Student Response to a Partial Inversion of an Organic Chemistry Course for Non-Chemistry Majors

Abstract

We report the student response to a two-year transformation of a one-semester organic chemistry course for nonchemistry majors. The transformed course adopted a peer led team learning approach and incorporated case studies. Student attitudes toward the course transformation were assessed throughout the semester, and adjustments to the methods were made in response to student surveys. No change in student performance on exams was observed compared to a traditional lecture course. However, significant improvements in the end of course "Student Assessment of Instruction" were recorded.

Cooperative learning in organic chemistry increases student assessment of learning gains in key transferable skills

“…In addition, even the ''lecture'' format course employed a personal response system (clickers) and contained some shorter periods of intentionally interactive learning, so this could have contributed to the lack of difference in our summative assessment results. These results confirm similar findings by several research groups who reported that changes in organic chemistry classroom formats did not significantly affect outcomes on summative assessments (Dinan and Frydrychowski, 1995;Bradley et al, 2002;Chase et al, 2013;Rein and Brookes, 2015). Interestingly, a pre-and post-test study for flipped versus lecture general chemistry classes (Reid, 2016) revealed that the ''exam performance in the two sections is statistically different only for the bottom third, as measured by pretest score or percentile rank'' (Ryan and Reid, 2016).…”

“…Indeed, a large-scale, double-blind, randomized study supported the theory that student-centered, active-learning approaches improve science content learning when compared to teachercentered approaches such as lecturing (Granger et al, 2012). While some recent studies have shown that organic chemistry content knowledge improves for undergraduate learners when they are in active learning classrooms as opposed to lectures (Hein, 2012;Conway, 2014), other studies have shown no differences in measured content knowledge outcomes (Dinan and Frydrychowski, 1995;Bradley et al, 2002;Chase et al, 2013;Rein and Brookes, 2015). We hypothesize that moving along the ICAP continuum toward the more interactive and constructive modes of learning in the classroom space will preserve acquisition of content learning while simultaneously improving learner confidence with important transferable skills such as teamwork, leadership, and collegiality.…”

Flipped learning in higher education chemistry: emerging trends and potential directions

“…Having applied these filters, 12 articles (Table 1) were compiled and found to fit the criteria (Smith, 2013;Christiansen, 2014;Yeung and O'Malley, 2014;Butzler, 2015;Fautch, 2015;Flynn, 2015;Rein and Brookes, 2015;Rossi, 2015;Seery, 2015;Trogden, 2015;Yestrebsky, 2015). Search terms ''flip*'' or ''inverted'' were used in conjunction with ''chemistry'' and the results subsequently filtered by category to identify education related papers, and manually by abstract to identify those pertinent to chemistry education.…”

Flipped classroom modules for large enrollment general chemistry courses: a low barrier approach to increase active learning and improve student grades

“…The flipped classroom approach also has a growing cadre of devotees among the chemical education community, however publications reporting the implementation and effectiveness of these instructional innovations are relatively sparse and generally report flipped classes in chemistry courses enrolling fewer than 100 students (Shibley et al, 2011;Smith, 2013;Christiansen, 2014;Fautch, 2015). It is noted reports of implementations in larger classes are slowly coming online (Rein and Brookes, 2015;Flynn, 2015;Yestrebsky, 2015), and we expect the use of flipped classroom modules in large enrollment chemistry courses to increase in the coming years. A review of the state of the art of flipped classes in undergraduate chemistry has recently been published in this journal, and interested readers can find therein a summary of how flipped classroom approaches have been implemented and an overview of the general impact of this teaching strategy on student learning and engagement (Seery, 2015).…”