Last week, which marked the middle of the semester, I asked my G-Chem 2 class for feedback on my new study guides. I’m teaching the Honors section this semester so it’s a small class. The averages on the two midterms are the highest I’ve had, and my exams have not gotten any easier (nor harder), in my opinion. So it may be that the students are being helped tremendously by the new study guide format. But more likely, they are being helped a bit, and they are already very strong students. Furthermore, size-wise this is one of the smallest classes I’ve taught. The students are engaged and ask good clarifying questions in class. All this to say that a number of factors are contributing to the strong student performance, and it’s not just the study guides.
Here are the four questions I asked, a summary of the students’ feedback, and some of my thoughts in response.
Q1: How have you been using the study guide? (Be detailed and honest, please!)
Some students are using this the way I intended after each class. Others are only using them as an exam crops up. One student mentioned going through them once a week (covering three class periods each time). Since the responses are anonymous, I don’t know if there’s any correlation between performance on exams and how the study guides are used. Two students explicitly mentioned using them to prepare for the pop-quizzes. One student mentioned working with others on it to clarify different ideas and answers. One splits up the conceptual questions from the “test yourself” problems, looks at the first group more regularly and then does the problems close to the exam as sort of a practice-test. All these are good uses. Two students noted that they had not used it much but think they would like to use it more.
I’m happy that the majority of the students are using the study guides at least semi-regularly and seem to be benefiting from them. I was expecting the varied use, and I don’t see that as a problem. In my drop-in (office) hours, I’ve been able to encourage the students to use the guides more regularly, and several students regularly come by to clarify their answers to the study guide even if there isn’t an exam coming up. That’s been a good thing. I purposefully didn’t give answers (other than numerical ones) to the questions to encourage students to come in and talk through their answers with me.
Q2: What in the study guide have you found helpful?
By far the “test yourself” questions were what students found most helpful. They also used it as a summary of the key points of each class. The students commented that they liked being able to see more examples of how I ask questions, in contrast to the online homework that is more limited in terms of conceptual pieces. A couple of students mentioned liking the “real-world applications” that accompanied some of the questions. I admit that I’m haphazard. Sometimes I come up with an interesting question, and sometimes I don’t. Depends on how much time I have to work on it. I expect to improve the guides over time. One student specifically mentioned that my format of asking questions (rather than making a statement) to reinforce important conceptual points was helpful. Many of them also used the study guide to organize the key takeaways from each class meeting. By and large, the range of responses covered what I expected.
Q3: What in the study guide could be improved?
Students wanted more detailed answers and worked solutions step-by-step. I was expecting this response even though I gave the rationale for why I wasn’t providing detailed answers. Students wanted to check if they were on the “right track”. I wanted them to do that check with me, rather than reading (and potentially parroting without understanding) a written answer I provide to a conceptual question. Also, because there is often more than one way to answer a question, I don’t want students to get overly narrow in the way they tackle problems or answer questions. At the moment, I’m sticking with my plan not to provide detailed answers and see how things go, although I might be convinced otherwise. The main reason is that the current approach encourages students to drop-in and talk chemistry, and I think this really helps them learn better more so than reading off whatever answers I might provide. (I do worked examples step-by-step in class, and the textbook also does this.)
There were a couple of comments about my questions (be they conceptual or “test yourself”) being vaguely worded. A student says: “… makes it hard if you are trying to pin-point what you don’t understand”. This makes sense. If you don’t know the material very well, which will be true for a learner, then I could see how I need to be more careful or clearer when I phrase my conceptual questions or points. Just because it’s clear in my head when I write a question doesn’t mean that it won’t be misinterpreted by the student who thinks I’m asking for something else. (I also see this on exams where a student writes an answer to a question I haven’t asked, although much less so for this strong Honors class.) Anyway, this tells me that I need to spend a bit more time thinking about how I’m phrasing things in the study guide. I hope that several more iterations will improve this.
Q4: What could I do as the instructor to help students use the study guide more effectively?
Several students mentioned that more reminders to use the study guides would be helpful! One mentioned having a short guide of “how best to use the study guides”. I talked about this in class, but have little verbiage on my course website – I should include more verbiage and that might help. One suggested that “students may be more incentivized to use the study guide if they knew that the quiz questions were being pulled from the study guide or if test questions were likely to mirror those that are on the study guides”. That’s a good idea. I had mentioned the second, but not the first. I could emphasize this point more.
One student mentioned that the study guides could be intimidating because it looks like there’s so much material. Very true. Turns out there is a lot of material in chemistry to learn. I’m using the current “daily” format to break it into small chunks. In a previous iteration, the study guides were more voluminous and even more intimidating. (The present students don’t know what the previous iterations looked like; one student mentioned being curious about “how the setup is different or changed from previous semesters”.)
Several students thought nothing needed to be changed. So I’m doing at least some things right. Here’s one student’s response to the question: “Nothing! They are extremely useful in that they emphasize the most important elements of each lecture session. I believe that [the professor] has provide all of the tools for success and it is up to students to determine how they will utilize these tools throughout the course.”
Overall, I think the study guides are doing what I’d like them to do. The issue of whether to provide more “answers” will continue to be in tension with my pedagogical goals and what I believe best serves student learning even if students think a different approach will work better. Sometimes I take what they say to heart and make a change. Sometimes I don’t make a change. Regardless, it’s good to get the feedback.
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