How can I teach undergraduate chemistry students to build pictures in their minds, and consider what might happen if something changes about that system? 聽By giving them an example system that they can watch and manipulate. 聽And how can I get my 600 students to explore such systems with guidance from an expert and discuss their findings? 聽Ask them to bring their laptops to class!
The real wonders of chemistry occur not at the macroscopic level where we experience everyday life, but at the microscopic level where protons, neutrons, and electrons exist as atoms, atoms interact to form molecules, and molecules interact with each other do something cool. 聽In chemistry (and especially in General Chemistry), we want our students to be able to conceive of matter at this fine level, but they can鈥檛 observe these minute interactions directly, even in the lab. 聽Really getting to the guts of chemistry can require a lot of imagination, especially since these systems are complex with lots of parts, and dynamic so that all of those parts move around at the same time.
So how can I teach undergraduate chemistry students to build these pictures in their minds, and consider what might happen if something changes about that system? 聽By giving them an example system that they can watch and manipulate. 聽And how can I get my 600 students to explore such systems with guidance from an expert and discuss their findings? 聽Ask them to bring their laptops to class!
Let me talk about the simulations first. 聽The聽聽at CU has created dozens of simulations (sims) for chemistry (and other fields related to math, science, and engineering) so that students can observe and explore phenomena at the microscopic scale. 聽Even better than many lab experiments, the PhET sims let the user control and manipulate the system, sometimes changing variables that would be hard to change in real life. 聽Some sims even show data that would be obtained for models that we鈥檝e since proven incorrect, like the 鈥減lum pudding鈥� and orbit models of the atom. 聽These simulations are really built so that students can explore ideas about each system, pose their own questions (鈥淲hat happens if...鈥�) and answer them, and construct their knowledge about the system.
Since the PhET sims have so many options for exploration, you can鈥檛 just tell a student, 鈥淗ere鈥檚 a sim. 聽Learn everything you can about this topic.鈥� 聽Very few students would be able to construct good knowledge. 聽Students need more guidance about what they can explore, especially for sims that show complex phenomena. 聽A great way to use the sims with students is with guided inquiry -- asking a question where students can predict an outcome, then explore their prediction with the sim.
I鈥檝e used sims in my course in several ways -- in lecture, where I show the simulation on my computer and ask students to make predictions, then show the changes; in recitation (20 students to 1 TA), with a worksheet-style activity; and as homework, with a short set of questions. 聽But I really think that students鈥� learning is best when they can explore with an expert, manipulate the variables themselves, ask for clarification, and receive quick correction if their thinking goes astray. 聽If we use the simulations in lecture, I鈥檓 also (more) sure that students are doing the activity, all students do it the same day (instead of across a week鈥檚 worth of recitations), and I can be flexible during the lecture with the direction of exploration. 聽So in my General Chemistry course (2 lectures with 200 and 400 students, respectively), I invited my students to bring their laptops to lecture so that we could work with several of the simulations together.
Of course, there are some challenges. 聽The expert to learner ratio is 1:200 or 1:400. 聽I鈥檝e just invited hundreds of distracting devices into my classroom. 聽And now I鈥檒l need to keep all of those people engaged and on task. 聽But I鈥檓 up for the challenge! 聽In upcoming posts, I鈥檒l report about using three simulations during four class lectures (two different weeks) in these large lecture sections, what worked and didn鈥檛 in this course, and whether I鈥檓 crazy enough to do this again in the future.
During two weeks of the Spring 2013 semester I invited students in my very large lectures (200 and 400 students, respectively) to bring their laptops to class so that we could work with simulations from the聽聽together in class. 聽The planning for these lectures had two main components -- getting students prepared, and having the lecture prepared.
Preparing the students was easy -- they just needed to download the simulations and bring their laptops. 聽We worked with three main simulations on student computers during the lectures: 聽聽(two lectures during the third week of the course),聽, and聽聽(one lecture each during the eighth week of the course). 聽Students were instructed to download the simulations ahead of time and test them out on their computer, with reminders in the previous lecture and by email.
Preparing the lectures was more challenging. 聽My co-instructor the course, a PhET simulation expert, and I wanted students to use the sims in several different ways, including exploration, answering open questions, making and testing predictions, and as a resource to check their answers to other questions. 聽So we planned our lectures to allow all of these practices.
My co-instructor has done research about the level of student exploration of sim features and the level of guided direction. 聽We wanted to set aside a few minutes for students to do some broad exploration of each sim, so we prepared a few broad questions in one slide and asked students to come up with some answers. 聽After a few minutes we regrouped for whole-class discussion and filled in the answers on the tablet PC.
We also wrote clicker questions based on the simulation and its images.
Preparing for this type of 鈥渓ecture鈥� is really a challenge. The hardest part is developing a clear set of learning goals for the students to help guide them to construct new knowledge and build on their existing knowledge. 聽Knowing how long each sim-related activity will take is a bit of an art, so you have to keep your eye on the clock during the lecture. 聽It also helps to be flexible during the lecture to handle questions from students and decide how to tackle any technical challenges.
So that was the plan. 聽What could go wrong??
Up next in my series: Was this experiment a success?
When your lecture seems like chaos, how can you tell whether it 鈥渨orks鈥�?
A class session in which a third of the students have laptops out and most students are engaged in exploring a simulation of the microscopic world looks (and sounds!) like chaos. 聽How can anyone tell whether these students are just messing around with the computer or if they鈥檙e actually learning something? 聽In this post I鈥檓 going to discuss some ideal -- and some more realistic -- indicators of success.
First, I should say what 鈥渟uccess鈥� would look like. 聽My goal for using simulations during class is to help all of my students gain better or deeper understanding of these topics than I think we could achieve with just the textbook and some lecture slides. 聽Ideally, students will be able to clearly and correctly explain each topic, draw pictures of these phenomena, and predict what might happen if you alter the system. 聽That鈥檚 a lot to ask for, and a lot of learning to measure.
Ideally, I鈥檇 try to measure each of these items compared to students from a previous semester. 聽Unfortunately, I didn鈥檛 have this opportunity because this is the first time I鈥檝e taught this particular course, and I didn鈥檛 have comparison data from other students. 聽So I don鈥檛 have the 鈥渉ard data鈥� that, as a scientist, I鈥檇 use to draw a strong conclusion.
However, I surveyed my students after each of these sims-in-class weeks to see what they liked and disliked about using the sims in class, to what degree they thought using the sims in class improved their learning, and for their open feedback on this topic. 聽I also asked exam questions based on the simulation topics (sometimes using screenshots from the actual sims) to gauge their comprehension. 聽Finally, I was able to observe students during the class sessions and see their level of engagement with the activity, including discussion with their peers about open-ended and clicker questions that I used during each session. 聽Engagement may not be the same as learning during these sessions, but I suspect that they are often related.
All of these metrics of success focus on the student side of learning, but there are also ways to assess potential growth in my teaching, too. 聽鈥淪uccess鈥� for myself in this exercise includes whether I can achieve the learning goals that I have set out in each session, whether the questions I鈥檝e posed to students are clear and solicit the responses I鈥檓 hoping for, and whether, if it didn鈥檛 quite work out during the first week of sim use, I was able to make an improvement for the next time.
In my final post on this in-class experiment, I鈥檒l reflect on any successes for my students鈥� learning and my teaching when using sims on student computers in large lectures.
During the Spring 2013 semester I invited my students to bring laptops to class to run simulations during two weeks of the course. 聽These class sessions were a little bit crazy, with about 鈪� of students bringing computers to the very large lectures (enrollment of 200 and 400 students). 聽After each set of in-class sim use, I surveyed students about their opinions of using sims in class. 聽Overall I think this experiment was a success, both for my students鈥� learning and for my growth as an instructor. 聽In this post I鈥檒l discuss what worked, what didn鈥檛 work, and what I鈥檇 try to change in the future.
What Worked
I organized these class sessions to allow students a few minutes to explore the sim and answer a few broad questions, and later in each class session students used the sims to answer several clicker questions. 聽During these classes, I wandered the aisles of the classroom during open-answer exploration and clicker questions to observe the students. 聽Students that were using the sim on their computer or sitting next to those students were engaged in deep, active discussion about the activity. 聽Although I can鈥檛 be sure that they were learning everything I wanted them to, it was clear that they were participating and thinking. 聽聽Students nearby, in the same row or in the row behind the computer, watched but rarely participated in a discussion. 聽Students who weren鈥檛 able to see a peer鈥檚 computer reported that they mainly watched the sim projected on the instructor鈥檚 screen. 聽I think these activities were quite beneficial for students that were able to actively participate.
I asked students whether they felt that using the simulations in class on their own computers was useful for their learning. 聽Most students reported that the simulations helped their learning 鈥渁 little鈥�, 鈥渟omewhat鈥�, or 鈥渁 lot鈥�, with higher ratings after the second set of simulations.
Finally, there was some positive student feedback about using the sims in class. 聽Many students noted that it really helped them to visualize some of the topics that are hard to draw on paper (the energy levels for the electronic structure of the hydrogen atom, the three-dimensional shapes of molecules); however, many requested more guidance and clarity during the class session to make the simulation use more productive.
This is a short list of 鈥渟uccesses鈥� for the class, but I think they鈥檙e enough to get me to try this again in the future, with several modifications for both my part and the students鈥�.
What Didn鈥檛 Work, and How to Fix It
First, a lot of students were resistant to using simulations during 鈥渓ecture鈥� time and felt that they were not being 鈥渢aught鈥� the material. 聽Most students think that 鈥渓earning鈥� happens when I talk and they write, but a couple decades of science education research have shown that鈥檚 not the case! 聽Most CU students are used to clickers and are willing to go along with clicker questions as 鈥渓earning鈥�, but using computer simulations in class was too far out of the box for many. 聽I think this resistance signifies that I haven鈥檛 done a good enough job of explaining to my students how learning happens, and why doing constructivist activities in class is learning. In future courses where I want students to use sims on their computers, I know I need to start this discussion at the beginning of the course and return to it often so that students can better appreciate active learning techniques.
Second, we had several challenges with actually using the sims during class. 聽Many students were resistant or unable to bring a laptop to class. 聽Some students commented that they don鈥檛 have a laptop, and some said that they don鈥檛 want to carry one all day. 聽Nevertheless, about a third of students did bring laptops. 聽It seems like that should make a nice arrangement for groups of three students per computer. 聽But the computers were not distributed evenly around the lecture hall, so some students were in a laptop-less desert. 聽Despite encouragement from the instructors, students would not move, even just one seat to be near someone with a computer. 聽Perhaps this is a consequence of the fixed-seating arrangement of lecture halls, but many students had the opportunity to move over a few seats and would not go. 聽I think one solution to both of these problems might be to form small groups (3-4) of students early in the course so that they get used to working together. 聽One group task would be to make sure that a group member brings a laptop on days when we use simulations in class. 聽Setting up groups in a class of 200 will be a challenge, but it might be a way to create a little bit of community and address this problem.
We also faced technical challenges to get the sims running on student laptops during class. 聽We instructed students to download and run the sim on their laptop before coming to class, but only a few students did so. 聽So when we asked students to start up the sims during class, many needed to download the sim and update relevant software. 聽This caused two problems. 聽First, in the larger lecture, we saturated the wireless network, and second, it wasted class time when I wanted students to be working with the sims. 聽The network issues were an easy fix after I told OIT about the problem. 聽Getting students to prepare for class is a little more challenging. 聽I think the key might be to give an pre-assignment worth a few points that requires students to explore the sims and therefore download and make them run on their computers.
I could also improve my in-class plans for sim days. 聽I wanted to give students time to explore the simulation, answer overarching questions about each topic, and create clicker questions to chain together the learning goals. 聽During the first week, when we used the PheT聽聽sim, the overarching questions were quite broad, and students reported on class surveys that they wanted more guidance during this activity. 聽I think their comments were warranted; this sim shows several models of a complex system, with multiple representations of the models. 聽That鈥檚 a lot to process on the fly during class! 聽聽(Again, an advantage of a pre-class sim assignment.) 聽During the second week of in-class sim use we worked with the聽听补苍诲听聽sims. 聽Both of these are less complex than the Hydrogen Atom sim, which made them a little easier for the students. 聽聽I also did a little more demonstration of some of the sims鈥� features and really worked to focus and clarify the open-answer, exploratory questions. 聽After this round of sims, students reported that these sim days were more helpful for their learning than the first round. 聽So I made some progress, but further improving the guidance and outline for these classes will be an added improvement.
Finally, I also used the simulations to write exam questions to connect to the images that students had already seen in class. 聽The question below was on an exam a few days after the first week of sim use, but before students had performed a lab experiment on the same topic. 聽Unfortunately, students did not perform well on this question (45% answered correctly). 聽I hadn鈥檛 asked a quantitative question about the relationship between wavelength and energy, so I鈥檓 not sure how to interpret the low scores. 聽Discussions with students after the exam showed that some were confused because two of the lines weren鈥檛 the full height of the graph. 聽Students had observed these short lines when using the sim in class, and no one who proofed the exam (my co-instructor and three chemistry graduate students) realized that the different heights of the lines would add an unintended challenge for students. 聽Overall, I think using the sims to create exam questions is a good practice, and I intend to continue and reuse some of these in the future.
The Outlook
I think this experiment to have students bring their laptops to class to explore simulations of microscopic phenomena was a success. 聽Despite the challenge, I think that the sims that show more complex phenomena are better for in-class use because students can benefit more from expert guidance. 聽Making sims-in-class work better 聽will require a lot of improvements. 聽I鈥檒l certainly be attempting this again in my classes, implementing the changes I outlined above. 聽I think I鈥檓 on the right track.
