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