TY - JOUR
T1 - Effectiveness of the active learning in organic chemistry faculty development workshops
AU - Houseknecht, Justin B.
AU - Bachinski, Garrin J.
AU - Miller, Madelyn H.
AU - White, Sarah A.
AU - Andrews, Douglas M.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors wish to acknowledge cCWCS for funding the 4 day ALOC workshops (NSF #1022895), the Wittenberg University Department of Chemistry and the Virginia Ellis Franta Fund for financial support, and Alexey Leontyev for guidance.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Active learning has been shown to improve student outcomes and learning, yet organic chemistry instructors have been slow to adopt these pedagogies. The Chemistry Collaborations, Workshops, and Communities of Scholars (cCWCS) Active Learning in Organic Chemistry (ALOC) workshops have sought to facilitate the adoption of active learning methods by helping participants define active learning and understand best practices, persuading them to incorporate these practices into their teaching, and supporting their implementation efforts through an online community, Organic Educational Resources (OrganicERs.org). The effectiveness of the workshops was measured over a two-year period using teaching self-efficacy and teaching practices instruments. Comparison to pre-workshop self-efficacy surveys found significant and sustained gains for knowledge about and belief in the efficacy of active learning methods (d = 1.18 compared to pre-workshop responses) and confidence in intention to implement (d = 0.60). Belief that they were implementing more active learning in their classrooms (d = 0.85) was corroborated by the teaching practices survey and survey of class time allocation which also showed statistically significant (p < 0.001) and sustained growth in student centered teaching (d = 1.00), formative assessment (d = 1.04), student-student interactions (d = 0.96), and the amount of class time spent with students working in groups (d = 0.68) for the workshop participants. Gains for participants in the 3 hour Active Learning in Organic Chemistry workshops at the 2016 Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE) were smaller than those in the 4 day ALOC workshops, but still meaningful. These results indicate that the 2015 and 2016 Active Learning in Organic Chemistry faculty development workshops effectively increased participants' knowledge about, belief in the efficacy of, and implementation of active learning methods.
AB - Active learning has been shown to improve student outcomes and learning, yet organic chemistry instructors have been slow to adopt these pedagogies. The Chemistry Collaborations, Workshops, and Communities of Scholars (cCWCS) Active Learning in Organic Chemistry (ALOC) workshops have sought to facilitate the adoption of active learning methods by helping participants define active learning and understand best practices, persuading them to incorporate these practices into their teaching, and supporting their implementation efforts through an online community, Organic Educational Resources (OrganicERs.org). The effectiveness of the workshops was measured over a two-year period using teaching self-efficacy and teaching practices instruments. Comparison to pre-workshop self-efficacy surveys found significant and sustained gains for knowledge about and belief in the efficacy of active learning methods (d = 1.18 compared to pre-workshop responses) and confidence in intention to implement (d = 0.60). Belief that they were implementing more active learning in their classrooms (d = 0.85) was corroborated by the teaching practices survey and survey of class time allocation which also showed statistically significant (p < 0.001) and sustained growth in student centered teaching (d = 1.00), formative assessment (d = 1.04), student-student interactions (d = 0.96), and the amount of class time spent with students working in groups (d = 0.68) for the workshop participants. Gains for participants in the 3 hour Active Learning in Organic Chemistry workshops at the 2016 Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (BCCE) were smaller than those in the 4 day ALOC workshops, but still meaningful. These results indicate that the 2015 and 2016 Active Learning in Organic Chemistry faculty development workshops effectively increased participants' knowledge about, belief in the efficacy of, and implementation of active learning methods.
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U2 - 10.1039/c9rp00137a
DO - 10.1039/c9rp00137a
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85078164351
SN - 1109-4028
VL - 21
SP - 387
EP - 398
JO - Chemistry Education Research and Practice
JF - Chemistry Education Research and Practice
IS - 1
ER -