Course Redesign with Technology

The number of students entering Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines has significantly increased in the California State University system, the largest post-secondary public school system in the nation. Students pursuing STEM disciplines have increased 56% in the last ten years, and increased 6.7% in the past year alone compared to an overall growth of 3.4% in total enrollment system-wide (Malhotra, 2012).

 

Thousands of students are required to take organic chemistry as part of their core undergraduate courses and to enter professional and graduate STEM programs. Organic chemistry is notorious for high failure rates and is widely known as a “gate-keeper” class as it prevents many students from progressing to other courses. In the California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry for example, 31% of first semester organic chemistry students failed in the Fall 2012 semester alone. The organic chemistry sequence has traditionally very high attrition rates that approach 60% in some sections.

 

CSULB Organic Chemistry faculty currently employ teaching strategies that include: lectures for 40-60 students, laboratory courses tied to the lecture, assigning problems from the textbook as well as additional problems created by the instructors, assigning students to learning groups where they have an opportunity to discuss and solve assigned problems, one office hour each week dedicated to additional discussion and problem solving, and supplemental instruction. Although instructors report that student performance and success improves with additional engagement, the results remain anecdotal at best and these practices have not been sustained, developed, or formally implemented.

 

According to Klara, Hou, Lawman, and Hang (2013), students typically perceive chemistry as, “difficult, abstract, and unrelated to daily life,” and “students do not gain a full understanding of chemical concepts or find any real life applications” (p. 401). Research from other post-secondary institutions has demonstrated that additional faculty-student and peer interactions beyond lecture are correlated to increased student engagement and effectiveness in teaching chemistry. Chemistry has historically high failure rates and is widely known as a “gate-keeper” class as it prevents many students from progressing to other courses, and has been identified by the California State University Office of the Chancellor as a high demand, high Drop, Withdrawal, and Failure (DWF) course (Cota, 2013).   The chemistry curriculum has among the most demanding coursework for high school and college students.  It has been demonstrated that although students are successful in other STEM courses, chemistry courses have been the most difficult to pass.  Chemistry instructors are aware that students often struggle with the abstract concepts they are teaching, and yet pedagogy in most chemistry classrooms does not address students’ needs to develop appropriate mental models of abstract chemistry concepts (Barthlow & Watson, 2014)

 

Small learning groups are positively correlated to significant improvement in American Chemical Society standardized exams (Peters, 2005), hour-long examinations throughout the semester, and consequently higher final course grades (Lyon & Lagowski, 2008). Students reported feeling, “more comfortable and confident about the subject when studying in groups than when studying alone” (Peters, 2005, p. 572). Faculty and student collaborative teaching has been tied to better student ratings for faculty, and more students enjoyed lab sections in which they had an opportunity to work with faculty to design the experiments (Klara et al., 2013).

 

As part of the course redesign project, the CSULB Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry launched CHEM 224 in Fall 2013 to create additional opportunities beyond lecture for small group discussions and problem solving, as well as implementing a flipped technology classroom format to engage students in an active learning environment.