An official website of the United States government
The metacognitive strategies of planning, monitoring, and evaluating can be promoted through systematic reflection to drive self-directed, lifelong learning. This article reports on a three-year study on systematic written reflection within an undergraduate Fluid Mechanics course to promote planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Students were prompted weekly to reflect on their in-class problem-solving, classroom and exam preparation, performance, behaviors, and learning in a flipped classroom at a large southeastern U.S. university. In addition, they received intentional instruction on how to plan, monitor, and evaluate their problem-solving during class. To enable a comparative assessment, a flipped classroom without these interventions was also implemented as a non-experimental cohort. The cohorts were compared using a final exam, concept inventory, and the Metacognitive Activities Inventory (MCAI). The MCAI indicated a significantly higher positive change (pre- to post-course) in self-regulatory behavior for the experimental cohort ( p = 0.037). The weekly reflections were studied using an inductive content analysis to assess students’ self-regulatory behaviors. They were also used to investigate statistical associations between reflection content and course outcomes. This revealed that academic self-discipline via planning, monitoring one's work, or being careful and diligent may be as aligned with course performance in STEM as is practice with the problem-solving itself. The effects for the final exam in the experimental cohort were positive overall as well as statistically or practically significant for various demographic strata. These results provided evidence for the potential enhancement of course performance with metacognition support. A positive shift in students’ perspectives regarding the value of the reflection questions was observed throughout the study. Therefore, as an implementation guide for other educators, the reflection questions and any changes made in posing them to students are discussed chronologically. Overall, the study points to the desirability of providing metacognition support in a STEM course.
more »
« less
Flipped Classrooms in Organic Chemistry—A Closer Look at Student Reasoning Through Discourse Analysis of a Group Activity
Students face various challenges in organic chemistry, including learning complex organic chemistry concepts, applying them to solve problems, and navigating curved arrow notation to depict organic chemistry mechanisms. Given these challenges, many chemistry education practitioners and researchers have focused their efforts on implementing and assessing pedagogical practices that can produce positive outcomes for all students. In this chapter, we describe flipped classroom pedagogy as an evidence-based practice in organic chemistry that has improved student outcomes and addressed learning challenges in the course. We also review key aspects of this practice. In addition, we focus on group activities since they are a common component of flipped classrooms. We will present a case study that analyzes students' reasoning through dialogue when they were engaged in a group quiz activity that was a component of a flipped organic chemistry course. Through the results of this case study, we will make suggestions for how group activities can be implemented to improve students' reasoning skills in organic chemistry.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1625414
- PAR ID:
- 10612005
- Publisher / Repository:
- The Royal Society of Chemistry
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 978-1-83916-491-0
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 159 to 178
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
This paper will provide the first-year results of the impact of implementing the flipped approach in lower level math and aerospace engineering courses. A quasi-experimental between-groups research design was used for assessing the effectiveness of this methodology. The control group consisted of students who were in the same course but in sections with traditional teaching delivery while the intervention group consisted of students who were registered in the sections with the flipped approach. All students were from underrepresented groups. A positive impact on the students’ attitudes and learning strategies was observed as a result of the flipped classroom with active learning. Data pertaining to the effectiveness of the flipped classroom pedagogy is shared in this paper. Analysis of students’ cognitive engagement and their attitudes towards flipped classroom is discussed. The paper also includes best practices, their impact on student performance, and challenges in implementing a flipped classroom pedagogy.more » « less
-
Chinn, C; Tan, E; Chan, C; Kali, Y (Ed.)Iteration is pervasive in current perspectives of student reasoning, but it is also often assumed, backgrounded, or minimized in favor of other empirical interests and results, despite being foundational to reasoning processes and inquiry. This paper forefronts iterative practice while examining student reasoning in a reform-based undergraduate physics lab course. We present an instrumental case study analysis of a single student group, documenting how they engaged in micro- and macro-levels of iterative practice at the nexus of experimental activity and sensemaking throughout their experimentation. These results illustrate the nuance in students’ iterative practice at different levels and prompt new questions about how different forms of iterative practice may impact student learning.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Bridge courses are often created to provide participants with remediation instruction on discipline-specific content knowledge, like chemistry and mathematics, before enrollment in regular (semester-long) courses. The bridge courses are then designed to impact student’s academic success in the short-term. Also, as a consequence of the bridge course experience, it is often expected that students’ dropout rates on those regular courses will decrease. However, the bridge courses are often short (ten or fewer days) and packed with content, thus creating challenges for helping students sustain their learning gains over time. With the support of the NSF funded (DUE - Division Of Undergraduate Education) STEM Center at Sam Houston State University, we are designing a course for entering chemistry students that consists of a one-week pre-semester intensive bridge component, which then flows into a one-month co-curricular support component at the beginning of the semester. The primary goals of the bridge component of the course are to strengthen student academic preparedness, calibrated-self-efficacy, and to foster networking leading to a strong learning community. The goal of the co-curricular extension is to help students sustain and build upon the learning gains of the initial bridge component. We plan to extend the co-curricular portion of the course in future years. A key measure of success will be improved participant course grades in the introductory chemistry courses for majors. Our design process has been centered on weekly meetings that alternate between literature review and course design. The design process was initiated with backward design principles and continues with ongoing revision. The goals, design strategy, and design process of this new course will be presented along with the achieved student outcomes during the implementation of the past summer 2020.more » « less
-
null (Ed.)Bridge courses are often created to provide participants with remediation instruction on discipline-specific content knowledge, like chemistry and mathematics, before enrollment in regular (semester-long) courses. The bridge courses are then designed to impact student’s academic success in the short-term. Also, as a consequence of the bridge course experience, it is often expected that students’ dropout rates on those regular courses will decrease. However, the bridge courses are often short (ten or fewer days) and packed with content, thus creating challenges for helping students sustain their learning gains over time. With the support of the NSF funded (DUE - Division Of Undergraduate Education) STEM Center at Sam Houston State University, we are designing a course for entering chemistry students that consists of a one-week pre-semester intensive bridge component, which then flows into a one-month co-curricular support component at the beginning of the semester. The primary goals of the bridge component of the course are to strengthen student academic preparedness, calibrated-self-efficacy, and to foster networking leading to a strong learning community. The goal of the co-curricular extension is to help students sustain and build upon the learning gains of the initial bridge component. We plan to extend the co-curricular portion of the course in future years. A key measure of success will be improved participant course grades in the introductory chemistry courses for majors. Our design process has been centered on weekly meetings that alternate between literature review and course design. The design process was initiated with backward design principles and continues with ongoing revision. The goals, design strategy, and design process of this new course will be presented along with the achieved student outcomes during the implementation of the past summer 2020.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Book Chapter:
- https://doi.org/10.1039/9781839167782-00159
