Personalised learning and support in large chemistry classes
Background
Three passions are driving the design and delivery of learning and teaching in our first
year chemistry courses: (i) a desire to instil a love of chemistry and science; (ii) a desire
to maximise student learning through developing the most effective and appropriate
teaching styles by blending of face-to-face and online approaches, and (iii) a desire to
enhance and support the first year
experience and transition to university.
Our innovative approach was introduced to
address long term problems with
engagement, high attrition and failure rates
and to attempt to reverse the (inter)national
decline in the number of students choosing to
continue their chemistry studies. It seeks to
involve every student in social, active and
inquiry focussed learning, using the best
aspects of physical and online classrooms.
We use assessment and engagement data to
personalise feedback, to provide support for
each individual and to develop adaptive
learning environments.
Our classes are large and our infrastructure
is traditional: over 2000 students take our courses each semester in our steeply tiered
theatres.
Active pre-class learning
Carefully scaffolded, partial ‘flipping’ of the course was trialled in 2012 and implemented
fully in 2013. Pre-class activities ensure students have a good understanding of key
ideas but are designed to carefully balance rewards for those who complete them whilst
not disenfranchising those who do not. They allow content to be removed from face-toface classes and provide engagement data for the personalised support initiatives.
Many topics in chemistry are better suited to online delivery, as students can absorb
content in small packages, master ideas by practicing problems and use formative
feedback to confront misconceptions. Students complete 1 or 2 pre-lecture tutorials,
including a 3-5 minute video, and a mastery quiz each week. A database containing
many thousands of questions is semi-automatically generated to feed a number of quiz
styles, including multiple choice, short answer and drag and drop.
Example online quizzes from CHEM1001 (further examples and
associated tutorials are available at http://firstyear.chem.usyd.edu.au/iChem/).
Active in-class learning
The lectures in each course follow the consistent lesson plan below. Each lecture
includes an instructor-led mini-review of the previous class with some review questions
for students followed by a series of segments involving 10-12 minute mini-lectures,
chemical demonstrations and 4-5 minute worksheet-based group tasks and feedback.
The rotation and pacing has been optimised for keeping students engaged in class. It
allows variation for learners and teacher whilst ensuring that both have a structure to
work within. The mix provides both a coherent story to be developed by the lecturer
with students getting immediate practice, feedback and peer support.
Lesson plan for lectures showing student (unshaded) and
teacher (shaded) activities
Stills from video used for new lecturers
at Sydney showing activities our
classes (YouTube: goo.gl/74UzAl)
Worksheets are ideal for chemistry: to succeed as scientists and chemists, students
need to inquire, to problem solve, to draw and write using symbols and notations and to
work in groups to build a joint understanding of the sometimes abstract concepts.
Examples of typical worksheets are given below. They use
the ‘POGIL’ approach * , adapted to our class sizes and
rooms. Group answers are then shared via a response
device: the two-way feedback being used to direct the nature
of the next activity. We use the free “Socrative” system†.
Alongside these activities, each lecture also incorporates at
least one chemical demonstration. These are extremely
popular with students and provide an excellent way to show
the link between the chemical concept being studied and real
phenomena. They are also good as a refresher and for
entertainment. As shown in the worksheet below, the
demonstrations themselves can form part of a worksheet
activity, leading to interactive lecture demonstrations, with
students learning how to observe and record experimental
results and link these with the theoretical concepts of the
lecture.
* https://pogil.org/ † http://www.socrative.com/ In class quiz Example worksheet from CHEM1001 lectures.
As much as possible, the learning also
translates into physical activity, such as through
kinaesthetic approaches to the principles of
thermodynamics and spectroscopy.
Dance routine for the vibrations of a molecule
Our students live predominately at home and
commute to the campus each day. The in-class work deliberately provides valuable
time for face-to-face conversations and for the development of friendship and study
groups. As discussed below, we exploit the power of mobile devices to carry these
conversations online but know the importance of personal interactions for wellbeing in
the first weeks of semester.
Evidence for the effectiveness of our classroom is in the ‘Evidence’ document.
Active online learning
The online environment can be used for students to learn in ways not possible in the
classroom. We provide a wide range of tutorials, quizzes, games and simulations
including:
•
•
•
Simultations and tutorials (firstyear.chem.usyd.edu.au/fychemistry/iChem/)
Chemical calculators (firstyear.chem.usyd.edu.au /fychemistry/calculators/)
Games (firstyear.chem.usyd.edu.au /fychemistry/games/)
We also use the online environment to develop research, academic and information
skills within authentic, real world assessments. In semester 1, students undertake a 3
weeks assignment on the scientific evidence for global warming, using the primary
literature and the ‘Web of Science’ for the first time. In semester 2, students undertake
an assignment on organic spectroscopy, developing critical thinking skills and dealing
with uncertainty in a research setting. They use the ‘Cambridge Crystallographic
Database’, a fantastically rich source of rich data on millions of chemicals used by
researchers across the globe.
Students access the research database to develop information skills whilst immersed in a task
about patterns in molecular structures
Socialising learning online
Conversations: Alongside the social environment of our physical classrooms, we utilise
a highly active discussion forums, using the free Piazza app‡. By planting seed
questions to encourage participation, each discussion forum is highly active with around
8000 posts per semester. Each course also has an active Twitter feed, containing links
to all new resources and announcements.
Crowd sourcing of resources: There are a huge number of resources available across
the web supporting our topics: the problem is how finding the good ones and keeping
up. For each topic, students are encouraged to find and then share resources they find
using software similar to that used in news aggregation sites. Resources contributed in
this way are automatically tagged using the official topic and learning outcome
descriptors and are then voted as “useful” or “useless” by the students. This approach
not only leads to productive way of curating useful resources from across the internet, it
also helps to promote student ownership of their learning.
‡ https://piazza.com Crowd sourcing, tagging and ranking of resources
Personalised feedback
Opportunities for students and instructors to receive informal feedback on progress are
built into all of the activities described above. More formal in-semester feedback is
given through multiple-choice tutorial quizzes. Prompt, detailed and, crucially,
individualised feedback is delivered to each student within 24 hours of the assessment.
Each student’s feedback contains statistical information on their performance relative to
the rest of the class, individualised explanations for each incorrect answer built using
the correct answer and the particular distractor chosen, and detailed suggestions on
useful resources based on topics the student has performed poorly on.
The tutorial quizzes are taken in around 80 different classes during the assessment
weeks, involving a teaching team of around 25 tutors. At the same time as the student
feedback is generated, class-by-class feedback is constructed and made available to
the teachers. By obtaining such immediate feedback on their class’s performance, each
teacher is able to act in the next class on weaknesses and misconceptions that arise.
Evidence for the effectiveness of this approach to feedback is included in the ‘Evidence’
document.
Personalised support
Each student in the class receives a series of personalised emails, from enrolment
through to unit results. These are addressed by first name to each student and are
individualised according to available data (such as degree and previous results). More
targeted advice is sent with each quiz feedback email, including how to obtain remedial
support, for those with poor or declining performance.
Assessment results, including pre-lecture and tutorial quiz results, are combined with
engagement data, such as laboratory class attendance and login data, to provide rich
‘early warning’ information. Students deemed ‘at risk’ are identified and messaged
before crucial enrolment deadlines, with those not responding then contacted by
telephone by Student Services and offered support.
Personalised learning environment and resources
The pre-lecture and tutorial quiz results provide detailed information on the knowledge
of each student. This is not limited to what they don’t know: careful choice of distractors
and tagging of questions by topic can build a picture of misconceptions. Each learning
object described above is similarly tagged by topic and so the student data can be used
to match provide students with a unique set of resources personalised to their
performance.
Resources adapted for each student according to performance
The eLearning site viewed by each student is different and adapts during the semester
as new assessment information adds to the data.