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I began teaching here almost three years ago and I started with a very
traditional teaching style. As part of my plan for change, I wanted to
explore ways to get the students to interact with each other and reflect on
their work without totally giving up my "traditional" teaching techniques.
Collaborative learning became one of the vehicles I used. I continued to
lecture but I occasionally stopped and asked students to solve problems in
their groups. I also devoted some lecture periods entirely to group work.
This group work helped students clarify ideas, and allowed me time to work
directly with groups that needed more help.
I also incorporated group work in quizzes. Quizzes were taken during
discussion sections taught by graduate teaching assistants. Students first
worked on and turned in a quiz individually. Then students broke up into
their assigned groups and reworked the same quiz in their group setting. The
grade for each student was the average of the individual and group quiz. In
this way, students had the opportunity to work on the same material again and
discuss it with their peers. As time went by, students commented that they
learned more by discussing the quiz questions with each other and that they
understood the material better after having explained it to their group.
However, the idea of quizzes and averaged grades met with some resistance
from students at first.
Another vehicle that I used was an optional portfolio with the following
contents: a letter to me explaining what students believed they had
accomplished during the semester; reflections and corrections for each of the
three one-hour exams given throughout the semester, and a short essay on a
topic of the students' choice that connected topics covered in the semester
with something in their everyday lives or the world. The exam reflections
were each turned in to me for a quick review about two weeks after the exams.
They were then returned to the student for inclusion in the final portfolio.
The majority of the students choose to participate in the portfolio. For a
large percentage of students I saw a definite increase in the maturity of
their thinking from one set of exam reflections to another. Students began
to analyze the reasons for their mistakes on the exams and enter into an
amazing amount of self-reflection. They came to recognize different types of
mistakes and work towards eliminating them from future exams.
Other data from students indicated that they felt they learned more than they
would have in a traditional course. The students were also very quick to pick
up on the fact that I really enjoy teaching and I want them all to do well in
the course and be successful in understanding the material. This gave them
more confidence that they could succeed even though the course workload was
relatively high. The degree of introspection that the students showed has
given me more confidence that the portfolio and cooperative learning approach
is highly effective in my general chemistry classroom setting. I do,
however, continue to struggle with the question of how much "traditional"
teaching I should let go and how I will know that it is enough. Another
question for me centers on the coordination between my "lecture" session and
laboratory and discussion sessions led by teaching assistants that is
necessary so that students can enjoy maximum learning.
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