Changing Undergraduate Chemistry Instruction Through Discovery Learning: A Look at Student Performance and Attitudes
During the 2005-06 academic year, Chemistry faculty at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County began a revision of their chemistry courses, starting with Chemistry 101. The goal of this revision was to move from a teacher-guided lecture format, to one in which students take greater responsibility for learning and applying their skills and knowledge to a variety of problems. This adaptation builds on the work of others such as (Cheek, 1992) who suggested a student-centered, rather than a teacher-centered approach and Cooper (1995) who asserted the value of small-group, collaborative learning strategies, even within a large chemistry course.
As implemented at UMBC, the revised course utilized "peer-oriented guided inquiry learning" (POGIL) in their recitation sessions and expose entering science students to a radically different kind of learning environment. Additionally, graduate teaching assistants were trained in the discovery method and made available to students to serve as a facilitator. These changes were believed to be needed because the traditional instructional approach was failing to retain students, and those who did continue were not having a successful experience. The approach proposed constructivism with a social construction model of learning to create an environment that builds on students' own knowledge, encourages students to organize and analyze information, and fosters collaborative learning.
