The Introductory Chemistry course at my suburban community college is taken by students seeking admission to, or meeting, the requirements of certain 2-4 year health career programs. Students seeking to meet the physical science general education requirement, including some students preparing for K-12 teaching careers, also take the course. During the Fall 1999 semester I taught a section of this course which was scheduled for six continuous hours (8:00a.m.-2:00p.m.) on Saturdays. I was concerned about keeping the students actively engaged and interested in the course, so I initiated certain reforms-e.g., group solving of challenge problems (for 30-50 min each week), weekly student journal writing assignments, and an oral laboratory final exam, and focused my research on their nature and impact. I continued using small-group student poster presentations and individual reports on news articles, elements that I had implemented in the past.

Despite the fact that 30-40% of the lecture time was relinquished to other activities, performance on tests in this section was comparable to that of students enrolled in sections taught by other faculty as well as sections taught more traditionally in earlier semesters by myself. However, the retention rate and self-reported student satisfaction and interest in chemistry in this class were higher.

The challenge problems gave students an opportunity to think collaboratively with their peers about the lecture that I had given. As I was walking around, I could see and hear students helping each other "get the point." Students got frustrated when some of their peers were "just alive" but not engaged in groupwork. As they turned to me for resolution, I gave them back the charge of getting their peers involved. I kept them working in the same groups throughout the semester. My principle was to diversify group composition in terms of ethnicity and native language, and self-reported attitude towards chemistry and anticipated grade in the course.

The student journals also proved to be very valuable in giving both the students and myself a feel for where the students were. I used the journal entries like minute papers at the end of the session, asking students to reflect on the most important point they understood, the "muddiest" point, and an example of a connection between lecture, lab, and everyday life. I used the students' responses to make teaching decisions. For example, I did not spend more time on stochiometry problems after reading from students that they had not had much trouble with them. The challenge problems that students had worked in groups after my presentation had given them an opportunity to grasp fundamental ideas. A limitation, though, of the journals surfaced-students' journal entries seemed relatively disconnected from each other. Students needed to build more on past reflections.

Finally, the oral exam offered the students and myself a different way of appreciating what the students were able to do or struggled with. For about 60% of the students, the oral exam strongly correlated with the written exam. However, for the other 40% of student body, there was discrepancy in the performance in the two types of exams. Understanding where this discrepancy comes from is one of my next challenges.