Active learning is becoming more prevalent in large science classrooms, and this study shows the impact on performance of being vocal during Socratic questioning in a General Chemistry course. 800 college students over a two year period were given a pre and post-test using the Chemistry Concept Reasoning Test. The pre-test results showed that there was no initial difference in conceptual understanding of chemistry among students who actively participated on a regular basis and those who did not. However, on the post-test those vocal students who consistently attempted to respond to questions in class showed significantly greater learning gains than those silent students who rarely or never tried to answer questions. The motivation for participating for many students was initially the minimal extra credit for answering questions. Once students started answering questions, they saw the educational value in getting feedback, enjoyed the engagement of the Socratic dialogue, and realized the benefit of putting chemistry concepts into words. Also tied to participation during class was the need to complete the reading assignments before class. Students who read prior to class were more able to participate and were then continually incentivized to stay current with the class readings. The active learning environment did benefit all students by providing cognitive and social dimensions during class, and those students who participated frequently learned more chemistry.
We report a study of the general
chemistry laboratory course at
one university over four years. We found that when taught as a traditional
laboratory course, lab experiences do not encourage students to deepen
their understanding of chemical concepts. Although the lab instructor
emphasized that the lab experiences were designed to enhance understanding
of chemistry, both survey and interview data show that students instead
feel that the lab is primarily useful in learning laboratory procedures.
As a result of these studies, the laboratory course was reconfigured
to include weekly, separately scheduled times for teaching assistant-moderated
student discussion of concepts, analysis of data, and reflection on
the laboratory. With the inclusion of required discussion, students
did report that the lab was a place for learning chemistry and visualizing
the chemical phenomena discussed in class.
Engagement. She conducts research in K-12 STEM education on topics such as impact of teacher professional development programs on student achievement and attitudes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.