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

本项目着重于通过形成性评估反馈周期的新方法改进本科普通化学教学策略。在之前由NSF资助的工作中，一个名为“化学家的视角”的概念框架被开发出来，试图捕捉学生在化学中的学习模式。化学是自然世界的一套强大的模型，离散的知识片段旨在建立对这些模型的理解。“展望”的目的是建立这些强大的科学模型的工作知识，将这些知识协调成一个功能整体。如果没有这种观点，教学的重点就会变成对事实和算法的碎片化获取。该项目使用“Perspectives”和一个名为ChemQuery的相关评估系统来调查形成性评估作为一种教学策略，以帮助加州大学伯克利分校化学1A课程的约1400名学生学习。ChemQuery包括计算机自适应交付作业集，称为“智能作业”，测量学生对“观点”框架的理解，然后调整问题以满足课程学习目标和学生的需求。以前，家庭作业集被用于个性化家庭作业挑战和脚手架，从学生的先验知识到成功完成家庭作业目标。在这个项目中，正在研究三种不同的形成性反馈方法，这些方法可以合并到“视角”中：区分问题的框架以连接学生先前的知识，在工作解决方案中添加实时反馈，并在区分的工作解决方案中添加实时反馈，以与测量的学生理解保持一致。智力优势：在大型公立大学的STEM本科教育中，多达50%的学生进入大学后打算攻读STEM专业，最终转向非STEM专业和职业，很少有相应的流入STEM专业。这些学生通常准备充分，数学和语言考试成绩优异，在高中理科课程中成绩优异，在STEM领域流失的部分原因可能是他们在大学课堂上的学习经历不太成功。虽然流失的原因有很多，但有一个策略可以帮助，也可以总体上支持学生的学习成果，那就是更好的形成性评估，在学习需求出现时更密切地解决它们。更广泛的影响：技术的进步使研究人员能够在评估和差异化教学方面做得更多，同时降低了以前的成本障碍。该项目的部分目标是更好地理解形成性评估和差异化教学策略如何与STEM课程的教学方法相关联。关于如何利用学生学习模式的证据来改进教学工具和技术的调查也在进行中。最后，“视角”框架的进一步发展可能会推进对化学教学的了解，并为其他STEM学科的评估提供概念模型。

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.