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Experimental
Design:
At the time the assignment began,
669 students were enrolled in the 3 sections of the course: Section A – 264;
Section B – 319; Section B1 – 86. Subgroups of students were
established based on two goals: 1) having an appropriate number of students
to work on a problem of moderate difficulty that could end up as an exam
question; 2) having every subgroup in an approximate 2:3:1 ratio of students
by section (A:B:B1, respectively). 112 subgroups of 5-6 students (109 with
6 students, 3 with 5 students) were then established at the start of the
assignment based on the criteria.
Figure
1 shows the organization of the subgroups and the assignment. 112
subgroups can be easily combined into 8 groups of 14 subgroups. The students
communicated with their own subgroup team to solve the potential exam
question and would have a different exam question from each of the other
subgroups in that group. However, with a group-level forum, they could
begin to communicate on a social or professional level with other students
in the class. This design limits their maximum student contact to others
in their group and subgroup only (84 maximum) for the duration of the
assignment and keeps the discussion boards from cluttering into a disarray
of postings from the onset. Monitoring and facilitating discussion board
activity at the subgroup (5-6) and group (83-84) level seemed much more
reasonable for a single facilitator to accomplish.
Experience with the Making the
Virtual Classroom a Reality coursework from the Illinois Online Network
led to the appreciation of an orientation activity and having a social
discussion board forum where students can go to talk about anything other
than organic chemistry.[4,5] The orientation activity chosen was the “8
Nouns” activity, where each subgroup member lists eight nouns plus
a brief description of each noun that best describes that member to the
other members of the subgroup.[6] The social forum was called the Expresso
Bar, and was established at the group level to allow students to converse
with classmates beyond their subgroup at a manageable level.[5]
The discussion board forums that
each student had access to at the onset of the assignment included the
following: a) Main; b) Notes; c) Instructor’s Office – Group
(Name); d) Expresso Bar – Group (Name); e) Orientation – Subgroup
(Name); f) Subgroup (Name); g) Group (Name). Group names were simply the
first eight letters of the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon,
Zeta, Eta, Theta. Subgroup names were surnames of famous chemists, past
and present, and were generated to strike up interest in chemistry beyond
what a generic subgroup number would. The actual spreadsheet used
to organize the groups and subgroups (students’ names omitted) is
provided.
The Main forum was locked to
student postings and hosted announcements from the facilitator for students
to see. The Notes forum was locked to student postings and contained reminders
about the appropriate timeline for subgroup progress called “Milestones.” The
Instructor’s Office forum was accessible at the group level and was
the forum where students can ask questions about the assignment or about
anything pertaining to the course. The Expresso Bar forum was accessible
at the group level and was a social forum where students were welcomed
to talk about anything other than organic chemistry. The Orientation forum
was accessible at the level of the individual subgroup. This is the forum
that the 5-6 members would post their “8 Nouns” and introduce
themselves to one another. The Subgroup forum is where the members of the
subgroup would find their assigned question to answer, discuss potential
answers to that question, and come to a consensus answer for the subgroup.
Finally, the Group forum is where each subgroup posted its final answer.
The Group forums remained locked until 48 hours before the end of the assignment
to maintain an orderly forum.
Each of the 14 subgroups within
a particular group had a different question to answer, so it was not possible
for a subgroup’s answer for a question to be useful to another late
subgroup within the same group. Yet, the students within a group can see
all 14 questions (and
answers for them) for the first time at the end of the assignment and benefit
from the work and knowledge gained from up to 84 students. After the assignment
concluded, a WebCT Assignment Answers forum was created to display all
of the subgroups’ answers to a particular question in an organized
fashion to all students. Comments from the facilitator at the end of this
forum guided the students to which answers were the most correct amongst
the 8 subgroups who answered a particular question.
The 14
questions used in the WebCT Assignment were created with several
criteria in mind. The first criterion was that the question had to contain
sufficient difficulty such that it required the work of 5-6 students
to achieve a correct or adequate answer. Topics that had not yet been
covered in lecture but were available for investigation in the textbook
were excellent for this. The second criterion was that the question needed
to be phrased such that an objective answer could be provided for easy
grading for the WebCT Assignment and on the subsequent exam. The third
criterion was that the questions needed to broach relevant topics that
would be discussed throughout the semester. The final criterion was that
students should be able to answer the questions in a text-only format.
No attachments, links, graphics, or files were allowed as part of the
answers, because it was felt the answer should be accessible to all students
in the class without the need for extra programs, plug-ins, or other
external software. Sample questions: “Predict the position of the
substituents (axial/equatorial) in the lowest energy conformation for
(1R, 3S, 4R, 6S)-4,6-Dimethylcyclohexan-1,3-diol. Rationalize your answer.” and “List
and describe the similarities and differences between a carbocation,
a carbanion, and a radical.” The first question required
the students to build the model of the molecule with the correct stereochemistry
correctly and then challenged the students to express what they see in
a textual form on the discussion board. The second question required
students to look up definitions and trends for the three species and
then discuss these trends with their colleagues until they come to a
consensus agreement.
The discussion board forums mentioned
previously were created on WebCT and totaled 251 for the assignment (Main,
Notes, 8 Instructor’s Office, 8 Expresso Bar, 112 Orientation, 112
Subgroup, 8 Group, and a compiled answers forum). About 3 hours time were
needed to create all of these forums, but roughly 40 hours of dedicated
work were required to establish the roster of members of each of the private
forums. Posting “Purpose of the Forum,” “Tyson’s
8 Nouns,” and “How to Post Your Answer” messages in each
discussion board forum to orient the students to using each forum properly
required about 5 hours work. Finally, another 4 hours were needed to write
and construct the online Pre-Assignment and Post-Assignment surveys.
The principal consumption of
time in preparing the assignment is maintaining and monitoring the most
updated roster of students throughout the assignment. Assigning and establishing
access for new students while closely monitoring those students who drop
the course before the assignment starts is the most difficult aspect of
executing the assignment properly. Failing to do so affords the risk of
creating subgroups that begin with less than the optimum number of expected
members and complicates the situation for students who are just beginning
to get oriented with their team members. Dynamic rosters are common with
large classes at the beginning of the semester. However, it was a variable
that had to be negotiated if the assignment was to serve its stated purpose
of training students with the technology and increasing student confidence
of discussion board use before the first course examination
Background
Objectives of the Work
The WebCT Assignment
Experimental Design
Facilitation of the Assignment
Grading the Assignment
Results - Student Surveys
Acknowledgements and References
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