Teaching  EnvE/ESS  100  Environmental  Chemistry  Laboratories:  

Developing  teaching  tools  to  improve  undergraduate   students’  scientific  data  analysis/interpretation  and   scientific  writing  skill

   

Teaching  Assistant:    

         

Project  leaders:      

Sylvain  Masclin,  PhD  candidate   Laura  Martin,  Faculty  Mentor   Angela  Winek   Anne  Zanzucchi  

UC  Merced  Council  of  Graduate  School  project,  Fall  2013   RÉSUMÉ   Through  the  instruction  of  the  EnvE/ESS  100  laboratories  for  a  second  and  consecutive  term,  and   my  participation  in  the  UC  Merced  CGS  project,  I  adapted  and  developed  some  teaching  skills   over  this  semester  to  reach  these  defined  objectives:       -­‐  improving  the  students’  learning  of  the  diverse  concepts  covered  in  the  course,         -­‐  revising  and  correcting  their  lab  practice,       -­‐  straightening  out  their  lab  data  processing  and  resulting  interpretation,       -­‐  ameliorating  their  scientific  writing  skill.   Results  from  surveys  and  from  the  undergraduates’  grades  show  that  the  tools  described  in  this   report  clearly  enhanced  their  scientific  writing  communication,  as  their  data  analysis  and   discussion  skill.  

 

 

Though  continuous  emergence  of  new  technology  has  exponentially  offered  unprecedented  and   easier  access  to  knowledge  over  the  last  decades,  attrition  in  postsecondary  education  STEM   fields  (Science,  Technology,  Engineering  and  Mathematics)  has  stagnated  at  high  rates,  30-­‐60%   (Seymour,  1995;  Tinto,  1975).  Attention,  focus  and  learning  of  undergraduate  students  have   changed  considerably  along  with  this  technological  evolution  (Glenn  and  D'Agostino,  2008).  This   has  resulted  in  a  thorough  adaptation  of  the  teaching  strategy  to  a  never-­‐ending  evolving   audience  that  tends  to  be  less  receptive  to  older,  classical  and  more  passive  teaching   (Christensen,  2004).   Although  new  interactive  teaching  tools  have  been  developed  over  the  years  to  help  the   undergraduates’  learning,  feedbacks  from  students  and  research  programs  show  that  instruction   of  the  scientific  writing  skill  has  remained  one  of  the  most  strenuous  challenge  in  STEM  (Conte,   2010;  Lopatto,  2004).   As  part  of  the  Earth  Systems  Science  program  that  emphasizes  on  effective  written   communication  skill  as  one  the  major  learning  outcomes,  the  upper  division  course  EnvE/ESS100   Environmental  Chemistry  aims  to  provide  to  the  students  a  fundamental  understanding  of   chemical  processes  in  environmental  systems,  as  the  essential  tools  (e.g.  principles  of   thermodynamics  and  chemistry,  quantitative  analysis)  to  predict,  describe  and  solve  any   chemical  problems  related  to  the  Earth  and  its  environment.  The  course  is  formatted  with  two   weekly  75  minutes  lectures  and  a  weekly  3-­‐hour  laboratory.  Beside  the  learning  outcomes  of  the   EnvE/ESS100  lectures,  the  laboratory  sessions  aim  to  improve  the  students’  laboratory  practice   in  order  to  solve  adequately  an  environmental  problem  and  to  enhance  their  scientific  writing   skill  so  their  research  can  be  concisely  but  precisely  communicated.   In  order  to  ameliorate  the  teaching  of  these  laboratories  during  my  first  TA  experience  of  this   course,  I  spent  a  major  effort  on  developing  a  more  adapted  grading  rubric,  on  creating  updating   1  some  lab  exercises  (from  online  resources  and  material  such  as  Radojevic  and  Bashkin  (2006)),   and  on  writing  never-­‐reported  solutions  for  each  assignment.  For  this  second  year,  the  objective   was  to  keep  improving  the  teaching  of  the  lab  exercises  so  students  can  learn  better,  improve   better  their  scientific  writing,  and  master  better  the  requisites  of  lab  report  format  writing.   Thanks  to  the  teaching  development  achieved  during  the  previous  year,  a  more  interactive   approach  with  the  students  was  applied  over  this  second  year.  The  audience  was  first  defined   with  an  entry  survey  that  assessed  the  students’  experience  in  lab  practice,  scientific  writing  and   reading,  computer  skill  (Table  1).  Results  show  that  most  students  judge  themselves  somewhat   experienced  in  lab  work,  in  scientific  writing/reading  and  in  analytical  and  text  editing  tools.   However,  the  completion  of  their  first  laboratory  exercises  and  reports  demonstrated  that  the   undergraduates  tend  to  over  evaluate  themselves  as  they  were  not  enough  prepared  to  perform   ideally  their  lab  practice  and  write  down  successfully  their  report.   In  response,  few  changes  were  applied  between  the  beginning  and  the  middle  of  the  semester,   mainly  between  lab  3  and  4.  First,  the  prelab  format  was  reviewed  by  combining  questions  and   writing  of  two  lab  report  sections  (introduction  and  methods)  to  get  the  students  better  prepared   to  perform  their  laboratory  practice.  Additional  changes  and  materials  were  provided  to  the   students  to  help  them  understanding,  writing  and  completing  the  full  structure  of  the  lab  report.   This  includes  a)  an  editing  of  the  rubric,  b)  a  slideshow  presentation  of  an  ideal  lab  report,  c)   more  oral  feedbacks  from  the  instructor  during  the  labs,  and  d)  more  additional  materials  such  as   chapters  from  a  science  research  writing  book  (Glasman-­‐Deal,  2010).   The  results  of  this  teaching  strategy  were  evaluated  through  the  students’  grades  over  the   semester  (Fig.  1  and  2)  and  through  a  mid-­‐term  survey  (Fig.  3).    

 

 

1  

While  the  undergraduate  students  partially  improved  their  science  writing  skill  over  the   semester  (with  a  25%  increase  for  abstract  and  conclusion  but  no  noticeable  change  for   introduction  and  methods),  they  considerably  enhance  their  data  analyses  and  discussion  by   25%  (Fig.  1).  The  grading  details  of  Figure  2  show  that  the  students’  grades  made  a  significantly   improvement  between  lab  3  and  lab  4,  which  corresponds  to  the  time  when  the  major  teaching   tools  were  developed  and  applied.   The  mid-­‐survey  (Fig.  3)  revealed  that  these  changes  in  teaching  strategy  count  for  about  58%  of   the  overall  support  that  helped  the  students  to  fully  complete  their  assignment.  Surprisingly  the   science  writing  is  not  the  major  skill  students  consider  to  have  learnt  over  the  half  semester,  and   though  the  students  fell  considerably  learning  in  data  analysis  and  lab  practice,  they  kept  looking   at  the  data  processing  as  the  most  challenging  part  of  their  lab  assignment  (50%  of  the  students   surveyed),  followed  by  the  lab  report  writing  (28%).   The  end-­‐term  survey  revealed  that  the  undergraduates  succeeded  in  reducing  the  time  they  were   dedicating  in  writing  each  report  thanks  to  the  modification  of  the  prelabs  format  (Fig.  4).  This   achievement,  as  the  amelioration  of  the  students’  data  analysis  skill,  was  also  made  possible   through  the  modification  of  the  lab  session  structure:  using  the  last  30  minutes  of  each  session  to   perform  part  or  most  of  the  data  analysis  with  the  students.  This  time  was  also  to  possibly   discuss  any  issue  they  may  have  encountered  during  the  lab  in  order  to  fix  any  misunderstanding   (referred  in  Figure  4  as  in-­‐lab  TA  feedback).   While  the  semester  ended  with  satisfying  results  concerning  the  undergraduates’  learning  and   performance  in  the  laboratories  of  the  EnvE/ESS100  course  (Fig.  5),  a  deeper  teaching  on  data   processing  should  be  considered  as  a  major  goal  to  achieve  for  the  future  years.  Because  the   students  responded  well  to  the  different  interactive  teaching  tools  applied  this  semester,  I   strongly  suggest  spending  more  time  on  processing  the  collected  data  of  each  lab  with  the   students  (their  still  weak  point)  during  the  corresponding  session.  This  would  considerably  help   the  students  to  understand  and  interpret  better  their  data,  which  will  thereafter  impact  on  the   quality  of  their  lab  report  and  learning  (the  main  outcomes  of  these  laboratories).   With  all  the  diverse  modifications  and  teaching  tools  applied  over  the  past  two  years  of  TAing  the   EnvE/ESS  100  laboratories,  I  also  suggest:   for  the  future  course  instructor:   -­‐  to  request  2  teaching  assistants:  they  will  be  able  to  achieve  the  overload  of    teaching   work  the  course  and  the  increasing  number  of  students  impose  (which  resulted  in   spending  much  more  than  the  assigned  20  hours  per  week).  Thus,  the  labs  could  be   correctly  reviewed  and  prepared.  Beside,  the  2  lab  instructors  would  then  be  able   to  assist  the  course  instructor  in  guiding  the  students  in  their  homework   assignment,  and  even  possibly  grading  them;   -­‐  to  make  sure  that  the  lab  assignments  are  well  scheduled  with  their  corresponding   lectures  (meaning  that  a  lab  exercise  should  follow  the  lecture  introducing  the  key   concepts,  not  preceding  it),  so  that  the  students  understand  clearly  the  theory   behind  each  lab  assignment;   -­‐  to  include  the  effective  scientific  written  communication  skill  in  the  list  of  outcomes   of  the  course;   for  the  future  teaching  assistant:   -­‐  to  prepare  a  still-­‐missing  lab  policy;   -­‐  to  review/proofread  and  update  all  the  lab  protocols  as  some  students  found  some   questions/assignments  difficult  to  understand;    

 

 

2  

-­‐  to  explain  clearly  ones  expectations  to  the  undergraduates  at  the  beginning  of  the   semester  (on  the  lab  practice  and  reports)  and  at  the  beginning  of  each  lab  (on  the   expected  outcomes  of  each  assignement);   -­‐  to  keep  reviewing  the  data  processing  during  labs  with  the  students;   -­‐  to  keep  the  updated  prelab  format  with  the  only  following  change:  grading  the  set  of   questions  on  2  points  and  already  grading  the  introduction  and  methods  (2  points   each)  so  the  students  do  not  have  to  rewrite  these  sections  while  finalizing  their   report;   -­‐  to  develop  tools  in  order  to  gain  relavant  feedbacks  from  the  students;   -­‐  to  keep  developing  teaching  tools  that  will  help  in  introducing  the  different  concepts   and  techniques  the  students  need  to  master  to  understand  and  process  their  data,   and  successfully  complete  their  lab  assignment.  Once  this  achieved,  helping  the   students  improving  their  science  writing  skill  will  then  be  easier  to  do.  

 

 

 

3  

REFERENCES   Christensen,  T.  (2005).  Changing  the  learning  environment  in  large  general  education  astronomy   classes.  Journal  of  College  Science  Teaching,  35(3),  34-­‐38.     Conte,  D.:  Peer  Review  Improves  Undergraduate  Science  Writing  Skills,,  2010.   Glasman-­‐Deal,  H.:  Science  Research  Writing  for  Non-­‐native  Speakers  of  English,  World  Scientific.   2010.   Glenn,  M.  and  D'Agostino,  D.:  The  Future  of  Higher  Education:  How  Technology  Will  Shape   Learning,  New  Media  Consortium,  2008.   Lopatto,  D.:  Survey  of  undergraduate  research  experiences  (SURE):  first  findings,  Cell  biology   education,  3(4),  270–277,  2004.   Radojevic,  M.  and  Bashkin,  V.  N.:  Practical  Environmental  Analysis,  Royal  Society  of  Chemistry.   2006.   Seymour,  E.:  Guest  Comment:  Why  undergraduates  leave  the  sciences,  Am.  J.  Phys.,  63(3),  199,   doi:10.1119/1.17954,  1995.   Tinto,  V.:  Dropout  from  higher  education:  A  theoretical  synthesis  of  recent  research,  Review  of   educational  research,  45(1),  89–125,  1975.  

 

 

 

4  

TABLES  AND  FIGURES    

None  

Some/Good  

Experienced  

Lab  experience  

0  

79  

21  

Lab  practice  

3  

38  

59  

Scientific  Report  writing  

5  

63  

32  

Scientific  reading  

32  

63  

5  

Spreadsheet/analytical  software  

33  

50  

17  

Text  editing  software  

3  

26  

61  

Table  1.  Results  of  the  entry  survey  are  expressed  in  %.  The  color  intensity  is  proportional  to  the   frequency  of  each  answer,  from  light  blue  (low  frequency)  to  dark  blue  (high  frequency).   Results  show  that  most  of  the  students  felt  confident  in  their  skills  and  experience  for  the  well   completion  of  their  lab  assignment.  

Temporal&change&of&the&grades&for&each&sec3on& Temporal)change)of)the)grades)for)each)sec2on) Lab$report$sec,ons$grading of&lab&reports& of)lab)reports) Abstract%

Introduc;on%

Methods%

Data$analysis$

Conclusion%

Discussion$

5.5$ 2.25%

5.0$ 4.5$

Grade&

1.75%

4.0$ 3.5$

1.25% 3.0$ 2.5$

0.75%

2.0$ 1.5$

0.25% Lab1%

Lab2%

Lab3%

Lab4%

Lab5%

Lab6%

Lab8/1% Lab8/2%

Lab9%

Lab1$

Lab2$

Lab3$

Lab4$

Lab5$

Lab6$

Lab8.1$ Lab8.2$

Lab9$

Figure  1.  Students’  grades  for  the  different  sections  of  each  lab.  The  maximum  grade  for  the   abstract,  introduction,  methods  and  conclusion  is  2  points  while  the  data  analysis  section  and  the   discussion  are  potentially  worth  5  points.   Results  show  an  increase  of  the  students’  grades  by  about  25%  for  all  the  sections  of  the  lab   reports,  except  for  the  introduction  and  methods.    

 

 

 

5  

 

Figure  2.  Distribution  of  the  students’  grades  over  the  full  semester.  We  can  see  a  major   improvement  of  the  students’  grades  between  lab  3  and  4,  when  major  changes  of  teaching  tools   were  applied.         6  

How$did$students$come$prepared$in$lab?$ Tools$that$helped$the$students

How$can$students$come$more$prepared$in$lab?$ Tools$the$students$should$further

to$be$prepared$for$labs

Reading( background( or(ressources( 15%$ Typing(Intro( and(Methods( for(prelabs( 16%$

use$to$be$prepared$for$labs Talking(with( partner( Fully( 6%$ comple8ng( the(prelabs( 12%$

Reading(the( protocols( 42%$

Reading( carefully(the( protocols( 59%$

Reading( more( background( or(ressources( 23%$

Comple3ng( the(prelabs( 27%$

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Report# wri6ng#

Searching#for# ressources#

Data#analysis#

Report# wri8ng#

Lab#prac8ce# Searching#for# ressources#

Figure  3.  Mid-­‐term  survey  results  showing  that:   -­‐  students  were  better  prepared  for  labs  by  mainly  reading  carefully  the  lab  protocols  and  fully   completing  the  prelabs;   -­‐  students  need  to  more  carefully  reading  the  lab  protocols  and  related  materials  to  better   perform  their  lab  assignments;   -­‐  Data  analysis  and  lab  report  writing  are  the  most  challenging  skills  to  improve  while  their  lab   practice  learning  has  increased.  

 

 

 

7  

Factors(impac,ng(on(students'(lab(wri,ng(,me(management( 30%$

Factor'suppor+ng'students''data'analysis'comple+on'

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Figure  4.  Results  from  the  end-­‐term  survey  conclude  on  the  tools  that  enhanced  the  students’   performance  and  on  the  main  students’  suggestions  for  future  changes.   Students’  time  management,  which  was  a  main  issue  (their  feedbacks  revealed  that  too  much   time  was  spent  on  completing  their  lab  assignment),  was  improved  by  their  full  completion  of  the   prelab  prior  to  each  session,  and  of  the  data  analysis  during  the  lab.  TA’s  feedbacks  also  strongly   enhanced  the  students’  performance.   The  data  analysis  completion,  the  second  major  issue  faced  by  the  students,  was  mainly   supported  by  in-­‐lab  feedbacks  and  data  analysis  review  from  the  instructor.  

Final*grades*distribu/on* 40%# 35%#

Frequency,

%$Frequency,*%*

30%# 25%# 20%# 15%# 10%# 5%# 0%# 0)60%#

60)70%#

70)80%#

Resul/ng*grade,*%* Resul,ng$grade,

%$80)90%#

90)100%#

 

Figure  5.  The  final  grades  obtained  by  the  students  at  the  end  of  the  semester  show  a  normal   distribution  with  the  highest  frequency  for  grades  between  70  to  90%  (equivalent  to  grades   between  14  and  18  on  20  or  grades  A-­‐B).        

8  

 

 

Figure  6.  Main  suggestions  for  future  teaching  improvement  based  on  students’  answers  from   the  open  questions  of  the  end-­‐term  survey.  

 

 

 

9  

ANNEXES   LAB  REPORT  RUBRIC  

 

 

 

 

 

10  

ENTRY  SURVEY  

 

 

 

 

11  

MID-­‐TERM  SURVEY  

 

 

 

 

12  

END-­‐TERM  SURVEY  

 

 

 

 

13