Are you suddenly taking your General Chemistry course online because of the coronavirus? I just wanted to remind everyone that I developed daily (MWF) worksheets for General Chemistry I and II. These are available free from my website. You will need a password, which you can request by emailing me (information below). The worksheets were developed for a flipped class, but you don't have to flip your class in order to use them. The materials include: PDFs of all worksheets, editable files so you can customize the worksheets, and other goodies. The URL for the worksheets is http://johnosterhout.com/worksheets/ For my discussion of classroom flipping: http://johnosterhout.com/flipped-general-chemistry/ To get a password, email me at: JohnOsterhout<at>JohnOsterhout<dot>com. Please include a URL to you at your institution so I can verify you are a teaching professional. ... View more

Introduction. I wrote this post primarily for professors that might be considering flipping their classrooms. The tips and tricks below I developed while teaching General Chemistry to freshmen for eight years at Angelo State University. Of course, some, if not most of these tips would apply to upper division classes as well. First Tip. Bookmark Flipped Chemistry. It is a great resource for classroom flippers. First Day. Explain yourself. Most freshman students have never seen a flipped classroom. So it is a shock. Explain how it works, but as importantly, explain why you are flipping. I found that the students tolerated the approach better if they thought it would improve their grades. Tell them that the process of learning is on them, that only they can put in the effort to learn the material.  Assure them that you are there to help them and that you want them to succeed. You are there to coach them and to provide them with exercises and help. Go over their sources of help. List them explicitly: you, the book, on line tutuorials or videos from the textbook company, videos that you have produced, tutorials run by you, office hours, the tutor center, the library, the internet, Khan academy, and so forth. See my post, Hello Class. First Day Quiz. Give a them a basic math and chemistry quiz on the first day. See what you are up against. I gave a first day quiz that was about half simple math problems and half basic chemistry problems. The quiz mostly helps to identify students with math troubles (see It's That Chemistry Algebra). I once gave a more extensive chemistry quiz on the first day and tried to correlate it with final grades. There was no correlation. Gumption trumps prior knowledge. For more about what I am calling gumption see Brandon Tenn's post Developing Grit. Videos. Make the videos mandatory or not, in either case assume that the student do not watch them and plan accordingly. Alternatively, use technology to ask questions during the videos. Be sure there are points at stake and that the students can't continue without answering the questions. See my post To Video or Not to Video on my website. Before class. The important thing is to try to get the students to engage the material before coming to class. Videos might do it. Reading might do it. I assign reading and provide links to videos when I can find them. I also assign online homework before every class. Usually, the students skip the reading and go straight to the homework. If they can't work the homework, THEN they go to the book or the internet. For more about using homework in the flipped classroom, see my post Homework as Engagement. Group Worksheets. Absolutely have the students work in groups. Do not let them turn in one worksheet per group. This encourages the slackers to talk about football or relationships while the only motivated student actually does the worksheet. If everyone has a stake in the worksheet there is at least interest in finishing as many questions as possible during class. If you haven't got your own worksheets, I have posted all the worksheets I used for General Chemistry I and II on my website. Here is the link to my Flipped General Chemistry Page, which contains a description of how I flip and a link to the worksheets. You need a password for the worksheets. Send me an email at JohnOsterhout<at>JohnOsterhout<dot>com with a link to your professional page and I'll send you the password. Choosing Groups. When I first flipped my classroom, I made up groups randomly at first. After the first exam, I choose one student from each quartile of the class for each group. This was a disaster because the top student would do all the work while the others slacked off. The method I settled on was to make up the groups by major. Honors students were together, as were pre-meds and pre-dents, regardless of major. Mostly, the motivated students were in the honors/pre-med/chemistry major groups. The other groups were at least all in the same boat. Since their majors were all the same, they were having about the same experiences in their classes, and had the same motivations (mostly get through chemistry.) For more on groups, see On Groups. Homework. I have noticed that many professors using a flipped classroom still give homework as a summative exercise. Since you are essentially doing homework every day in class, it seems a better idea to use the homework daily to prepare students for the material to come and to reinforce the ideas the day after the class. See Homework as Engagement, which I alluded to earlier in the "Before Class" section. Exceptions that I make to the daily use rule are to give online homework as a review before exams and to use online homework for bonus exercises. Keep Up the Heat. Try to get the students to engage the material multiple times. I try for 1) the reading, 2) the online homework before class, 3) the daily quiz at the beginning of class, 4) the worksheets, 5) homework questions on the next days assignment about the previous days material, 6) exam reviews, and finally, 7) exams. Quizzes. Use daily quizzes at the beginning of class. The idea is to put a premium on preparation. I usually allow the students to take the quizzes as a group. Group quizzes engender discussion. I sometimes spring an individual quiz on them to encourage them to keep on top of things. The students hate the individual quizzes after they have done a few group quizzes. Worksheets. I use paper worksheets. The students work on them in groups during class and I post the answers immediately after class. They are required to turn in their worksheets the following class day corrected and complete. The get a check (100%) credit or an X (0% credit). I know some of the students copy the answers and don't think about it. However, I know from the number of mistakes that get caught that some of the students are using the worksheets to understand the material. I did not find the perfect approach. Large classes. I have been lucky in the last six years to teach classroom sections of thirty two students. If I were required to teach large classes I would consider using classroom responders to do the "worksheets". One could do a series of problems in the usual fashion or give the students a worksheet accessible on the web and let them enter answers at their own pace. I would also try to find students to serve as in-class helpers. Summary. Be interested. Be kind. Be helpful. Be fair. There is no perfect way to flip. Give it a try. Enjoy! ... View more

It's a beautiful day in the land of Flipped Chemistry. The students arrive with bright eyes and inquiring minds. They've done the reading, achieved a basic mastery of the concepts, and are now ready to polish their newly-won knowledge in their groups. I usually wake up right at that point. When I first flipped my General Chemistry class, I assigned reading and hoped for the best. I had assigned reading when I was lecturing and found that almost none of the students actually did the reading, but hope springs eternal. After all, this was the new, improved, flipped General Chemistry class. Surely the students will do the reading. Nope. Most of the the students arrived with zero preparation, zilch, nada, nothing, goose egg, squat. Here we are doing the worksheet: (Student) What's this here? (Me) That's the first thing in the reading and it's right there in bold in the book in front of you. Arrrrgh! (That was me, again. Although I do try not to say that last part out loud...) My class evolved over the next few years. Now I use online homework to elicit engagement with the material before the students arrive in class. My flipping scheme goes like this: 1) reading assignment, 2) online homework, (in class the next day) 3) group quiz on the reading assignment/homework, 4) worksheet. Repeat until we run out of semester. In my mind, the students do the reading then attempt the homework, going back to the book as needed when they work the problems. Ha! In reality, they almost universally skip the reading and dive right in to the homework. I know this from direct reports. The students tell me right out that they go straight for the homework. I've seen them in action. They open the homework, read the problem, fire up the online textbook, and scroll rapidly until an equation appears that has potential. Then they try to plug and chug. If that fails they scroll to the next equation. The process is very utilitarian. It cuts out most of the time wasted, you know, thinking. A shame, really. Is it worth having the homework at all? The first that happens in my class is a group quiz. There are usually seven problems, five from the reading/homework and two from the previous worksheet. I overhear a lot of conversations that start with "There was one like this on the homework last night." So, yeah, the homework is worthwhile. It engenders engagement in the material even if it isn't exactly the kind of engagement I was hoping for. I know that many flipped classes use videos for an introduction to the material. My experience is that student hate the long ones (45+ minutes) and will only use the short ones (six or so minutes) as a last resort. Some classes make the videos mandantory. Many of my colleagues report that enforcement is a problem. In some cases, it is possible to monitor who has opened the video but not how much of it was watched. Of course it is not possible to tell if the brain was on while the video was playing. I have talked with colleagues who are using systems in which you can post questions during the videos that have to be answered before the video can continue. Giving points for these questions motivates the students to participate and, possibly, even learn something. I am interested in what you do to engage the students and, for that matter, in how you flip. I've developed a questionnaire that I've sent to all the people who got the password for my worksheets. The returns have been interesting. I hope to post about this in the future. If you would like to participate, download the flipping questionnaire and email your answers to me at JohnOsterhout<at>JohnOsterhout<dot>com. ... View more

Merced College (3600 M St, Merced, CA, 95348) will be hosting the 2nd Annual Active Learning Conference on January 9th 2019.  This one-day conference will feature a keynote address by Dr. Nika Hogan, an English professor from Pasadena City College and the National Coordinator for the Reading Apprenticeship Project through WestEd and over 10 breakout sessions to choose from.  Dr. Hogan's keynote address is: The Other E-Learning: The Empathy Gap and its Relationship to the Equity Gap In this session, I will invite participants to explore the relationship between equity gaps in higher education and empathy gaps in our culture more broadly. In recent years, empathy has emerged as an important topic of study. Brain research has revolutionized and legitimized the scientific study of how we feel, and in higher education we have become acclimated to the affective revolution, from Paul Tough’s drawing upon attachment theory to help us understand grit to Brene Brown’s assertion that empathy is the antidote to shame, and thus the great enabler of learning and innovation. It is clear that empathy is a critical discipline, a Habit of Mind, and without empathy there can be no equity. But how do you DO empathy? I will propose that the answer is simpler than we think, and perfectly within our reach as college educators. Workshops for this conference include breakouts on active learning in STEM and non-STEM classes, writing good multiple choice questions, best practices with clickers, and others!  Click on the conference webpage below for more information on the conference program, registration form and fees, and breakout session schedule and topics.  This conference includes both breakfast and a (hot) catered lunch.  Registration for this conference closes mid-December.  If you have any questions on the conference or on making travel arrangements, please send me an email at brandon.tenn (at) mccd.edu.  Hope you can make it! http://www.mccd.edu/faculty-staff/alc/index.html ... View more

In a post last May, "What's Your Style". I invited members of this community to answer questions about their flipping style with the promise that I would summarize the results at a later date. About the same time, I sent an email to everyone who had requested a password for my worksheets (available free here) and included a questionnaire that could be filled out and returned. I sent out about one hundred fifty questionnaires and got four replies. In this post I summarize the results of five responses (the aforementioned four plus me). Questionnaire for Your Flipped Chemistry Class or Program Which chemistry classes are you flipping? Four of the respondents were flipping General Chemistry, one was also flipping a high school honors class and one was flipping a one-semester GOB (General, Organic, and Biochemistry) class for pre-nursing students. What got you interested in flipping? All respondents cited improving student success and student engagement. What is your typical class room size? The responses ranged from 15 (high school) to 200-250 (the pre-nursing GOB course). The average class section size for the college students was 47 with a range from 23 to 90. If your institution has multiple sections of chemistry what percentage of the students overall are in flipped sections? The high school class was taught in a situation were all the classes were online, so 100% of the sections were flipped. The pre-nursing GOB class was a single section, so also 100%.  In the General Chemistry classes 11-30% of the sections were flipped. In my case, I choose to flip while the remain professors teaching the General chemistry sections did not. I am assuming that this situation applies to the other professors in this survey. Are you using videos? Three respondents reported using videos in their classes. Please describe videos. One respondent inherited videos from a predecessor which were 45-60 minutes each. The respondents two sections made their own videos. In one case the videos were 5-10 minutes in length and in the other the videos were mostly in the 4-6 minute range. If you are requiring the students to view videos, how do you enforce this requirement? Of the three respondents that used videos, two had no way to enforce their viewing, instead relying on the principle that without the videos, the next day's in-class activities would be difficult. In one case, the respondent used PlayPosit software to overlay questions during the videos that the student had to answer in order to proceed through the video. Those questions amounted to 5% of the course grade. What do you ask the students to do before coming to class? Two respondents required reading and videos. One required videos and taking notes. One required reading and online homework then gave a quiz the next morning. One required only the reading and gave a quiz in the morning. Are you using online homework? If so, which system are you using? All five respondents report using online homework. Interestingly, five different systems were used: McGraw-Hill Connect, Pearson Mastering Chemistry, MacMillan Sapling, Norton SmartWork, and self-written homework delivered as a .pdf file through Canvas. Please describe the nature of the homework exercises. In three cases the respondents use homework in the traditional way, at the end of weeks, chapters or sections. The reported homework exercises vary from 10 to 30 question. I give homework daily, before the students come to class, to encourage engagement with the material. The professor of the nursing class, who is dealing with 200+ students in a section, uses Sapling to provide the in-class exercises. The exercises are 20-35 questions and any unworked problems become homework due the following Monday.   What do you typically do in class? Three respondents do worksheets in class, but use different approached: One does worksheets in groups. One does a short quiz and a "mini-lecture" before the worksheet and did not report whether the students are working in groups. I give a group quiz before the students do their worksheet in groups. The online class uses Adobe Connect to engage in an online synchronous discussion. The large pre-nursing class uses Sapling to provide in-class exercises with unworked problems becoming homework. It was an oversight that I did not ask explicitly about group work. I'll modify the flipping survey to include such a question. Do you have any data comparing before and after flipping? Four respondents say no or not yet. The fifth reports seeing a shift in grades toward more As and fewer DFWs. What is your personal impression of how flipping is working? Respondents: 1) "...students have commented that they like being "active" during class rather than listening to me drone on... and on... and on." 2) Online: "We have limited face-to-face time (even that is video conferenced) so this is the  most effective way to engage with students, correct misconceptions, demonstrate value, and guide applications." 3) "It seems to be working very well, the one section I’ve flipped is doing significantly better than the other sections." 4) I like it and won’t go back to traditional lecture.  There was an initial resistance among students who thought “teaching = lecturing = learning” but showing the grade changes has helped. Students expect my class to be flipped due to increased institutional memory. 5) "I am the only professor using a flipped classroom. My sections almost always have the highest averages on the common exams and the American Chemical Society final." Any special insights about flipping your class? Two respondents answered this question: 1) With large classes and no TA support, a colleague and I started an intern program where students get credit for serving as interns in the class to help with questions. It’s a win-win-win situation.  The students get extra help in the classroom from near peers and often share things with them that they wouldn’t with me, the interns get experience in communicating with many different people and reinforcing their own knowledge, and I get much-needed help in the classroom as well as feedback from the interns.  My class is 99% pre-nursing students and most of my interns are as well.  Students have to earn high grades in the course to serve as interns so it’s a recognition of their work. Additionally, the interns that are already in nursing school can share their experiences with the pre-nursing students. 2) The better students thrive in the flipped classroom. The less-motivated students are immediately out of their comfort zone. It is easy for them to fall into the "lecture equals teaching" trap and conclude that I don't teach. I combat this by explaining early on about increased learning and better long-term results using the method. I also emphasize how much help is available and how much that I, personally, will provide. Is there anything else you want to share about your flipping effort? Three respondents answered this question: 1) One challenge seem to be getting the students to watch the videos and take notes ahead of time (at this point they all seem to be doing that).  Another is the disparate levels of ability coming in. However, this seems to be taking care of itself as the better prepared are being very generous in helping the less prepared students. 2) So much work and ongoing effort but so worth it! 3) Flipping isn't a magic bullet, but it works better than the alternatives. Summary There isn't one path to flipping your classroom. Here are my takeaways: Be kind. Be supportive. Be sure your students know that you are on their side and that there is lots of help available. Before the students come to class put some class credit on the line to encourage them to engage the material. In class, also have class credit on the line to encourage engagement. I have quizzes at the beginning of class every day. This encourages the students to pay attention to the reading assignments and homework from the day before. *Have the student work in groups, but give them credit individually. Have an exercise such as additional homework or worksheet questions from the previous worksheet to reinforce learning. Don't wait. Flip your class now! Big thanks to the respondents: Kyle Beran, then at The University of Texas at the Permian Basin, now at Angelo State University, Nick DeMello, Joe Caddell, Yosemite Community College District, and Allison Soult, University of Kentucky. May your students thrive. If you would like to participate, download the questionnaire here, fill it out, and email it back to me at johnosterhout<at>johnosterhout<dot>com. If I get 10-20 more responses, I'll consider updating this post. ... View more

After reading about flipped classrooms and attending an NSF-sponsored cCWCS workshop (Chemistry Collaborations, Workshops & Communities of Scholars) June 20-23 2016, I decided to try out flipping my organic chemistry lecture. My class meets for lecture every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for 50 minutes. I decided to try out flipping my organic class on Fridays only as an experiment during the fall semester of 2016. First I had to become comfortable with recording my lectures. After investigating several software programs, I settled on the use of Debut Video Capture. Several other software programs were just as good, but Debut was simple to use and easily recorded my computer screen and my voice very well. An additional incentive was a free 3-month trial followed by a one-time fee of $19.99 for use of the software. I’ve used this software for two years now and find no reason to switch. I show PowerPoint slides on half of the screen and Paint software on the other side. With the Paint software, I can draw anything necessary, or I can pre-copy and paste items before recording. These recorded lectures are posted a week in advance by downloading them onto YouTube and providing the URL to my students. Sometimes I either collect a copy of their notes or quiz them to provide incentive for watching the online videos. During class on Fridays, we work on problems related to the online lecture. I have introduced a variety of activities into Fridays including worksheets, mini-quizzes, Kahoot online quizzes, old exam reviews, individual problems that they answer and explain on the whiteboard, etc...  One of my favorite activities involves predicting pka values. I bring in individual slips of paper with one organic structure on each. Students are given a slip of paper with an organic acid or base, then they have to compare to their neighbor’s structure and rank them based on relative acidity. Then each group of two students compared their ranking to another group of two students. We then have time to review the results and talk about inherent problems with predicting relative pka values.   Friday lectures are now fun! They are energetic, real active learning takes place, students sharing their ideas is the focus, not the professor. I can use Friday’s for pre- and post-exam reviews, for class-cancellation make-ups, for a more detailed review of complex topics, etc...  I sometimes bring in a bag of cheap gifts for students to compete for. I truly believe I am a better teacher because of the flipped classroom concept. ... View more

It's fall. It's Monday morning. The semester is fresh. The sleepy faces in front of you are staring up with trepidation, with hope, or with quiet expectancy. For most of them it is their very first college class. Guess what? It's flipped. What do you tell them? Hello class. Welcome to <name of class here>. I am <your name here> and I am your instructor for the semester. We will be using a flipped classroom. This means that I will not be lecturing. You will be introduced to the material by reading assignments and on line homework. In class, we will have quizzes and do worksheets in groups. Before we get into specifics, I suppose you are wondering why I am doing the class this way. The short answer is because it works. Studies have shown that students, you, learn better by doing worksheets and talking about the material than by listening to me sing and dance at the front of the class. My own experience is that my sections, the flipped sections, usually do better on the exams and alway do better on the comprehensive final exam than the sections where the professors lecture. Why does flipping work? Spending time working problems and talking about it with other students helps you learn better than me telling you a bunch of stuff and letting you figure out how to work the problems on your own. Also, there is the aspect of repetition. Who has a favorite song? Do you know all the words to the song? Did you know all the words to the song after you heard it for the first time? No, of course not, it took six or seven times hearing the song before you got all the words down. In this flipped class, I'm going to give you several opportunities to think about the material, which means several opportunities to learn. The opportunities are: The reading The on line homework The group quiz at the beginning of class A group worksheet Homework problems that repeat the previous worksheets ideas. Quiz problems from the previous worksheet So I can give you six opportunities to learn the important material before you sit down to cram for the tests. Then, when it comes time to cram, you will find that you already know a lot of the stuff. Big win for you. Does this work? If you were weightlifter, how would you prepare for a meet? Would you do nothing until the night before then go to the gym and pump weights all night long? If you did that, would you expect to win? If you were a weightlifter, you would lift every day, gradually increasing your weight and skills until the day of the meet. I want you to be preparing for your exams the same way, a little at a time, every day, until it is time to study for the exams. Then, your study is really a tune up and not a marathon effort to learn every single thing for the first time. You might have noticed that this class is about you learning, not about me putting on a show. My job here is not to be a talking head in front of the class, but to guide you through the course and to explain the ideas to you when you get stuck. Why not just explain the ideas to everyone all at once? Everyone learns at a different rate. At some point, the group that you are working with will be stuck on a certain idea or problem. You need help. You ask me. When you ask me, you want to know the answer right then. You are receptive to the answer and when I help you with it, it will stick with you better. A group that is proceeding a little more slowly, would not be ready for the answer at the same time. So I help you when you ask and I don't care if I answer the same question multiple times, I will help you when you are ready. If you need extra help, I have office hours Monday through Thursday 1:00-2:00 pm. If you don't want to come in individually, I have tutorials Monday and Wednesday 5:00-6:00 pm. I will work problems from the worksheets, the homework, or explain ideas that may be troubling you. If your class or work schedule won't let you come to my scheduled office hours, then send me an email and I'll set up a special time to see you. I will sit with you as long as it takes. The class is about you learning. I'm here to help. College is all about learning how to learn. Each of you must find your own set of tools that will help you learn. There are the learning opportunities built in to the class, there are my office hours, and my tutorials. What else can you do to help yourself? Here are some ideas (See also What Students Do to Help Themselves 😞 This course has a Special Instruction tutor, <insert name here>, who has posted hours, usually about six per week. The tutor center in the library has a chemistry tutor <insert name here> who is available about ten hours per week. The worksheets have links to videos when I can find suitable ones. The videos are from the on line homework, from Khan academy, or from random sources if they are good. Your standard search engines can help you find explanations. The American Chemistry Study guide is a good source of problems and exercises. The textbook has a study guide at the end of each chapter and problems at the end of the chapters, half of which are answered. There is no lack of help for you in this course. The first homework is due at 6:00 am before the next class. The class schedule and the assignment sheet for the next class are posted on Blackboard. See you in class. ... View more

If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend the book Made to Stick:  Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.  This extraordinary book, written by brothers Chip and Dan Heath, poses a question that is critical for teachers everywhere:  Why do we remember some ideas and stories, but not others?  What makes an idea “sticky?” The book ranges from urban legends to cognitive psychology; from successful ad campaigns to unforgettable classroom lessons.  It’s fantastic reading for anyone who wants to become a better teacher or communicator. In one chapter, the authors describe how new ideas are understood and stored more effectively when tethered to existing concepts or images.  To illustrate with my own example:  Imagine you were trying to describe the winter sport of curling to someone who had never seen it.  You could begin by a detailed description of the icy court, the dimensions, and the objective – and fifteen minutes later your audience still wouldn’t understand the gist of it.  Or, you could begin by saying “It’s like shuffleboard on ice.”  With three words – shuffleboard on ice - your audience already has some concept of the layout and the general objective of the game.  As chemistry teachers, our job is to help students understand and remember a complex subject.  How do we make it easier?  In my own teaching and writing, I regularly use analogies, metaphors, and images that tie concepts to things they already understand.  Of course, many teachers do this.  But in the spirit of sharing good ideas, here are a few of my favorites, top-ten style: 10.  Oxygen atoms come in packs of two, like peanut butter cups. (I extend this to the other diatomic elements as well.) 9.  A barometer is like a straw. Why does the mercury rise up into a barometer?  Why does liquid travel up the straw into your mouth? 8.  Intermolecular forces are like the light from the sun, moon, and stars. The stars are always in the sky, but their light is negligible compared to the light of the moon or the brilliant light of the sun.  Similarly, London dispersion forces are always present – but negligible compared to dipole-dipole forces or hydrogen bonds. 7.  Activation energy is like the startup costs for a business. You may have a business idea that could make a lot of money (or lose a lot of money).  But unless you have enough money to start the business, you’ll never know.  6.  The plum pudding model. Okay – obviously this one isn’t mine – but think about it for a moment.  Which was more important in the development of modern atomic theory – the plum pudding model or Millikan’s oil drop experiment?  Which one do students remember?  Even though the oil drop experiment was far more important, students remember the plum pudding model.  Why?  Because it’s simple, and it connects with something they can picture. 5.  Your first date, or your first breakup. In my classes, I describe an exquisitely awkward moment from my middle school years in the 1980s, as I tried to ask a girl out at a skating rink.  She could skate, I couldn’t.  Thirty years later, it’s comedy gold.  And it helps students see that the transition point – when you make or break bonds – is always higher energy than the moments before or after.   4.  Heisenberg and the fan. When an electric fan is turned off, we know exactly where the blades are located.  But if the fan is turned on, the blades move so quickly that we no longer know exactly where they are – we just know they are moving in an area that occupies a circle.  Don’t stick your finger in the circle.  In the same way, we never describe the exact location of electrons – Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle says this is impossible.  Rather,  we describe them by the shape they occupy.  [Note – this crude analogy can help students begin to think about quantum mechanics, but of course it doesn’t address the wave nature of matter.  A disclaimer may be appropriate.] 3.  Single and double displacement reactions on the dancefloor. In a single displacement, one couple is dancing when a single person cuts in.  In a double displacement, there are two pairs of dancers, and the dancers switch partners. 2.  Enantiomers and diastereomers are like siblings and cousins. I begin by drawing the four possible stereoisomers for a molecule with two chiral centers.  We label each center R and S, and usually label the pairs of enantiomers.  Then I describe my kids, and compare them to my nephew and niece.  We discuss the family relationships – siblings and cousins - then I go back to the stereoisomers to complete the analogy.  The result looks something like this: 1.  Limiting reagents in the kitchen. Before we dive into limiting reagents, leftovers, and the ICE method, I like to pose a question like this:   "Suppose that you are making sandwiches following this recipe.  You have 10 slices of bread and 40 slices of cheese.  How many sandwiches can you make?  What will you have left over?"   2 pieces of bread + 1 slice cheese  → 1 sandwich Most students can get this without a single lesson on stoichiometry.  And if you can get students to tether stoichiometry to what they already know, the ideas become much, much easier.  In my classes, we usually begin by working stoichiometry equations (complete with unit conversions) on sandwich problems.  It works well. I hope this list has spurred some ideas for you.  And if you’re willing to share in a comment or email, I’d love to hear some of your favorites, as well. ... View more

In my flipped general chemistry class we start off with a group quiz and continue with a worksheet, also performed in a group. The nature of the quizzes and the worksheets are important, sure, but so are the nature of the groups. This post is about handling the groups. When I first started flipping, I was teaching a class of 80 students, which in my small chemistry department at a small state university is considered “large”. I was in a stepped classroom, with fixed tables that would seat four students. At the start of the class, I used the rows for groups. The groups were essentially assigned by however the students arranged themselves. The groups were enriched for groups of two or three friends that were coming to class together. After the first exam, I had the bright idea to make groups that consisted of a student from each quartile of the class. So each group would have a good student, two middle students and a student from the bottom quartile of the class. At the time, I was giving each group a single worksheet and one person was in charge of filling it out. I did this mostly to cut down on the grading time. The room was a glorious roar of activity as the students chewed their way through the worksheets. Bt the end of the semester, I had realized that only the best groups were making it to the end of the worksheets. For most of the class, this left significant swaths of information uncovered. I decided to give each students their own worksheet and require them to turn the worksheets in completed by the next class period. The roar of the classroom diminished by a factor of ten. I soon realized what had been going on. When the groups only had a single worksheet, only the most motivated student would work. The other three would talk about football, deer hunting, or whatever until time ran out. When everyone had their own worksheet, everybody had a stake, and the frivolous talk went away. Lesson learned. After that year, I was able to move into a smaller classroom, one that held about thirty-five students. For our small state school, this is a “normal” class size. I decided to assigned the groups by test score so that some groups were made up of the top-scoring students and some were of the poorest scoring students. The department had been talking about instituting a placement exam for the freshman chemistry students to allow us to screen out the totally unprepared and assign the less-prepared students to our non-majors chemistry class. I decided use a variation on that them, start the students off with a first-day quiz, and use that to do the initial assignments. The first-day quiz contained some math problems, some simple chemistry problems, and a logic problem. I used the scores to arrange the groups. The flaw? There was little correlation between the first day quiz scores and ultimate (or even immediate) performance in the course. The quiz can measure basic skills, but it can't measure gumption. See Brand Tenn's post, Developing Grit. Of course, I didn't realize this until after the first couple of exams. What to do? I started to rearrange the groups after the first exam, using the exam scores to make up the groups. The advantage of this was that I could get all the top students together and they could advance as fast and as far as they could. Having the poorer-performing students together isn't an entirely bad thing. They quickly discover that there isn't one “good” student who will do all the work. Sometimes these middle groups turn into learning machines as the students help each other. The other advantage of identifying the poorest performing students is that I know who they are and I can give them more attention in class. There are some problems with using the first exam to guide group formation. One is that quite often the results on the first exam stem from prior knowledge. The students are running on their high school chemistry and aren't doing any work. When these students run out of high school savvy, the course, which had been easy, is suddenly hard. Then they have to discover a new work ethnic, one that contains actual study. Some do, some don't. So the first exam isn't a good predictor, either. One can rearrange the groups after every exam. Students, of course, hate this. Once they get used a group they are loathe to change. However, they do quickly settle down into their new groups. One might even consider this valuable experience in “teamwork”, which the state is always in a tizzy about. After several years of coping with groups, here is what I am doing now. I still give a first-day quiz. I use it only to see if there are any students who can't do any math (see my recent post, It's That Chemistry Algebra, where I found a student who couldn't solve X – 2 = 0) and to lament the generally sorry preparation of students in math and chemistry. Now, I initially arrange the groups by major. I lump the pre-professional students together with the honors students and form as many groups as I can. I find that by using the major as the guiding principle, I wind up with groups that internally have similar motivations. The pre-professional students are motivated by grades. The chemistry and biology majors sometimes show a little interest in the subject material. Most of the rest of the students don't want to be in the class, they are there because their major requires it. They are motivated by survival. This initial arrangement of groups by major works better than the other methods I've tried, but I'm still looking! Other group caveats: groups that are all men don't usually work. The guys tacitly or explicitly decide that it isn't cool to be too interested in this academic stuff and so spend the whole class pushing their worksheets around the table trying to look busy while they shoot the bull. Three men in a group doesn't usually work either unless the woman is unusually motivated or outgoing. Groups with 2+ women, even groups of entirely women seem to work fine. Groups can be derailed by the disgruntled student. I always get one or more students who are very unhappy with the flipped classroom. After all, I don't teach. (They equate lecturing with teaching.) An unhappy, vocal student can poison a group, sometimes even an entire class. I try to head this off in the beginning by explaining the ideas behind flipping and citing the success of the flipped classrooms compared to the non-flipped classes in our department. I have not tried to micromanage the groups. That is, rearrange the groups as we go along depending upon the skills, motivations, and personalities of the individuals. Unfortunately it seems that by the time I can get a good feeling the individual qualities of the students in the class, the semester is over. Occasionally, I find a smart, motivated student who can actually explain things to his or her co-conspirators. In the vernacular, we call these teachers and I wish I had one per group. ... View more

A few semesters back, a student sent an email to one of my faculty explaining that "I'm really good at algebra, it's just that chemistry algebra that gets me." I had always interpreted that statement as a frustration with the problem-solving nature of freshman chemistry. Maybe the student was good at algebra but just couldn't handle the word problems or logic that comes with chemistry.  This semester has made me rethink that notion. I work at a small state university with a low bar for admission. The general chemistry classes are populated with all majors, some college ready and some not. For most of the students in my classes, general chemistry I is a check box to be ticked. That being said, I've noticed some alarming trends. A few years ago our department tightened up our math prerequisites for admission into general chemistry I. We only admit students if they score high enough on the ACT or SAT to be admitted to the precalculus class or have passed college algebra with a "C" or better. The remarks below concern students who have met this requirement. I recently tutored a student who had a poor score on the second hour exam. One of the problems was a titration with sulfuric acid. I was trying to explain that sulfuric acid was the acid made from the sulfate anion. After a while, we got to this point: how many protons must one add to the sulfate ion to produce a neutral species. The student drew a blank, so I thought it would be helpful to write out the equation: X + -2 = 0 It turned out that, not only was the solution not transparent to the student, the student could not solve this equation. Their approach was to guess until I told them the answer was correct. I cut them off after they guessed the correct answer so I don't know, if left alone, they would have eventually realized that "2" would have done the trick. Same student, different problem. The exam question asked for the oxidation number of carbon in the carbonate ion. The carbonate ion was written as CO 3 2- . After a bit, we got to the point of realizing that the oxidation number of the carbon had to add to the combined oxidation number of the oxygens to give the charge on the ion. This drew a blank look. So I wrote on the board: X + -6 = -2 No luck here, either. The student's first guess was -8. It did get better from there, but the underlying process was "guess until Dr. Osterhout says it's right." To do a quick assessment of the class's math skills I gave a first day quiz this semester that included some math problems to be worked without a calculator (you can see the quiz and the results on the worksheet page of my blog, johnosterhout.com). Here is my favorite: a = b/c, solve for c. In the Fall of 2016, 59% of the students correctly solved the problem. Sadly, this Fall the number was 47%. It does not bode well for your future in chemistry if you are in the 53% that can't do this little bit of algebra. Here is one designed to see if they know anything about manipulating numbers in scientific notion. Remember, they could not use a calculator for this one. 3.0 x 10 4 x 4.0 x 10 3 = This garnered 75% and 66% in Fall of 2016 and 2017 respectively. I was a little surprised that the results were so favorable. But then there was this: 2.0x10 6 x 4.0x10 4 / 8.0x10 -3 That one was 18% in 2016 and 14% in 2017. The students don't fare much better if they use their calculators. Even at the end of the semester, I have students who still use the 10 x key on their calculator to enter numbers in scientific notion. I also find that students have blithely ignored my exhortations to use the SCI option on their calculators and read, for instance, 6.43 x 10 -8 instead of 0.000000064 on their displays. Recently we were doing calorimetry. In one variety of problems the students are asked to find the final temperature after, say, hot water is added to an iron pot. The equations encountered were of the following variety. g x c s x (T f - T i ) = -g x c s x (T f - T i ) The students had to solve for Tf. They gathered up the appropriate numbers and happily plugged and chugged until: 1021(T f - 25) = -3138(T f - 95) (I left out the units, because I'm illustrating the math for you.) At this point four out of eight students in the tutorial session were unable to distribute the numbers into the parentheses. I fear that it is much worse in the class in general, because the only students coming to the tutorial had a least a marginal grasp on the material. The ones that really needed to come, didn't. Once we got over that hurdle, we arrived at: 1021T f - 25530 = -3138T f + 298000 Here again, half of the students couldn't proceed. In deference to the student in the first paragraph, it isn't necessarily "that chemistry algebra," sometimes it is just plain old algebra (and maybe just some sixth grade arithmetic). Keep in mind that all of these students had either passed college algebra or had a 600 or greater on the math portion of the SAT. So, what's a mother to do? Currently our general chemistry professors build math and calculator exercises into their homework and class materials. Clearly it is not enough. Our department has discussed developing a chemistry tutorial that would meet one hour a week to do remedial math and chemistry. We have experienced push back from the administration because they fear this would diminish our enrolment capacity ($). However, it would likely improve retention ($$). Any ideas? ... View more

iClicker Reef is a great tool for formative and summative assessments.  In this article, I will summarize the ways I use the different question types in order to conduct various types of (non-content related) formative assessments.    Multiple Choice: 1.  Student Understanding                 How well do you feel you understand  ____ ? A.  Piece of cake.  I get it. B.  I understand most of it. C.  I am mostly confused. D.  I do not understand any of it. 2.  Student Confidence:  Many times, it is informative to find out how confident students are with their problem solving skills.  Ideally, students who understand should not only have the correct answers, but also be confident in their answers.   Select the most appropriate choice. A.  I'm finished and am confident I am correct. B.  I'm finished, but not too sure I am correct. C.  I'm almost finished. D.  I don't know how to do the problem. 3.  Traffic Control: During lectures, it is often very difficult to get any feedback on how students are processing the classroom discussions.  For lecture classes, it is useful to periodically stop and let students give feedback on class pacing - then follow up with specific questions on their misunderstandings. Select the most appropriate choice. A.  GO: Continue. Pace is fine, I understand. B.  CAUTION: Please slow down. I need time to catch up. C.  STOP: I do not understand.   Short Answer 4.  Question Collector  After one particularly difficult problem on simplifying rational expressions, I asked students what the most difficult step was for them.  No one spoke - even though most students got the problem wrong.  I then fired up a short answer question in iClicker Reef and asked for submissions electronically - almost everyone gave me a response! I noticed two things from their responses, many people did not know how to find the LCD and secondly, many students were simply trying to memorize steps to problems.  This brought us to a nice discussion on learning, and how I am teaching them tools they can use when encountering problems.   5.  Muddiest Point Another way to use the short answer question type is to collect a list of the most difficult topics (muddiest points). Numeric 6.  Speed Drill Progress Numeric questions can be used to gauge student progress in paper assignments.  I often drill students on various topics and have them answer using paper and pencil, since iClicker Reef's refresh time is too slow.  I often ask students to send me the number of questions they got correct.   7.  Level of Understanding  Like measuring student confidence, instructors could ask students to state their level of understanding of a concept or unit on a 0 (do not understand) - 10 (understand everything) scale. Target 8. Campus resources:  During the first week of classes, it might be a good idea to use target questions to ensure students know the locations of important student resources: Tutoring Center, Instructor Offices, Financial Aid Office, Registrar, Counselors, etc. by asking students to locate the resources on a map. I hope that you can see many ways iClicker Reef can be used in addition to testing student understanding of core concepts and facts.  Do you use iClicker or another classroom response system (CRS) in your classes?  In what other ways have you used your CRS to conduct formative  assessments in class?  Please share your ideas in the comments box below. ... View more

My classes are rife with groans and sighs when passing back exams and quizzes.  To try and encourage student persistence and grit development, I decided to implement mastery based quizzes like Kevin mentioned in a previous flippedchemistry.com post.    I gave students three attempts to pass a quiz on dimensional analysis.  The first attempt was given in lecture.  The second and third attempts were taken outside of class.  Since I am on campus daily, I set aside time – while I was teaching labs, had office hours, or was working in my office – for students to take it.  By the day of Exam 1, 50 students passed the mastery based quiz on dimensional analysis while 84 did not.      Passed Benchmark Quiz Did not Pass Quiz Number of Students 50 84 Average Exam 1 Score 72% 48% Passed Exam 1 80% 26% Did not pass Exam 1 20% 74%   Not only did the students who passed the benchmark quiz do better on the exam, but only 20% of students in this group got a score below 60%.  Many of them were in 50-60% range.  On the other hand, of the students not passing the benchmark quiz, 74% of them did not pass the exam, and many of their scores were in the 30-50% range. I also instituted benchmark quizzes in my Intermediate algebra class, and noticed similar results.  Benchmark Quiz #1 was related to exam 1, and Benchmark Quiz #2 was directly related to Exam 2.      Exam 2 Average Passed Both Benchmark Quizzes 65.4% Passed Benchmark #1 only (Related to Exam 1) 36.0% Passed Benchmark #2 only (Related to Exam 2) 52.1% Passed only one Benchmark Quiz 41.9% Did not pass any Benchmark Quizzes 30.6%   The data shows a strong correlation between passing the benchmark quiz and higher exam scores in both classes.  Therefore, I decided to continue using benchmark quizzes to give students an attainable goal prior to their first exam, knowing that students who are successful on the benchmark quiz will have a higher probability of success on the subsequent exam.   In response to the student exam performance in both courses I showed students a short TED talk by Angela Lee Duckworth, on Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance.  A few days later, I gave my students a short article called “The State of Being Stuck” and asked my chemistry students to write half-page reflection paper on it, discussing how they would apply the concepts of grit and the growth mindset to Introductory Chemistry this semester.   The chemistry students are currently working on passing their second benchmark quiz, which is on nomenclature.  Exam 2, which covers nomenclature will take place on Friday, October 13, 2017.  I will update this post once the exam is graded and the data has been analyzed. Other Resources on Grit and Growth Mindset: https://www.edutopia.org/article/growth-mindset-resources https://www.edutopia.org/article/grit-resources   Quotes from Reflection Papers:   “I will not be afraid of a challenge just because it looks hard to do.” “I always tell myself, ‘This too shall pass.’” “As a future teacher … I want my students to give it all they have and not give up, therefore that is what I am going to do in all my classes.” “I sit next to someone who is failing this class and complains about it every morning.  She always seems to be blaming other people instead of herself.  When I ask her what she does to study or take notes, she tells me that she does not even watch the videos.  My motivation for wanting to come to this class is that I want to be able to engage in class work.” “There’s nothing wrong in getting help from other people who get something more than what you may be understanding yourself.” “Fear of failing hinders me from even beginning sometimes.” “I’m actually pretty proud of how far I’ve come because I could have easily gave up … I told myself if I don’t pass this class, what does it mean for my future, am I going to do the same thing when it comes down to everything else in my life?” “It’s OK to fail in things that you do in life, but the important part is to be gritty.  You don’t have to be super smart to survive in this life.  You just have to be gritty.” “I always found science classes to be difficult for me, so I never really put the most effort in them.” ... View more

On January 12, 2018, 8-4 pm, Merced College (3600 M St., Merced, CA 95348) will be hosting a conference on Active Learning.  This conference is open to all post-secondary educators in 2-year or 4-year public or private institutions.  There is no registration fee for this conference, but seating is limited.  For more information, to register, or to submit a seminar proposal, please go to: www.mccd.edu/faculty-staff/alc If you have any questions on the conference, please contact me at Email: brandon.tenn@mccd.edu Phone: (209) 387-6783 ... View more

Problem: The same student(s) always answer questions. Solution:  Popsicle sticks The same student(s) always answer questions while the rest of the class remains quiet.  How can we get other students involved in the discussion?  Place each student's name on a popsicle stick and place the popsicle sticks in a container.  When seeking responses, draw popsicle sticks at random.  Not only does the randomness keep students engaged, but it also ensures that everyone will have an opportunity to share.  Asking students to draw names can remove instructor subjectivity. Problem:  I can't tell which groups or students really need help. Solution:  Stop and Go Cups (or cards) When active learning activities are in full swing, especially in larger classes, it's very difficult to get feedback from all students/groups on their progress and understanding.  One easy way to tell how students are doing is to hand them a set of color coded cups or cards - green, yellow, and red. Color Individually In Groups Green Lecture pace good/Understanding material Progressing fine with task Yellow Please slow down Progressing slowly, needs help Red I don't understand Group is not progressing - needs immediate help Problem: Students are waiting for someone else to answer before solving the problems themselves. Solution: Index Card Answers There are many student polling apps available, some paid, some free.  Undoubtedly each semester they will be a day or two in which the polling app servers are malfunctioning.  A great low tech way to garner student responses is to hand out index cards, each with a letter A-E written on it.  When asking multiple choice questions, students can hold up the card corresponding to their answer.  Alternatively, when in a bind, and you don't have time to hand out cards, students can denote answers with their fingers, placing their hand in front of their chests, so other students cannot see their answers. Problem: Students do not discuss problem solving with each other. Solution: Think-pair-share I saw a very revealing, humorous video on this topic during the summer.  Although the video is not appropriate for this post, I did realize that many times students will jump directly to sharing, before spending adequate time thinking about the problem.  In my classes, I do not call discussions "think-pair-share."  Rather, I give specific directions like "Work on the problem individually for x minutes, then submit your answers (electronically or otherwise), then discuss your answers with a partner."  Problem: In class, students don't have a chance to stop and reflect on their learning. Solution: 2-minute paper (Quick writes) We all need a chance to stop and reflect on what we are learning.  Many times, as instructors, we start class by taking a breath and lecture for the entire class period and stop only to dismiss the class at the end.  While we may have said everything we intended to, students most likely were not given adequate chance to stop and reflect on what was being said.  I've been in many workshops as a participant, where the facilitators gave us time to stop and reflect by asking simple questions like "Summarize what you just learned." After the 2- minutes, instructors can gain much insight into the student's thought processes by letting them share (voluntarily) what they wrote - or by collecting their papers. Problem: I cannot tell what students are struggling with. Solution: Exit ticket (Muddiest Point) A permutation on the 2-minute paper is the exit ticket.  It's very difficult, many times, to determine what topic(s) students are struggling with at the end of a lecture.  Some instructors ask students to do a 2-minute paper by asking them to describe their muddiest point from the day's lecture/activities and hand it in on their way out of class.  Although this post is focused on low-tech solutions, I would be remiss if I don't mention that Socrative, a free student polling app, has an Exit Ticket feature already built in. What other tricks do you have up your sleeves?  We'd love to hear about them!  Please share your in-class tricks to maintain student engagement by writing a comment below or by emailing me at: brandon.tenn@mccd.edu Acknowledgements: This post was motivated by the illuminating discussions that we had prior to the start of the Fall 2017 semester during a 50 minute workshop on active learning.  In particular, I want to thank English professor Denise Rempel for sharing with us many of the innovative (and often crazy) activities she employs in her classes - specifically for sharing with me how she uses popsicle sticks to engage and colored cups to monitor student learning. ... View more

Macmillan Learning is proud to announce that The Flipped Learning Global Initiative has named Introductory Chemistry author Kevin Revell one of the top 40 Flipped Learning educators worldwide. The list, compiled annually by the FLGI executive committee, names the top 100 K-12 educators from around the world who are identified as driving forces of flipped classroom adoptions. This year, the initiative broadened their recognition to include the top 40 Flipped Learning leaders in higher education. FLGI’s Chief Academic Officer, Jon Bergmann, stated, "The 2017 FLGI Flipped Learning Leaders lists includes some of the most experienced, innovative and proactive education and training professionals in the world. These are the people driving Flipped Learning forward in thought and action and demonstrating what is possible when Flipped Learning is done well." Congratulations, Kevin! ... View more

Recently I was doing some proposal research on Gen Z (also known as Centennials, iGeneration, Post-Millennials, Plurals, or the Homeland Generation) and realized that this incoming generation of students is not only prepared for the flipped classroom, but expects it! Having been born starting in the late 1990’s, these students have been constantly engaged in constant communication through social media, technology at their fingertips, and consistent and fast internet access. In a recent survey from Barnes and Noble College on what Gen Z expects and wants from a college education, it was clear to me that the flipped classroom sets the stage for their ideal educational experience that is both immersive and engaging. Based on the survey Gen Z wants: Professors that care about their success and individual attention 51% prefer meeting face to face, 77% prefer 4 year colleges The flipped classroom provides more opportunities for one-on-one mentored like experiences through increased faculty/student interactions in guided classroom activities and group discussions. And while this generation values technology, independence and self-reliance, they still prefer the face-to-face experience and crave opportunities to interact with faculty and peers in person. Career preparation: 35% currently own their own business or plan to own one in the future, 49% have already taken courses for college credit where 84% plan to The flipped classroom allows faculty to incorporate more real-life problem solving activities that allows students to practice applying both their background knowledge and new knowledge in ways that better mimics the problems they will face in their careers. Additionally, the flipped classroom teachings soft skills typically not address in the traditional lecture such as time management, collaboration, communication, and team work. Interesting and engaging course work: Class room discussions, working through problems, and working in small groups are preferred tools for learning  The flipped classroom takes the passive learning out of the classroom to make time for more collaborative learning experiences such as small group activities and discussions. The instructor can also bring in tailored activities reflective of a specific group’s interests that are relevant, timely, and more engaging. Additionally, the survey reports that students not only embrace technology in the classroom but expect it and rate class websites with supplemental material, game-based learning systems, DIYL (“Do it Yourself Learning), Smartboards, digital textbooks, online videos and learning websites as their top tech tools for the classroom. Group learning environments: 80% study with friends, 60% like to exchange new ideas with friends, 52% like to help their friends learn The flipped classroom allows for pedagogy that incorporates group problem-based learning by moving the lecture out and the hands-on activities in. By incorporating small group work, students also benefit from the diverse perspectives and knowledge of their peers and build stronger connections which help promote retention and success.  Learn by doing: 51% learn by doing, 38% learn by seeing, 12% learn by listening The flipped classroom affords the flexibility to allow more hands on and applied learning in the class, lab, field, or studio. In the survey, students reported class discussions as the most beneficial which opens opportunities for authentic student driven inquiry in the classroom (think Socrates) or problem based learning Challenges: (89% see college as valuable, 64% prefer advanced classes) This generation is not afraid of a challenge and expects to be pushed. The survey reports that an overwhelming majority of Gen Z students plan to or have already taken courses for college credit in high school. In the flipped classroom, the incorporation of active learning, group learning and blended learning strategies affords instructors the opportunity to weave in more challenges that push our students to think for critically about the concepts and application of those concepts in order to solve real world problems.   So flipped teachers rejoice because as Gen Z takes their first steps on to our various campuses they are poised and ready for what we have to offer and may even push us to do more! Have you noticed a change in student perceptions already? Have you noticed a change in their expectations? Let us know! We would love to hear your thoughts and experiences! ... View more

               It was a Thursday evening as I was relaxing post-workshop and gearing up for summer research when I received a text from my colleague asking if I wanted to teach the summer intro-chem course. I immediately jumped on the opportunity since I have always wanted to get my hands on a chemistry for non-science majors course... the only drawback? The class started that following Tuesday and I have never taught intro chem before! Despite that little set back, I was eager to start planning my learning outcomes, lessons, demonstrations and labs; and was feeling energized after a week long workshop that focused on active learning. To set the scene for you: the course was only 6 weeks long, met every day for an hour and a half for ‘lecture’ and twice a week for lab. The text we used was the ACS Chemistry in Context (9 th Edition, text and lab manual) where we covered Chapters 1 through 5, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 14.  The students ranged from rising sophomores to graduating seniors who majored in disciplines ranging from education, business, math, and philosophy.              At the start, I worked 2-3 hours each night to prepare carefully crafted powerpoint lectures with active learning break outs (more emphasis on the powerpoint lecture).. I believe I found myself relying on more traditional teaching methods because of my lack of confidence in teaching this material. But I quickly noticed the students were having a hard time paying attention and were drifting off.. who can blame them? Who wants to be ‘talked to’ for nearly 2 hours a day every day. After their first exam where grades ranged from low F’s to high A’s with an average of 68%.. I decided I needed to change things up and decided to shut my mouth and flip the course immediately. (This was actually inspired by a book I was reading at the time titled “Teaching with your Mouth Shut” by Donald Finkel.. read it, its great!) I didn’t make lecture videos, I stopped wasting time making power points, and instead allowed the text book to lecture for me by assigning readings associated with each class meeting. I then could spend most of my planning time and efforts in researching and choosing in-class activities that we spent 100% of the time on in class with students working in small and diverse groups. On exam two, the class average was a full letter grade higher than the first exam (76%), which was maintained in exam III and the final.          Students worked in small groups on various in-class activities described below. Because I found it so challenging to find and research the resources I used, I wanted to take a moment to share with you the materials I found helpful and also ask and see if you have an activity, book, demonstration or other resources that you find especially helpful for an intro chem course (Comment below!) Introduction Chemistry: A guided Inquiry (POGIL, 1 st Edition) by Michael Garoutte and Ashley Mahoney published by Wiley. I really wish I had this book from the very start! I requested the exam copy right when I found out I was teaching the course and it took a couple weeks to get to my desk but I was so happy when it arrived! While it wasn’t an all-inclusive resource, it was really valuable and we used a number of activities from the book in class such as the Acid/Base, Molecular Shapes, and Rates and Energies of Reactions activities. The only drawback to this text? It wasn’t put into a real-world context which was the emphasis of the ACS text book and the class. But I did hear lots of “Ah hah!”s  throughout the class meetings. For our nutrition and cooking with chemistry unit, we made pop rocks, rock candy and dipping dots in order to discuss phase changes, recrystalization and how the rate of freezing effects the creaminess of ice cream. Solving Real Problems with Chemistry (2 nd edition) by John Goodwin, David Hanson and Troy Wolfskill; published by Pacific Crest. This is another POGIL-like workbook that incorporates guided reflection on the actual learning process (which unfortunately the students would skip unless somehow incentivized). What I loved about this book (in addition to the reflective process) was the incorporation on intro chem/gen chem concepts into a real-world context. On days that we worked on these activities (such as “Time of Death – When did it Happen” (integrated rate laws) and “Keeping Warm with Carbon-Based Fuels” (enthalpy and heats for reations) I overheard a number of side conversations that related the chemistry to their daily lives in terms of retail, public policy, and CSI! Again, it was a great resource, but didn’t 100% line up with the text/material I was covering so wasn’t an all-inclusive resource. In our forensics unit, students got to test money for trace amounts of drugs and isolated unknown compounds for TLC analysis in order to link a suspect with a murder case. Calculations in Chemistry (2 nd edition) by Donald J. Dahm and Eric A. Nelson, published by W. W. Norton. This was an absolute fantastic resource for my class as the major determining factor for success in my course turned out to be the ability to solve mathematical word problems. I utilized this book as a supplemental tool and aligned sections from this book with the ACS text book for students to use as additional practice. I felt it was well written with lots of guidance and the cost is very effective! I think in future courses I will make this a required resource for the course and wish I had started utilizing it earlier. The students could have really benefited from me spending a day or two at the start of class learning and practicing basic word problem analysis and dimensional analysis without necessarily going straight into chemical concepts. Other various online resources I pilfered several other various resources from the web such as the new ACS Reactions Video Series (this is a great tool for engaging and contextualizing chemistry for folks with no science background and I am constantly sharing these videos through social media), the Legacy High School Chemistry POGIL activities, and for our forensics unit the Mixed Reception Activity by the ChemCollective. We also used the PhET simulations in class as well to demonstrate balancing reactions and phase changes. Student feedback on the course: " I feel much more prepared and really learned a lot" " The class was enjoyable and related to our daily life so we felt we would actually use this information... I found the worksheets helpful" "She created an environment that was comfortable to ask questions and dig deep into certain areas that were not understood well or people were interested in" "Class structure of handing out worksheets and learning in groups how to do them on top of her guidance was probably the best way for me to learn" "Less lecture, more practice seemed to work well in this class" Again, by no means is this meant to be an exhaustive list of useful tools for intro chem and I would love to hear your own preferences and ideas. But after writing this post... I am left with one question: Wouldn’t it be nice if we had one all-inclusive resource that was flexible and incorporated context-based active learning for our students? By no means can I require my students to purchase 1 text book, 1 lab manual, and 3 work books for a 6-week course. What say you? I’d love to hear your feedback, comment below: ... View more

If you are not yet familiar with the lightboard studio, let me briefly introduce this awesome tool! The lightboard is simply a clear glass board, framed with LED strip lights that the instructor stands behind and writes using fluorescent dry erase markers. The best part about this tool is that as you are writing on the board, your back is not to the viewer, hopefully allowing for more engagement with the video. This tool is very helpful to create engaging supplemental instructional videos, demonstrate problem solving, create lecture videos, or even a more interactive exam key in which the students can see your thought process! (Have another idea for the use of this tech? Let me know! Leave a comment below). Now, there are a number of tutorials out there on the internet that can describe how to construct this lightboard, but most will run you $3-5,000 in cost. In this post, I will share with you how we constructed and fully equipped our lightboard studio at BSC for less than $1000! Watch the brief introduction here: Video Link : 2032 The studio lay out: As you may have noticed from the video, the layout of the studio is pretty simple. You just need a dark rectangular room, a black screen behind you, 3 LED flood lights constructed in a 3-point configuration behind the board on to you, a mirror opposite of the board, and a somewhat decent camera mounted to a tripod.  In our studio, we use the mirror to flip the image (no I am not writing backwards that flawlessly) and the camera then records the image on the mirror.  For the sound, I used a 20 ft wired lapel microphone that plugs directly into the camera. I also purchased a wireless system that can use up to two microphones in case we want two people in the video. The sound quality is not as great with the wireless system, but I am clean that up post production using Camtasia or other video production software we already have on campus.  The shopping list: The cost of the construction is intimately linked to two items: 1. The glass used in the board. We used a 48X96 inch clear acrylic that was 1/4 inch thick from a local vendor, you can find this online at vendors such as Acme Plastics for around $160 but the shipping costs more than the actual glass, so we recommend trying to find a local vendor that can cut to your specifications. 2. The camera. There are hand-held DH camcorders that are very cost effective, but the next step up is full fledged professional cameras which basically triples the cost. We went with a small canon HD handheld that had a number of good reviews on amazon (see below). The entire shopping list can be found below: 48in X 96in, 1/4in thick plexiglass (cheaper option) or lead-free glass (up tp $10,000 but better results) -  We went with the plexi glass option from a local supplier for approximately $140 . While you can find this online at Acme Plastics for $126, the shipping is very expensive. In actuality the 96 in width is excessive and we had the local supplier cut it in half providing us with plexi glass for two boards. It is often difficult to find it in a smaller dimension. Wood and hardware to construct a base: $20.00 - $160.00 from Home Depot. Tyler constructed the frame and the base for the board by hand. The price range depends on whether or not you would like to put the board on wheels as castors are expensive. We opted not to put our board on wheels. The board is light weight and can be easily picked up and moved with two people.  Black backdrop or green screen with frame - $75.00 from Amazon (LimoStudio) Heavy duty muslin clamps – 6 pack - $8.00 from Amazon (K2M Mart) 2 LED studio lights: $69.99 /pair from Amazon (Julius Studio came with stands and light filters/diffusers) Set of two 9ft photo studio light stands - $36.00 from Amazon (Neewer) Telescoping microphone boom arm - $13.00 from Amazon (JamStands) This is actually used from one of the smaller LED lights to help with the three-point light system. 1 Dimmable Bi-Colo LED Video light with U bracket - $110 from Amazon (Neewer) Set of 2 lavalier wireless microphones - $40.00 from Amazon (Pyle PDWM2145) External lavalier microphone with 20’ audio cable - $25.00 from Amazon (Canon) The wireless system is nice if you want two people in the video, however the sound quality from the corded mic is much better. 2 packs of neon expo dry erase markers - $8.00 amazon (EXPO) Large wall mount mirror – donated by physics, estimate cost is $50 Polarizing lens kit for camera - $48.00 from Amazon (Canon, 43mm) LED light strip with power supply - $25.99 from Amazon (WenTop, actually came with two strips of LED lights so we have a backup or could use to make a second board) Tripod for camera – Donated by department – Estimate cost is $50-$100 for sturdy tripod. Dedicated HD video camera – Cannon Vixia HF R700 - $276.00 from Amazon By constructing your own board and base, and being a savvy shopper, you can construct this awesome blended learning tool pretty cheaply! How could you incorporate this into your own courses? I'd love to hear! Leave me a comment! ... View more

In the spring of 2016 I started incorporating a semester long service learning project into my senior level medicinal chemistry course at Birmingham-Southern College. While service learning may not be the first thing that comes to mind when we consider active learning or flipped teaching in the classroom, it does involve similar core values that flipped teaching hopes to achieve: a student centered application of academic material to help promote deeper understanding and critical reflection. The only difference is that the product of service learning must in some way provide a meaningful benefit to a target community. As an educator who continues to study pedagogy, I have quickly recognized the powerful impact service learning can have on a student; but as a chemist, I found it extremely difficult to imagine how I could incorporate such a valuable practice into my own courses. Instead, I decided to let my students do the imagining for me. Each year at the start of the spring term, I place students in small 3-4 people groups and prompt them to reflect on and propose a project that they could complete within the term. The prompt: To provide a frame work for the project, students are provided with the following prompt: Throughout the semester we will be developing, implementing and assessing a community service project. This project must: Emphasize initiatives to combat public misconceptions of pharmaceuticals and increase overall social scientific literacy in the Birmingham area. Increase opportunities for low-income families in the metro and/or surrounding areas to receive necessary medical care and educational support to properly take necessary medications and monitor their health. Be feasibly conducted by students in next year’s Medicinal Chemistry course over a 2-3 week period near the end of the term. This project can incorporate support from existing community service programs but must expand or implement something new within the scope of that program. If you plan to utilize an existing program, you must approach a representative of that program with your proposal and summarize his or her feedback/support. I expect this proposal to be NLT 5 pages typed, include sufficient detail on how the project can be implemented and managed, provide an explanation of the broader impacts of this project and how they align with this call for proposals.  As described above, students are expected to produce a written proposal which is assessed with a proposal rubric(also provided at the start of the term). Additionally, each group is then given time to present (or pitch) their proposals in front of the class. After the pitch session, students then discuss if they prefer to remain in their smaller groups and each group complete their own proposed project, or if they would like to align aspects of the various proposals to make one larger project that the students work on as a class. Each time I have done this project, the class has decided to work as one larger organization, at which point I encourage the class to set up a means of communication (groupme works well for this), to develop a timeline and to assign specific roles to individual students.  Assessment Strategy Beyond trying to visualize how service learning can fit into an advanced level chemistry course (which I offloaded on to the students), determining a way to assess and measure impact on academic learning and thus provide a meaningful grade for the students was also a challenge for me. So again, I reached out to the students for help and together we crafted a plan: Proposal (50 points): Already described above. Journal (50 points): Throughout the experience, students are expected to maintain a journal in order to document their contributions, log time spent on the project, and reflect on the experience. A total of 10 journal entries (one per week) is expected. Each journal entry should include a date, log of time spent on the project, should be NLT a page long and should include not only descriptive features, but thoughtful reflection as well. Reflective prompts will be provided on the course moodle page to help orient you as you write. Hours (25 points): Students are expected to spend NLT 30 hours on this project and the time spent should be documented within the notebook. This includes time spent in research, planning, journaling, preparation and implementation. Products (50 points): Students will be evaluated on the products (paper materials, videos, interviews, events, presentation poster) of their projects. If there is no tangible product by which to evaluate, students will construct a research style poster explaining the project. Community partner and peer evaluations (25 points): Each student will be evaluated by three peers and a community partner. The total score will be the average of each evaluation. Evaluations need to be justified, simply assigning a score without supporting evidence will not be acceptable. All together, the project was worth 200 points, or 20% of the total course grade, which aligns with the typical point distribution for the laboratory component of a lab based course.  The journal is an essential component of the project, not only because it provides evidence of time spent, it also provides an avenue of critical self reflection to help students' align their own expectations and understanding with that they were learning throughout the process. This year,  it also gave me valuable feedback in what did or didn't work well in the implementation of project that I can use in the following year. To help illustrate my point, here are some of the students' comments from their own journals: "It was nice to actually kind of use what we had been learning in a class in a way that I would not have originally through of." "I've found that I like the classes when we talk about helping the community, or even in the larger sense than other classes." "Beginning thinking about this project has encouraged me to become more aware of the struggles that so many less fortunate people face, as well as the responsibility that I have to positively impact these segments of the population... I am excited that this project will force me to get out of my comfort zone and engage with people with whom I may not normally interact". "An especially important consideration I had today was how valuable different perspectives and opinions can be within a team" "This project has already taught me that simply giving up out of exasperation is not an option." "However, I think this project is teaching me to plan further ahead and to be more supportive of my peers' work." "This project honestly  may be my favorite curriculum related work I have done during my tenure at BSC". "During the progression of this service project, I hope to gain insight into new models of empathy." "Overall, this has been a challenging yet rewarding task to complete. Really using my creativity is something I haven't had to use as a chemistry major/math minor/pre-med student. However, I do think it is incredibly important to exercise this part of your brain,, as it can be utilized in so many different ways regardless of career choice." The product This year, the students came up with a really clever and creative project: A youtube video series called "Vedicinal Chemistry" that features short 3-5 minute animated videos on common topics related to health and medicine. These videos are meant to be shared through social media and with local schools/institutions.. by why talk about it? Why not watch them? Video Link : 2029 Video Link : 2030 Video Link : 2031 I loved this project for a number of reason! First, it is something that the community can continue to use well beyond the single term in which the project was implemented, so it has a much more lasting impact. Second, it provided students a glimpse into my teaching style. A number of students remarked in their journals how surprisingly time consuming creating a simple, well-researched, 3-5 minute video can be. And third, it is something we can build on and easily expand upon in future classes at BSC. My plan now is to continue the Vedicinal Chemistry video series in next year's class and have each group of students responsible for proposing, developing and implementing a new video to share through social media and to our community partners who are already using the series.  Interesting in implementing a service learning project in your own course? Have ideas you would like to chew on? Let me know and leave your comments below! Also, feel free to visit my instructional resources page to see my rubrics, reflection prompts and evaluations I developed or borrowed for this project. I'd love to hear your feedback!  ... View more

In the fall of 2016, I implemented benchmark quizzes in my organic 1 classes, which I wrote about here.   The quizzes covered key learning objectives, they were pass-fail, and students had to be essentially 100% correct to pass.  Although things didn’t go entirely according to plan, the outcomes for the class were extraordinary. This past semester, I decided to modify this approach for my introductory chemistry classes.  I had two lecture sessions, with about 210 students total (70 in the morning session, 140 in the evening session).  I built the benchmarks around key learning outcomes for each chapter.  As before, the benchmark quizzes were pass-fail, and students had to answer each question correctly to pass.  Students had 3 opportunities to pass each quiz.  A sample quiz was posted beforehand.  Quizzes were worth 10 points each - 10% of their grade.  However, In order to unlock their full homework grade (also 10%), students were required to pass 6 of 10 benchmarks.  (See this article for more detail about this).    The Logistics Students took the quizzes each week at the beginning of their lab section.   I passed out the main quiz for that week to the entire section.  As students turned in their quiz, they could pick up re-quizzes from the previous two weeks to complete.  (For example, quiz 1 was available in weeks 1, 2, and 3 – but not afterward.)  Because each quiz was pass-fail, it didn’t take me long to grade (about an hour per week).  I simply sorted quizzes by pass-fail, then entered the passing grades.  I kept hard-copy grade sheets for each benchmark.  I recorded a “1” for students who passed the first week, a “2” for the second week, and a “3” for the third week.  This allowed me to track performance week to week.  One of the biggest challenges was staying up-to-date:  I had to post grades each week, so students knew if they needed to re-take the quizzes.  With 210 students, this seemed like the most labor-intensive part of the experiment. The Results Ultimately, I didn’t make it through every benchmark.  I made it completely through 6, and gave a 7 th twice, but at the high-stress end of the semester, I decided to give full credit for everyone.  Here are the results: In general, most students who were going to pass did so in the first week, or in the second.  Very few students passed the third week.  A fourth week clearly was not justified.  The one glaring exception to this was week 4 - naming ions and compounds.  I think that in this case, it took most students longer to really master the ion names and the nuance of naming the compounds, so even the above-average students needed a couple extra weeks before they could get the quiz 100% correct. To be candid, I found these results discouraging:  I designed these quizzes to keep students on-track with lower-stakes weekly quizzes, rather than waiting for the exams to realize they were unprepared.  I also wanted students to have the opportunity to correct their mistakes if they failed the first time.  But some students simply didn't put any effort into preparing for these.  Perhaps because it is a freshman level class, and the only chemistry requirement for several majors.  Or perhaps the stakes were too low, or the grading scheme too complex. Compared with previous semesters, my retention rates remained strong (>90%).  Scores on the ACS standardized final were slightly lower.  Despite the considerable effort, I did not see the effects I had hoped. But there were also bright spots:  While the benchmarks didn’t motivate every student, there were students who came to me to figure out what they missed, and to practice with me until they could work the problems correctly.  This was what I was after.   Conclusions So what do I make of this?  Using benchmark quizzes had a profound positive effect in my majors organic class, but a negligible effect in my non-majors class.  I suspect that a lot of this has to do with the psychology of the majors versus the non-majors.  For highly motivated pre-med students, it was a challenge to meet.  For the non-majors, the effect was different. I’m not ready to give up on the model yet.  I think it can still work in the non-majors classes, but I’ve got to tweak it for that group.  This fall, I’m planning to make two adjustments:  Simplify and raise the stakes: Spring 2017 Fall 2017 10 quizzes @ 10 pts.each 5 quizzes @ 20 pts. each Pass/Fail Pass/Fail 3 attempts 3 attempts 6/10 required for full homework credit No connection to homework My hope is that these changes will make it easier for intro students to see the importance of the quizzes, and give them more priority.  We’ll see how it goes. ... View more

It is clear from our posts that there are many ways to flip a chemistry classroom. I'd be very interested to survey the flipping styles of our community. Here are some questions you could answer: General Have you flipped all of the General Chemistry at your institution or do only certain professors flip? Videos Do you use videos? Did you make the videos in house or do you get them externally? Are the videos lecture-like or topic oriented, short videos (6-10 min)? Do you require the students to view the videos? If so, how do you monitor? Textbook Do you use a textbook? If so, which one? Why did you pick this textbook? Do you make daily (weekly, chapter-based) reading assignments? Do the students have the option of using an electronic textbook? If so, what percentage use the ebook? Quizzes Do you give quizzes? If so what is the frequency: daily, weekly, pop, after chapters? In-class activities What is your typical class size? What sort of in-class activities do you use? Do the students work in groups? Do you grade the activities? Does everyone in the group get the same grade? Do you use transponders or cell phone responders (such as Top Hat)? Do you have TAs or student helpers in the classroom? If so, what is the ratio of students to (helpers + professors)? If you use TAs or student helpers, do they receive special training? Homework Do you use online homework? If so, what is the frequency of the assignments (daily, weekly, chapter-based, or other)? What percentage of the final grade is the homework? If you don't use online homework, describe your homework practices. Other Do you do anything else that you consider important to the success of your flip? If you have not already written a post describing your flip, please consider doing so. Or, you could answer the questions above and send them to me at JohnOsterhout<at>JohnOsterhout<dot>com and I'll consolidate the responses and post the results. OK, I'll go first. General The style of the classroom is left up to the professors. In the Fall, I'm the only professor flipping. In the Spring, another professor uses my materials and flips as well. Videos I have not made my own videos. I use the ChemTours in the Smartwork system that we use for online homework. I also look for suitable videos on the internet to supplement the ChemTours or to fill gaps in the ChemTour coverage. I often use Khan Academy videos or random videos from the internet. Sometimes, students suggest a video and I will incorporate it into my worksheets if it is better than the one I have. I do not require video viewing. Textbook Our textbook is Chemistry, Fourth Edition (Fifth edition next year), by Gilbert, Kirss, Foster, and Davies (Norton). Our faculty picked it because the content was acceptable and the price was lower than most of the other textbooks. I make daily reading assignments from the textbook. The students have the option of using an electronic textbook only. About fifty percent of the students have opted to use the ebook only. Unfortunately, most of these have only their cell phones to access the book in class. A few students bring laptops. Quizzes I give daily quizzes that count for ten percent of the final grade. I give the students an assignment sheet that includes the day's learning objectives. The quiz comes from the learning objectives. I use the quiz to encourage the students to make at least a minimal effort to engage the material before class. In-Class Activities My class size is about 30. I don't have TAs or student helpers so the student to me ratio is about 30 at the beginning of the semester. My students work in groups of four unless I am forced to make groups of three. At the beginning of class, I assign the groups by major and consolidate them as students drop out. I use worksheets that I have developed myself. These are available to teaching professionals. The worksheets are a series of problems that require the student to practice the learning objectives. The problems are more involved than the quiz problems. If the students finish the worksheet in class and it all the answers are correct, then they can leave. If they do not finish, they have to turn the worksheet in completed at the beginning of the next class. I has to be perfect. I post the keys so at worst the students copy the key onto the worksheet. At best, they engage the material. Some do, because they report mistakes in the key. Homework I use the SmartWork online system from Norton. I give daily assignments. The assignments cover the assigned reading & learning objectives for the day and one or more questions from the previous day's material. The homework counts for twenty percent of the grade. General My flipped class is designed to put the ideas through their heads several times: the reading, the homework, the quiz, the worksheet, and the follow-up homework. I look forward to hearing from you. In the meantime, Happy Flipping!   ... View more

What made you think that it might be a good idea to abandon hundreds years of lecturing tradition and do something different? I would like to develop a post about why you, the members of our group, first decided to flip, how you took the first steps in flipping, and how your flip has developed. As a beginning, I offer my story. When I moved to Angelo State University, I was assigned to teach both General Chemistry and Non-majors Chemistry in my first semester. I am a biochemist and was previously teaching Biochemistry and the honors section of Biochemistry to juniors and seniors at the University of Arizona. ASU hired a young biochemist at the same time as they hired me to be department head so she got the biochemistry assignment and I got the freshmen. This freshman thing was new to me. The best that can be said of my first semester was that I survived. After that, I concentrated on General Chemistry and started to seriously consider how to improve my Gen Chem teaching. I always considered myself a bit of a ham and thought I could pull off this lecturing thing as well as anyone. However, the performance of my sections was low to middle based on student performance on the American Chemical Society final exams. How to improve? The idea of flipping was first instilled from articles in Higher Education and the Chronicle of Higher Education. I read with interest about the successes of active learning and the improvement of student learning when the students did the homework in class and watched the lectures at home. I decided to dip a toe into flipping. I was at ground zero: no video lectures, no classroom materials, no online support, no TAs, and no one else flipping at the university. I was teaching a Tuesday-Thursday section of Gen Chem and so had over and hour to work with. I decided to do a half-lecture then pass out an open-book worksheet. The fateful day came. My first day of (sort-of) flipping. I was nervous. I explained to the class what we were going to do. The students were skeptical. I gave my lecture; business as usual. Then I passed out the worksheet. There was an ominous pause while the students came to grips. Then the first question.... The first question was about how to work number one. The first problem concerned the first thing that was in the reading assignment. It was also the first thing I covered in my lecture. To add insult to injury, the student had his book open on his desk and key word concerning the first problem was in bold at the top of the first page. The writing was on the wall. I resolved right then to change the way I was doing things. I had suspected it before, but this confirmed two of my suspicions: 1) the students din't do the reading so they came to class completely unprepared (but you knew this) and 2) the students were too busy trying to write down everything I said to actually assimilate any knowledge. What to do? I resolved to completely flip the following Fall semester. The next year I used online homework to try to enforce engagement with the material before they came to class. I assigned online homework every day. I tried to find the simplest problems so the students would be getting an introduction to the material. This didn't result in their actually reading the book, but I knew from overheard conversations that they resorted to the book or the internet to find out how to solve the homework problems. I developed worksheets for each class, but that first year I didn't have any video component whatsoever. The class averages jumped up by about a letter grade. My sections started to show up 1&2 or 2&3 (out of 6-7, depending on the semester) on the exams. In subsequent semesters, I added the daily quiz, I incorporated video help into the worksheets, and I modified the homework to include follow-up problems after class. I am still refining. I describe how I run my class on a page on my website. The worksheets are available for download (free) to teaching professionals. I want to hear from you. I would like to hear your story and see how you developed your flip. I'd like to consolidate the stories for a later post or encourage you post your own story. Contact me at JohnOsterhout<at>JohnOsterhout<dot>com or look me up on the Angelo State University web page and email me there. Happy Flipping! ... View more

In the Fall of 2016 I posted that I was making my Flipped General Chemistry I worksheets available on my website, JohnOsterhout.com, for teaching professionals. Now, with the close of the Spring 2017 semester, I have just finished putting the General Chemistry II worksheets up as well (eighty three worksheets in I & II). My Flipped General Chemistry Page contains a description of how I use the worksheets. The worksheet are posted on a separate password protected worksheets page. If you are a teaching professional and send me link to your school so I can verify your position, I will send you the password. All materials are free. Contact me at John<no space>Osterhout<at>John<no space>Osterhout<dot>com or look me up in Chemistry and Biochemistry at Angelo State University and email me there. The worksheets have three sections: the Daily Quiz, the Introduction Page(s), and Key Questions. Here is Worksheet 25 pH of Salt and the Common Ion Effect. The Daily Quiz is usually seven questions, two covering the previous day's material and five on the current material. I try to make the five current questions correspond exactly to the learning objectives. After class, I post the Introduction Page for the next class as an assignment on Blackboard. The Introduction Page(s) consist of several sections: Why?, a short section to put the material in context. My Why? sections are very short because the student don't read them. Learning Objectives. This section contains the learning objectives as a bulleted list. For instance: Students should be able to: Predict whether a salt solution will be acidic or basic. As mentioned, these learning objective guide the content of the daily quiz. Resources. This sections contains the reading assignments, usually two sections of our textbook, Chemistry Fourth Edition by Gilbert, Kirss, Faster and Davies. ChemTours. ChemTours are very short, topical videos provided through the SmartWork homework system. Videos. This section contains links to video content.  Links in the Videos sections are to any content I can find that seems suitable. Sometimes these are Khan Academy videos and sometimes they are random videos I found by searching the internet. If I were a young chemist, smart and energetic, I would make my own. However, I am old, tired, and ugly so I doubt that any self-respecting student would sit through any video I'd make. Prerequisites. This is a short list of ideas from previous work that are needed to understand the material coming up. Vocabulary. As you might have guessed, this is a list of the new vocabulary in the section. Focus Information. The Focus Information section contains information from the reading that might prove particularly useful. I put important equations here and very short explanations of important ideas. As far as I can tell, the students don't read this section either, but it comes in handy for exam preparation and I can refer to it in class. Potentially useful information. When present, this section contains information that is usually necessary to solve problems in the worksheet. An example is the density of some liquid. The student must recognize that the problem requires the density and go find it. The final part of the worksheet is Key Questions. This section contains the problems for the day. I usually start with simpler problems and build up to more complicated ones, but I can't always do this depending upon the material. I try to make the worksheets long enough that the groups do not finish during my fifty-minute classes. Each link on my worksheets page will download a folder as a zip file. The folder contains everything you need: PDF files of the Assignments (the Introduction Page(s)), Worksheet, and Worksheet Key. Open document text files (.odt files) of the above for editing. I use LibreOffice on Ubuntu, but you can get LibreOffice or OpenOffice for Windows or Mac. These fully-featured office programs are free. A folder of graphics files. (Use the GIMP (raster graphics) or Inkscape (vector graphics) both free. A .png of a screen capture of the Smartwork homework assignment. A wxmaxima file of the calculations for the worksheet. Wxmaxima is a algebra program (sort of like Mathematica) that is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac. It's free. The worksheets are just one part of a classroom flipping strategy. However, it is daunting to contemplate making videos, developing classroom materials, and arranging homework assignments, all so you can give flipping a try. I have posted the worksheets for those who would like to try flipping without having to develop all of their materials from scratch. Since the files are editable, you can take the worksheets in any direction you wish. Good luck and have flipping fun! ... View more

Last Friday, April, 7, 2017, Kevin Revell gave a seminar at Merced College titled "Driving Student Success: Big Strategies and Little Tricks."  Kevin talked about how gaps in foundational knowledge limits student success in higher-level skills and courses. He talked about using benchmark quizzes, speed drills, and new digital resources to bridge the gap.  We all had a great time and learned a lot.  Thanks Kevin! After the seminar, Kevin shared with me that he will be the keynote speaker at the Second Annual Higher Education Flipped Learning Conference at the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO.  We hope you can make it. What: Second Annual Higher Education Flipped Learning Conference Where: University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO When: June 14 - 16, 2017 More Information: http://www.flippedlearningacademy.org/2017-initial-conference-information/ ... View more

The digital divide between the digital have’s and have-not’s is essentially non existent. In a typical class, less than 5% of the students in my classes at Merced College do not have access to, or own either a smart device or laptop. In fact most of my students purchased smart phones before I did (last fall). Using a student response system in-class has increased student participation in discussions and problem solving sessions. In order to provide all students with the ability to participate, I applied for and received funding from the Merced College Foundation to purchase three iPad-mini’s for use in my classroom by students who do not have a device to use. Since flipping my classes, I’ve used three polling programs for in-class assessment: Polleverywhere.com, Socrative, and REEF Polling. Listed below are the pro’s and con’s of each response system. Response System Pro's Con's Polleverywhere.com FREE Can be incorporated directly into PowerPoint Students text answers via any type of phone Variety of output formats Great for formative assessments Great way to get feedback from large groups during meetings, classes, etc. (with paid acct) Anonymous Must be setup prior to use Cannot be used to assign points Students cannot change their answers after submission Students must be present in order to participate. Higher-ed limit of 40 responses per poll (free account) Socrative FREE Can program questions directly into program or provide students means to answer Multiple choice, T/F or Short Answer questions Variety of activities (single question, quiz, space race) Responses anonymous No option for numeric answers Assigning points from Socrative must be done manually Students cannot change their answer after submission Quick answer questions are not sent to student’s phones, so student must be in class to receive question. REEF Polling Very easy setup Students can change answers until instructor stops poll Multiple Choice, Short Answer, Numeric, Target question types Records individual student scores Screenshot of each question saved to student’s account (along with student’s answer and the correct answer) Built in attendance feature (optional use of GPS to verify student location) Editable online attendance sheet and gradebook. Can participate when not physically in class Quiz feature requires a printed problem set. Paid subscription for students I currently am using REEF Polling in all of my classes. Students last Spring had the opportunity to try both Socrative and REEF Polling. In a poll, 87% of that class preferred REEF Polling over Socrative so I’ve required REEF Polling in my classes since Fall 2017.  Last semester I had a student with an extreme anxiety disorder. REEF Polling allowed that student to participate in the daily problem sets from home, and the student did very well in the class. The use of student polling programs in my class have made my students more willing to participate in problem solving, fostered discussion between students, and has enriched the student's in-class experience. ... View more

Keeping students actively engaged during class has been shown over and over again to increase student learning (http://www.pnas.org/content/111/23/8410.abstract).  Active learning studies have often focused on the activities students do while in the classroom but not on the methodology used to deliver content. Often PowerPoint slides play an integral role in how information is transferred between the instructor and students, but because PowerPoint slides are often pre-programmed, they seem very impersonal, inflexible and rigid. If someone were to ask me what is the biggest difference between a traditional and flipped classroom, I would say flexibility. In the traditional class, we feel pressured to get through the material, before the session is complete and s tress levels rise, on both sides of the podium, when time becomes short. In classes where instructors use PowerPoint, the right arrow key becomes the driving force for the in-class experience. Solutions to problems, if present, are already typed into the slides. A nimations, sounds, and other effects may help the slide show seem more interactive, but slideshows still tend to feel rigid. One way to get around the seeming rigidity of PowerPoint slides, is to use a drawing tablet , to annotate the slides via the PowerPoint pointer, pen, and highlighter tools located on the lower left hand corner of the slide (after starting the slideshow). In this way, the PowerPoint slides can be treated as an extension of the classroom whiteboard. Not all of the facts need to be typed into the slides. Bulleted lists, problem solutions, concept explanations, etc. can all be added onto the slides, in yourhandwriting, while running the slideshow. After the class, the annotations can be kept (and saved) or discarded. If kept, all annotations on one slide become a single image – which can then be easily deleted later if necessary.  Not only do in-class annotions allow instructors to modify explanations, but it turns the rigid, often dry PowerPoint slides into something that is both flexible, personal, and interactive.  For information on other in-class annotation tools, see a post Kevin Revell wrote on Tools for In-Class Annotation. ... View more

Another semester has come and gone, and I am still continuing to recount my flipping journey with my flipped biochemistry course at Birmingham-Southern College . While I primarily write these blog posts for my own process of reflection, I hope my flipping readers will gain some insight from these posts as well. If you need to catch up, check out the series in this order:  Flippn' Biochemistry In Defense of the Fli p Flippn' Biochemistry, Part II In Defense of the Flip, Part II After reflection from the Fall 2015 semester in terms of the CAT test, student evaluations, and the SALG survey, I had decided to test out some new ideas on the mechanics of the course in the Fall of 2016 such as: Model the in-class activities for the first week of class within a larger group, or start out with an activity that utilizes content most students are already comfortable with. Make a more concerted effort to connect the lecture videos with the in-class activities and remind students that the videos are simply there to help deliver the content they need to apply in the face to face activities. This was achieved by adding a brief 30 second introduction of each video lecture that explicitly summarized the purpose of the video, and aligned that face to face activities learning objectives with the content of the proceeding video. Substitute the muddiest points discussion board for the embedded lecture quiz videos. This component evolved mainly from consistent student feedback that they wanted more "muddiest point lectures" at the start of class, but still were not posting questions for me to address in these lectures the night before. So this term, students were required to post 1 question about the material from the video lecture or from the chapter materials and attempt to answer 1 other student's question prior to our face to face meetings. This alleviated two challenges I had faced: (a) I know consistently had relevant material to address in the first 10 minutes of class that typically always fed well into the activity and (b) served as a means to ensure students attempted to watch the videos or read the material prior to class. In previous years, I had attempted to ensure students prepare by embedding simple content based questions into the videos directly, or by requiring weekly online homework assignments. But both relied on lower Bloom's level questions which seemed misaligned with the exams and were confusing to the students and students found ways to cheat the system without actually having to put in the work. By requiring them to come up with original questions and reading through other student's questions, they found it more challenging to simply skim the material and were better prepared for classes. Technology Survey: As in past years, students were given a mid-semester survey asking them to rate the various tools from the course on their ability to help promote critical thinking a scale of 1 (not helpful or distracting) to 10 (very beneficial). As seen in the figure below, we continued to improve the appreciation for most of the course tools from 2014 (light blue), 2015 (gray) and 2016 (dark blue). As seen above, I believe that the increased appreciation for the POGIL activities and video lectures from 2015 to 2016 is a reflection of better connecting the course learning objectives with the in-class activities. Throughout the term I consciously repeated and aligned the course and specific unit learning objectives in the introduction of each video and at the start of each class. One potential alternative to the significant increase in the POGIL appreciation could be the that students had access to the 2015 in-class exams that were much more reflective of the POGIL of which the 2015 students did not have. By seeing ahead of time that the exams and the activities are very similar, I think the students are more engaged and appreciative of the practice.  Another significant change from 2015 to 2016 was the utilization of the course TA, as reflected in the "Recitation" category. In 2015 I recognized that having a TA for the course would be incredibly helpful for both me and my students, and during that term, the TA would facilitate the in-class activities with me. In 2016, however, I decided to instead allow the TA to hold weekly recitation meetings with students that allowed time for additional exercises, followup with the in-class activities and time to go over previous exams outside of class. These sessions were held in the evenings and were voluntary. As seen in the survey, the students greatly appreciated these meetings and it seemed to be a much better use of the TA's time. (In previous years, the recitation was scored as the "Facebook group" which provided students an opportunity to post questions or share material outside of class). But again, as we have seen in previous years, the students favorite tool for promoting critical thinking is still the course management page (moodle), and it continues to grow in appreciation. But I am happy to see that the POGIL activities and previous year's exams are closing in.  Student Evaluations: In comparing my student evaluations from 2014 to 2016, I have found significant improvements in student perceptions of the course design and my effectiveness as an instructor. Specifically, I have found significant improvements in students' perceptions in the following: The course was intellectually stimulating The course improved my ability to think critically and reason effectively The instructor promoted understanding of general concepts not just knowledge of specific facts. The instructor's overall teaching effectiveness. One of the key challenges in flipped teaching is that getting everything working well takes time, and often during that time, our evaluations from students can take a major hit. For the non-tenured, early career faculty, this can be a major concern as student evaluations are often taken into consideration during the promotion and tenure process. However, I am happy to say that after performing standard T-tests with my overall Fall 2016 scores to that of the entire BSC faculty, I have found no significant differences between my evaluations and those of my peers even while flipping. Student Comments: Even the comments from the students seemed more optimistic: "By clearly giving us the objectives" "She has provided us with good lecture material in the form of videos, powerpoints, etc. I also enjoyed the group work:" "Making me appreciate biochem and critical thinking between multiple disciplines. Particularly between biology, chemistry and physics." "This has been one of the best classes I've taken at BSC. It was interesting, I felt like all of my questions were answered, and I had fun." "Honestly this may be the best class I've ever taken here at BSC and even in high school. She did the best at making the information interesting, and was very organized." "Connected the class to real world topics - this made the class much more interesting." "She made this course interesting to where I wanted to learn more and ask questions. It helped me understand the major concepts associated with the biochemical pathways, and I know this will help me in the future." That's not to say all of the feedback was glowing: "STEM classes shouldn't be flipped because they are based on understanding of concepts, not opinion formulation like humanities classes. This material is too complex for us to learn on our own, which is why we pay $17,000 for tuition at this school." "The class cannot be taught this way. POGIL can be used for humanities and intro bio/chem classes but not for advanced classes. I needed to teach everything to myself and mostly just remembering POGIL activities." That being said, those were the only two vehemently against the flipped model comments I ran across in the student comments this year. Most of the other feedback was actually constructive such as "Give more time in class" , "Please provide more supplemental material", "Update some of the later term videos",  and  "have recitation times that all students can attend".  Changes for next year: Based on the feedback from both my students and my colleagues at BSC, I am making three changes for the course next year: 1. I am extending the face to face class time by moving the class from a M/W/F lecture at 1 hour each meeting to a M/W lecture at 1 hour and 20 minutes each meeting. While this does reduce my overall face to face time by 3.3 hours total over the course of the term, it allows us to not feel rushed through the muddiest points lecture and the in-class activities, and provides 10 minutes at the end of class to review the activity as a group, providing immediate feedback and closure.  2. I have recently received funds from BSC to construct a lightboard studio in which I can make more live-action lecture and supplemental videos where students can now physically see me lecturing and modeling problem solving strategies versus my voice over power-point videos. It is my hope that if they physically see me lecturing instead of simply hearing me, that they will be more engaged with the videos and the concept of "self-teaching" is minimized while the perception of learning is maximized.  3. By moving the class from M/W/F to M/W, I now know that all students will have that same time slot on Friday's open for the recitation (or supplemental instruction), alleviating scheduling conflicts between the students and the TA. I am also hoping to pick up two TAs next year, one that can focus on the recitations (the Friday time and then maybe a second evening time slot earlier in the week for convenience), and one TA who can work with me during the classes to facilitate the activities.  Here's to another great year, another great learning opportunity, and on to the next! Happy flippn' journey to you all! ... View more

Instructors (at all levels) have devised means of content transfer which do not involve the primary course texts as a response to student's seeming unwillingness to tackle, or inability to comprehend, the text. Over the years, many instructors developed a detailed set of class notes, presentation slides, videos, etc. that cover all of the important topics in the course. My teaching philosophy was very similar. Early in my teaching career, I required readings, but when I realized that students were consistently not comprehending, I didn't know where or how to deal with the problem, so I decided to work around the text, essentially reducing the 1000 page text into a collection of end of chapter problems. I didn't understand the reason why reading was so difficult nor did I have the tools to teach reading in my classroom. Moreover, I didn't think it even appropriate to be teaching reading in college level chemistry and math courses – shouldn't the students have already learned how to read? This semester I was introduced to a framework – not a program - through which reading is given high priority in the classroom and the instructor is given concrete tools to help students become proficient discipline readers. The framework is called Reading Apprenticeship (RA) [ 1 ] . In RA, the instructor is the content expert, who is capable of reading discipline texts. The instructor's role in RA is to provide a safe, collaborative environment in which students can be apprenticed to become proficient readers. In this framework the instructor demonstrates all of the techniques they use when reading. RA gives instructors concrete exercises and terms by which they can describe their reading and thought processes. The metacognitive discussion that arises through each of the dimensions listed below helps students develop into their thought processes to become readers. RA recognizes that reading is a very involved process that involves several distinct dimensions . The dimensions of RA include (link to graphic 😞 Social - Students help each other comprehend texts by sharing and observing each other's reading processes Personal - Students develop their identity as a reader Cognitive - Students learn problem solving strategies applicable to reading comprehension Knowledge-building - Gaining knowledge about the discipline through reading, linking with previous knowledge I have been incorporating RA practices into my chemistry and math classes this semester and am very pleased with the results. Students are  able to break down complex sections of the text book in preparation for class. Moreover, students are able to apply RA concepts to problem solving because the first step in problem solving is being able comprehend the problem . As the semester progresses, I will write up examples of the RA strategies t hat I am employing in my courses and discuss how students responded. References: [1] Schoenbach, Ruth, Cynthia Greenleaf, and Lynn Murphy. Reading for Understanding: How Reading Apprenticeship Improves Disciplinary Learning in Secondary and College Classrooms. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012. ... View more

Like most professors, my traditional grading scheme looks something like this: Assessment Points Unit Exams (4) 400 pts. Lab: 200 pts. Homework: 100 pts. Final Exam 200 pts. The problem with this classic approach is that it is too easy for students to miss foundational skills.  Consider an example from a non-majors intro course:  A student struggles with unit conversions – and performs poorly on that part of one exam.  This gap causes him to also struggle with stoichiometry later in the course.  But he does well on the qualitative portions, and is diligent with his homework and lab.  Ultimately, he gets enough partial credit to pass the class with a C.  But he still can’t convert between units.  And at some point in his career, this gap will hurt him. So instead, let’s begin with a question:  “What should every student who passes this class be able to do?”  To address this issue, I introduced benchmark quizzes in my organic classes in the fall of 2016 (I wrote about these here and here).   After exceptional results, I’m adapting the strategy to my intro chem classes this semester. First, I designed 10 key learning benchmarks.  Throughout the semester, I am giving 10 quizzes – one for each benchmark.  The quizzes are pass-fail, with no partial credit.  However, the students will have three attempts to pass each benchmark.   Further, the quizzes are tethered to the student’s homework grade.  In order to “unlock” their homework grade, they must pass 6 of the 10 benchmarks.  The quizzes are very direct, and students have an example quiz available to them beforehand.  Here are my benchmarks: Benchmark Description 1 Convert between units, including metric prefixes.  Relate density, mass, and volume. 2 Determine the number of protons, neutrons, and electrons in an atom.  Write symbols for atomic number and mass number. 3 Write electron configurations for atoms.  Identify valence configurations. 4 Identify ions and charges by name.  Correctly write the formulas for ionic compounds.  Correctly name ionic and binary covalent compounds. 5 Balance chemical equations 6 Solve mole-to-mole and gram-to-gram stoichiometry problems.  7 Solve stoichiometry problems using fuel value or reaction enthalpy. 8 Draw Lewis structures for covalent molecules and ions.  Identify the electronic geometry around a central atom. 9 Use the ideal gas law to solve for P,V,n, or T. 10 Relate grams, moles, volume, and molarity for solutions. I plan to administer these quizzes at the beginning of each lab period.   Students who have not passed previous quizzes can re-take the earlier quizzes at the same time.  Here are two examples of the sample quizzes I shared with the students.     Implementing this comes with some logistical challenges:  I have both morning and evening classes, with a little over 200 students total.  However, by making the quizzes pass-fail, I remove the need to mark up the quizzes or agonize over partial credit.  Passes go in one pile, fails in another.  I think I can move through them quickly. I’m looking forward to giving the first benchmarks this week.  I’ll update as the semester progresses. ... View more

Last fall, I implemented a set of benchmark quizzes in my organic chemistry classes.  These quizzes arose from a simple question:  “What should every student who passes my class be able to do?”  Adapting the approach of Joshua Ring, the quizzes were pass-fail, with no partial credit.  Students had more than one attempt to pass the quizzes, but they had to get the quiz completely correct in order to pass.  Further, I tethered the quizzes to students’ homework grades:  In order to receive credit for homework, students had to pass 5 of the 6 benchmarks by the end of the semester. Not everything went as planned.  My benchmarks were compressed toward the end of the semester, leading me to trim the number of quizzes and removing the restriction on the homework grade.  Nonetheless, the results were remarkable:  Rather than limping through exams with partial credit and moving on to other topics, the multi-attempt, pass-fail approach drove students to analyze their knowledge gaps and hone their understanding.  After two or three failed attempts, students often made their way to my office to figure out what they did wrong.  It clearly made them stronger. Quantitatively, I was able to compare my class to the previous two semesters, using the ACS standardized exam.  The only major pedagogical change was the introduction of the benchmarks.  Here are the exciting results: Semester Students Average Percentile Fall 2015 58 56 Spring 2016 40 45 Fall 2017 46 73 I don’t think the Benchmark quizzes can be exclusively credited with these outcomes.  Our fall classes are usually stronger, and this was an exceptional bunch.  However, they definitely contributed.  I was especially interested to see the effect on those students at the bottom of the class, who often have the most pronounced knowledge gaps.  Here is the change limited to those students who finished in the bottom quartile of the class on the ACS exams: Semester Students Average Percentile Fall 2015 15 17 Spring 2016 10 11 Fall 2017 12 23 This semester, I've moved out of the organic sequence and into Introductory Chemistry.  I'm teaching large daytime and evening sections, and using an adapted benchmark scheme for both.  More to come about this in an upcoming article. ... View more