POGIL vs Traditional Lecture in Organic I

1. POGIL vs Traditional Lecture in Organic I Gary D. Anderson Department of Chemistry Marshall University Huntington, WV

2. Numerous Previous Studies • All other comparisons have involved comparing results from two or more professors or from two or more school terms • This comparison involves three sections of Organic I in the Fall of 2005. Sections 101 and 102 (84 total students) were taught using POGIL approach, Section 103 (84 students) was taught using traditional lecture approach. • Students were informed of differences and given chance to change sections

3. Professors • Same professor taught all three sections of Organic I • Another professor taught both sections of Organic II in Spring 2006 so both groups of students had the same environment for Organic II

4. Same for Both Groups • Organic I Instructor • Schedule • Two 75 minute classes per week • Textbook (Hornback 2nd Ed.) • Order of topics

5. Same for Both Groups • Problems assigned from text • Computerized homework sets • Vista and WebAssign • Extra tutoring available • Quizzes • 5 minute quiz at the beginning of every class

6. Same for Both Groups • Exams • Same exam used in all three sections • Students were instructed to put 9 digit student ID number on paper but to not put name or section information • All exams were mixed together and graded one question at a time • Common Final Exam

7. Differences • Time of Day • POGIL at 2:00 or 3:30 • Lecture at 6:30 • Class Size • Pogil, 2 sections with 45 and 39 students • Lecture, 1 section with 84 students

8. Organic I Grades

9. Grade Distribution Organic I

10. Organic IFinal Exam Score Distribution

11. Grades for Repeaters, Organic I

12. Grades Distribution for Students Repeating Organic I

13. Organic II Grades

14. Grade Distribution Organic II

15. ACS Exam ScoresOrganic II

16. Is POGIL Better than Lecture? • Results from Fall term were encouraging enough to justify trying again in Spring but high percentage of repeat students in Spring • Two sections (limit 35) using POGIL are planned for Fall 2006 along with one section using lecture • POGIL group appeared to do significantly better in Organic II

17. What Did the Students Think? • Mixed Reaction • Some love the POGIL approach • Some hate it • Highly dependent on motivation and work ethic of the student

18. SALG Survey • POGIL Group: I would have preferred that this course be taught entirely using lecture • 19% Strongly agree • 25% Agree • 25% Neutral • 19% Disagree • 11% Strongly Disagree

19. SALG Survey • Lecture Group: I would have preferred that this course be taught using the POGIL guided learning approach used in the other sections. • 5% Strongly Agree • 12 % Agree • 59% Neutral • 17% Disagree • 7 % Strongly Disagree

20. SALG Survey • I would recommend the method of teaching used in my section to a person taking this course next year. • 12 % Strongly Agree, 35% Agree, 32% Neutral, 12% Disagree, 8% Strongly Disagree (N=40) • 11% Strongly Agree, 33% Agree, 22% Neutral, 19% Disagree, 14% Strongly Disagree (N=36) • First group above is lecture, second is POGIL

21. Student Comments (Good) • This is my second attempt at Organic. I liked POGil very much. I hope that it will continue to be taught this way at Marshall • I really enjoyed the POGIL approach. I think it helped me a great deal understand things a lot better than if I had just had a teacher up there lecturing at me. • I think this class made the complexities of organic chemistry easier

22. Student Comments (and Bad) • I think the POGIL approach has benifits, but would be best coupled with a lecture • I don't know that the POGIL style helped me all that much because I felt that I ended up trying to teach myself everything from the book.

23. Name at Least One Strength • Critical Thinking. Caused me to analyze problems more carefully before attempting a solution. • Having students explain concepts really helped out a lot. • I plan on doing more group learning with courses in the future • One strength was the relaxed atmosphere of the class.

24. Strengths • Teaching one another and helping each other with our weaknesses • The instructor acknowledged the difficulty of the course, which showed respect for the students, yet he maintained that it wasn't impossible to do well. • This course helped me manage my time to learn large quantities of material.

25. Name at least one area for improvement • Organic is not a class made to teach yourself. A fair paced lecture would have provided a much better learning enviroment • Teach the whole class with the POGIL approach, reaction part and all. • I feel that for future classes using POGIL, it needs to be STRESSED that the chemactivities are only a part of the learning process

26. And I Didn’t Pay the Students Who Said This • For Improvements • None, the class was fine • organic chemistry seems easy and now I believe I can do it • One strength was the relaxed atmosphere of the class and it positively impacted learning by helping to alleviate some stress

27. Other Factors • Experience • 30 years experience using lecture mode • 0 experience using POGIL mode • Hopefully I have learned something in 30 years • Improved Lecture • Working with two POGIL groups right before lecture probably caused me to modify my lecture a bit to answer the questions I had run into in the POGIL groups

28. Conclusions • Overall performance in Organic I appears to be virtually same for both groups • Overall performance in Organic II appears to be somewhat better for the POGIL group • Not enough observations to be sure but repeaters in POGIL group may have done better than those in the lecture group

29. Acknowledgements • Andrei Straumanis • Jim Spencer • Andy Bressette • Dan Libby • The entire POGIL team • Marshall administrators and colleagues