Collaborative Research: ChemQuery as a Formative Assessment Instructional Strategy for Chem 1

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Chemistry (12)This project focuses on improved instructional strategies in undergraduate general chemistry through new approaches to the formative assessment feedback cycle. In prior work funded by NSF, a conceptual framework, called the "Perspectives of Chemists", was developed that attempts to capture student learning patterns in chemistry. Chemistry is a set of powerful models of the natural world for which the discrete knowledge pieces are intended to build understanding. The aim of the "Perspectives" is to build working knowledge of these powerful scientific models, coordinating this knowledge into a functional whole. Without this view, the focus of instruction can become a fragmented acquisition of facts and algorithms. This project is using the "Perspectives" and an associated assessment system called ChemQuery to investigate formative assessment as an instructional strategy to help support student learning for about 1,400 students in UC Berkeley's Chemistry 1A course. ChemQuery includes computer-adaptive delivery of homework sets, called "Smart Homework," that measure student understanding on the "Perspectives" framework and then adjust questions to meet both the course learning objectives and the needs of students. Previously, the homework sets have been used to individualize homework challenge and scaffold from student's prior knowledge to successful completion of homework objectives. With this project, three different approaches to formative feedback are being investigated that could be incorporated within the "Perspectives": differentiating the scaffolding of the questions to connect with student prior knowledge, adding real time feedback with worked solutions, and adding real time feedback with differentiated worked solutions scaffolded to align with measured student understanding. Intellectual Merit: For STEM undergraduate education at large public universities as much as 50 percent of students entering the university intending to pursue STEM majors ultimately transition to non-STEM majors and careers, with little corresponding inflow into STEM majors. Part of this STEM attrition for these generally well-prepared students, with high mathematics and verbal test scores as well as exemplary achievement records in their prior high school science courses, may result from less successful learning experiences in the university classroom. Although there are many reasons for attrition, one strategy to help, that could also support student learning outcomes generally, is better formative assessment to address learning needs more closely as they arise. Broader Impacts: Advances in technology are allowing investigators to do more with assessment and differentiated instruction while at the same time lowering the previous cost barriers. Part of the goal of this project is to better understand how formative assessment and differentiated instructional strategies relate to teaching approaches in STEM courses. Investigations on how to use evidence of student learning patterns to refine teaching tools and techniques also are being pursued. Finally, the further development of the "Perspectives" framework may advance what is known about teaching and learning in chemistry, and offer conceptual models for assessment in other STEM disciplines.