Casey Jennifer R, Supriya K, Shaked Shanna, Caram Justin R, Russell Arlene, Courey Albert J
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.
Center for Education, Innovation, and Learning in the Sciences, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095, United States.
J Chem Educ. 2023 Jul 12;100(8):2860-2872. doi: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.2c01253. eCollection 2023 Aug 8.
A parallel series of general chemistry courses for Life Science Majors was created in an effort to support students and improve general chemistry outcomes. We created a two-quarter enhanced general chemistry course series that is not remedial, but instead implements several evidence-based teaching practices including Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL), Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL), and the Learning Assistant (LA) model. We found that students who took enhanced general chemistry had higher persistence to the subsequent first organic chemistry course, and performed equally well in the organic course compared to their peers who took standard general chemistry. Students in the first enhanced general chemistry course also reported significantly higher belonging, although we were unable to determine if increased belonging was associated with the increased persistence to organic chemistry. Rather we found that the positive association between taking the enhanced general chemistry course and persistence to organic chemistry was mediated by higher grades received in the enhanced general chemistry course. Our findings highlight the responsibility we have as educators to carefully consider the pedagogical practices we use, in addition to how we assign student grades.
为了帮助生命科学专业的学生并提高普通化学课程的学习效果，我们开设了一系列平行的普通化学课程。我们创建了一个为期两个季度的强化普通化学课程系列，该系列并非补习课程，而是采用了多种基于证据的教学方法，包括以过程为导向的引导式探究学习（POGIL）、同伴引导的团队学习（PLTL）和学习助手（LA）模式。我们发现，参加强化普通化学课程的学生对后续的第一门有机化学课程的坚持度更高，并且与参加标准普通化学课程的同龄人相比，他们在有机化学课程中的表现同样出色。参加第一门强化普通化学课程的学生也报告说归属感明显更强，尽管我们无法确定归属感的增强是否与对有机化学课程坚持度的提高有关。相反，我们发现，参加强化普通化学课程与对有机化学课程的坚持度之间的正相关关系是由强化普通化学课程中获得的更高成绩所介导的。我们的研究结果凸显了我们教育工作者的责任，即除了考虑如何给学生评分之外，还要仔细思考我们所采用的教学方法。
