
9
63.2
Exam 3, Q 26
37.6
+25.6
10*
32.1
Final, Q 36
72.7
+40.6
*: Question 10 appears in assessment first then incorporated as question 36 in the final exam.
Improvement of Teaching Methods for 2013: Except 2012, I have been teaching chem2300
every year since 2008. In 2011, I decided to change the textbook. Since the publisher for the
previous textbook has been adding more and more information every year, the newest edition
contains too much in-depth information and comes with a significant increase in price and is not
suitable for most of the students in this course. In 2013, I decided put textbook as optional
instead of required. I used my class notes to deliver the material and reviewing slides as the
supplemental material. I incorporated one question in the bonus quiz for evaluating this
experiment:
11. From the scale of 1 to 5 (5: very important to have; 1: no need to have), what do you think of
having a textbook for this course?
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
5
4
3
2
1
About 1/3 of the students think textbook can be helpful based on the statistic (a: 14%, b: 20%, c:
19%, d: 30% and e: 27%). In 2014, I construct more complete but concise course slides modified
from the class notes that I have been using previously and add two new chapters. Each chapter
contains specific learning objectives and sections. Each section has learning-check questions at
the end for students to conduct self-evaluation on their understanding of the course material.
Same question will be used to evaluate the effectiveness in this method.
Assessment Result, Fall 2013
Question in
Bonus Quiz
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10*
% correct in
Bonus Quiz
64.9
84.2
78.1
76.3
59.6
80.7
68.4
73.7
63.2
71.1
Question
Originated
Exam 1, Q 22
Exam 1, Q 25
Exam 1, Q 30
Exam 2, Q 13
Exam 2, Q 16
Exam 2, Q 25
Exam 3, Q 5
Exam 3, Q 11
Exam 3, Q 29
Final, Q 48
% Correct in
Exams
37.9
51.7
68.1
35.1
37.8
38.7
37.4
38.3
35.7
92.2
Difference
(%)
+27.0
+32.5
+10.0
+41.2
+21.8
+42.0
+31.0
+35.4
+27.5
+21.1
*: Question 10 appears in assessment first then incorporated as question 48 in the final exam.
Improvement of Teaching Methods for 2014: I continued to put textbook as optional instead
of required. I achieved my short-term goals/tasks by modifying my reviewing PowerPoint slides
with the incorporation of more learning-check questions from my previous exams and animation
functions to enhance the effectiveness of learning. I think electron-pushing mechanism is
essential in learning organic reactions. Therefore, I devoted significant effort in constructing the
slides to better explain this concept and showed examples in many previous exams. In addition, I
included Aldol reaction/condensation, Claisen condensation and decarboxylation in the carbonyl
compound chapter (chapter 12). I also added two additional chapters (chapters 13 and 14). Since
most of the students in chem2300 are enrolled in biology-related majors, these added material is
aiming to enhance the teaching of biology-related organic chemistry that could benefit the future
study of these students. I used these slides as the main delivering method for teaching. However,
I managed to teach only up to chapter 12 due to the short of time. The outline of chapters is
summarized below:
Chapter
Name of Chapter
1
Electronic Structure and Covalent Bonding
2
Acids and Bases
3
An Introduction to Organic Compounds
4
Alkenes
5
Reactions of Alkenes and Alkynes
6
Isomers and Stereochemistry
7
Delocalized Electrons
8
Aromaticity
9
Haloalkanes
10
Reactions of Alcohols, Amines, Ethers, and Epoxides
11
Carbonyl Compound I
12
Carbonyl Compound II
13*
Carbohydrates
14*
Organic Reaction in Biology
*: not taught due to the short of time.
Assessment Result, Fall 2014
Question in
Bonus Quiz
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10*
% correct in
Bonus Quiz
86.8
81.1
93.4
79.2
81.1
53.8
81.1
60.4
63.2
30.3
Question
Originated
Exam 1, Q 16
Exam 1, Q 17
Exam 1, Q 29
Exam 2, Q 13
Exam 2, Q 14
Exam 2, Q 17
Exam 3, Q 14
Exam 3, Q 29
Exam 3, Q 30
Final, Q 50
% Correct in
Exams
43.3
34.6
40.9
25.8
52.3
42.7
15.4
8.9
24.4
80.5
Difference
(%)
+43.4
+46.5
+52.5
+53.4
+28.8
+11.1
+65.7
+51.5
+38.8
+50.2
*: Question 10 appears in assessment first then incorporated as question 50 in the final exam.
I also incorporated one survey question in the bonus quiz like 2013 for evaluating the need of
having textbook. Similar to 2013, about 1/3 of the students think textbook can be helpful based
on the statistic (a: 12.5%, b: 20.8%, c: 25.0%, d: 28.3% and e: 13.3%). The statistic from the
assessment is similar to previous years. Nevertheless, I noticed significant numbers of students
seemed to bewilder on what to study and how to prepare for my exams after the first exam. I
have posted previous exams on my teaching website and Canvas, and constantly reminded them
that these exams can be very useful in preparing for my exams. I did an experiment by using the
identical written question (Q.II) from the exam 2 of 2013 as the written question from exam 2 in
2014. I also adopted an identical question from my lecture slides as a bonus written question
(Q.III). The results are summarized in the following table:
Exam 2 (Total number of student taking the exam: 124)
Q. II (10 points)
Number of students in
Percentile
each score
10
18
14.5%
9
5
4.0%
8
14
11.3%
7
3
2.4%
6
13
10.5%
5
3
2.4%
4
5
4.0%
3
0
0%
2
26
21.0%
1
4
3.2%
0
33
26.6%
Q.II is identical to the written question in exam 2 of 2013.
Score
Q. III (10 points)
Number of students in
Percentile
each score
3
2.4%
2
1.6%
3
2.4%
0
0%
1
0.8%
1
0.8%
0
0%
0
0%
9
7.3%
3
2.4%
102
82.3%
Q.III can be found in the lecture slide.
In my final exam, I put a very challenging bonus written question asking for electron-pushing
mechanism for the formation of fructose-1,6-bisphosohate from glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate and
1,3-dihydroxyacetone phosphate. One student (out of 129) received a perfect score. Nonetheless,
about half of the class acquired reasonable understanding regarding the concept of electronpushing mechanism in organic chemistry.
My interpretation from these results are:
1. Despite more than half of the students think that textbook is not necessary, half of the students
have difficulty of learning without a textbook.
2. I need to clearly indicate how to prepare for my exam in my teaching tools (syllabus, slides,
website and Canvas).
3. The overall content of my course material may need to be further condensed.
Overall assessment: I think my teaching methods are effective in delivering fundamental
knowledge in organic chemistry for non-science students based on the outcomes of assessment.
However, I consider that my experiment of not requiring textbook is unsatisfactory. In 2015, I
will put textbook and molecular modeling kit as required. I'll continue to modify my teaching
slides with more self-evaluating questions for students. As usual, I continue to observe that
students' desire in learning is essential as those students who come to my office hour for question
have done much better in the exams. My short-term goal/task is to develop better selfexplanatory slides to teach students the concept of electron-pushing mechanism. My long-term
goal is to offer students free access lecture videos to provide more flexibility in learning.