POGIL vs Traditional Lecture in Organic I Gary D. Anderson Department of Chemistry Marshall University Huntington, WV

Numerous Previous Studies All other comparisons have involved comparing results from two or more professors or from two or more school terms This comparison involves three sections of Organic I in the Fall of Sections 101 and 102 (84 total students) were taught using POGIL approach, Section 103 (84 students) was taught using traditional lecture approach. Students were informed of differences and given chance to change sections

Professors Same professor taught all three sections of Organic I Another professor taught both sections of Organic II in Spring 2006 so both groups of students had the same environment for Organic II

Same for Both Groups Organic I Instructor Schedule –Two 75 minute classes per week Textbook (Hornback 2 nd Ed.) Order of topics

Same for Both Groups Problems assigned from text Computerized homework sets –Vista and WebAssign Extra tutoring available Quizzes –5 minute quiz at the beginning of every class

Same for Both Groups Exams –Same exam used in all three sections –Students were instructed to put 9 digit student ID number on paper but to not put name or section information –All exams were mixed together and graded one question at a time Common Final Exam

Differences Time of Day –POGIL at 2:00 or 3:30 –Lecture at 6:30 Class Size –Pogil, 2 sections with 45 and 39 students –Lecture, 1 section with 84 students

Organic I Grades

Grade Distribution Organic I

Organic I Final Exam Score Distribution

Grades for Repeaters, Organic I

Grades Distribution for Students Repeating Organic I

Organic II Grades

Grade Distribution Organic II

ACS Exam Scores Organic II

Is POGIL Better than Lecture? Results from Fall term were encouraging enough to justify trying again in Spring but high percentage of repeat students in Spring Two sections (limit 35) using POGIL are planned for Fall 2006 along with one section using lecture POGIL group appeared to do significantly better in Organic II

What Did the Students Think? Mixed Reaction –Some love the POGIL approach –Some hate it –Highly dependent on motivation and work ethic of the student

SALG Survey POGIL Group: I would have preferred that this course be taught entirely using lecture –19% Strongly agree –25% Agree –25% Neutral –19% Disagree –11% Strongly Disagree

SALG Survey Lecture Group: I would have preferred that this course be taught using the POGIL guided learning approach used in the other sections. –5% Strongly Agree –12 % Agree –59% Neutral –17% Disagree –7 % Strongly Disagree

SALG Survey I would recommend the method of teaching used in my section to a person taking this course next year. –12 % Strongly Agree, 35% Agree, 32% Neutral, 12% Disagree, 8% Strongly Disagree (N=40) –11% Strongly Agree, 33% Agree, 22% Neutral, 19% Disagree, 14% Strongly Disagree (N=36) –First group above is lecture, second is POGIL

Student Comments (Good) This is my second attempt at Organic. I liked POGil very much. I hope that it will continue to be taught this way at Marshall I really enjoyed the POGIL approach. I think it helped me a great deal understand things a lot better than if I had just had a teacher up there lecturing at me. I think this class made the complexities of organic chemistry easier

Student Comments (and Bad) I think the POGIL approach has benifits, but would be best coupled with a lecture I don't know that the POGIL style helped me all that much because I felt that I ended up trying to teach myself everything from the book.

Name at Least One Strength Critical Thinking. Caused me to analyze problems more carefully before attempting a solution. Having students explain concepts really helped out a lot. I plan on doing more group learning with courses in the future One strength was the relaxed atmosphere of the class.

Strengths Teaching one another and helping each other with our weaknesses The instructor acknowledged the difficulty of the course, which showed respect for the students, yet he maintained that it wasn't impossible to do well. This course helped me manage my time to learn large quantities of material.

Name at least one area for improvement Organic is not a class made to teach yourself. A fair paced lecture would have provided a much better learning enviroment Teach the whole class with the POGIL approach, reaction part and all. I feel that for future classes using POGIL, it needs to be STRESSED that the chemactivities are only a part of the learning process

And I Didn’t Pay the Students Who Said This For Improvements –None, the class was fine organic chemistry seems easy and now I believe I can do it One strength was the relaxed atmosphere of the class and it positively impacted learning by helping to alleviate some stress

Other Factors Experience –30 years experience using lecture mode –0 experience using POGIL mode –Hopefully I have learned something in 30 years Improved Lecture –Working with two POGIL groups right before lecture probably caused me to modify my lecture a bit to answer the questions I had run into in the POGIL groups

Conclusions Overall performance in Organic I appears to be virtually same for both groups Overall performance in Organic II appears to be somewhat better for the POGIL group Not enough observations to be sure but repeaters in POGIL group may have done better than those in the lecture group

Acknowledgements Andrei Straumanis Jim Spencer Andy Bressette Dan Libby The entire POGIL team Marshall administrators and colleagues