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 2005. 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 2nd 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 GradesOrganic I Grades, Lecture

A

B

C

D

F

W

Organic I Grades, Pogil

A

B

C

DF

W

Grade Distribution Organic I

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

A B C D F W

lecture pogil

Organic IFinal Exam Score Distribution

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

50 or less

56-60

66-70

75-80

86-90

Over 95

Lecture Pogil

Grades for Repeaters, Organic IPogil

A

B

CD

F

W

Lecture

A

B

C

D

F

W

Grades Distribution for Students Repeating Organic I

0.0

5.0

10.0

15.0

20.0

25.0

30.0

A B C D F W

Lecture Pogil

Organic II GradesOrganic II Grades, Pogil

A

B

C

DF W

Organic II Grades, Lecture

A

B

C

D

FW

Grade Distribution Organic II

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

A B C D F W

lecture pogil

ACS Exam ScoresOrganic II

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

26-30

31-35

36-40

41-45

46-50

51-55

56-60

61 or more

Lecture Pogil

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