Dr. Jeffrey Pribyl (center) is one of three faculty members who received an NSF grant to study the use of guided inquiry in the chemistry classroom. The grant focuses on the use of tablet PCs as a medium through which information can be shared between student groups and professors.
Dr. Jeffery Pribyl and Dr. Mary Hadley's introductory chemistry classes are noisy, but the two professors don't try to compete with the commotion. Instead, they stroll around their rooms and let their students talk amongst themselves. "I used to have a bimodal distribution in the grades," says Dr. Hadley. "Now I have a higher percentage of people getting A's and a lower percentage getting F's."
So, how does letting their students talk lead to better grades? A close listen in their classes reveals that their students aren't gossiping or planning parties—they're developing learning strategies and devising solutions to open–ended problems. These students are active participants in their education, and active participation, though loud, yields results.
"Most people figure that if you don't tell a student, then the student won't learn," says Dr. Hadley. "I am constantly surprised and pleased that the students learn without me telling them what to learn."
Drs. Hadley and Pribyl have been using team–based and guided inquiry approaches in their classes for the past two years. And while wandering the room while your students talk seems like an easy gig, the opposite is true. "It's a lot of hard work for faculty members using these methods," says Dr. Pribyl. "You have to interact much more with the students in each class period." The two professors constantly monitor their student groups and help guide them when they get stuck or are heading down blind alleys.
Their primary goal is to facilitate students in constructing their own knowledge, which not only helps them learn the subject matter but also helps them learn how to learn. But these professors also have another goal—to conduct scientific research on the efficacy of the teaching methods.
Recently, Drs. Pribyl and Hadley, along with Dr. John Kaliski, assistant professor of management, have been awarded an NSF grant to study the use of guided inquiry in the chemistry classroom. The grant also focuses on the use of tablet PCs as a medium through which information can be shared between the student groups and the professors. Although Drs. Hadley and Pribyl have observed their students' performance under guided inquiry, the intention of the grant is to go beyond generalities. "Part of what the NSF grant will allow us to do is to quantify some of these anecdotal statements," says Dr. Pribyl.
Nearby, in the Department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Dr. Patrick Tebbe is also using alternative teaching strategies in his classroom. Dr. Tebbe and Dr. Stewart Ross, Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, have been awarded an NSF grant to study ways of increasing student engagement in thermodynamics courses.
Like their chemistry counterparts, Drs. Tebbe and Ross aim to advance the field of teaching and learning research through concrete analysis. Dr. Tebbe has introduced real–world problems into his course, and Dr. Ross has developed assessment protocols that track the levels of student engagement as the semester proceeds. They have already produced papers describing their preliminary results, and they recently presented these findings at the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference in June.
Dr. Ross says that actively engaging students in class is a difficult challenge that goes beyond being quick on one's feet. "It's really hard to find good problems that are going to drive these student groups," says Dr. Ross. "Coming up with these problems is the challenge."
And while students are the beneficiaries of these techniques, Dr. Pribyl says it usually takes a little time for them to warm up. "It is very frustrating for the students at first because they often just want the answer," he says. "But, as the semester progresses, they feel like they learned to think about information rather than just memorizing it."
