Abby L. Parrill
Department of Chemistry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824
aparrill@memphis.edu

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Assignment Description
• Keys to Improve Student Learning
• Student Response
• Discussion
• References

Capturing the interest of students in required chemistry courses is a problem for which many solutions have been proposed and described. The solution proposed here is the use of a writing assignment on everyday chemical reactions. Students select their own organic reaction and apply concepts learned throughout the semester to understanding it. The assignment requires the synthesis of many concepts and has been quite challenging for students. During the course of three semesters the assignment has been modified to include incremental deadlines with feedback prior to the final paper deadline as a means to improve student learning and their papers. Considerable improvements, most notably at the low end of the grading scale, has been observed. Students have responded favorably to the assignment.

Introduction

Many students approach required chemistry courses with fear and dislike. This fact is as clear as the writing on the wall (Figure 1). One way to promote learning in the face of these negative perceptions is to spark interest among our students. Publications describe incorporation of relevance through the use of current events as term paper topics,¹ a jury trial on a controversial medication, ² or opportunities for student reflection on the topic of relevance^3-4. This presentation describes a writing project designed to help spark such interest in students while also challenging them to combine concepts used throughout a one-semester organic chemistry survey course.

Figure 1. Black and white version of a photograph taken of a restroom wall near undergraduate classrooms at Michigan State University.

The importance of writing is widely acknowledged. An effusive description of the importance of writing skills in the chemical profession appeared in The Journal of Chemical Education in 1943.⁵ The benefits of writing as an aid to the learning process have also previously been pointed out, and have been the topic of at least one symposium.⁶

An annotated bibliography on the incorporation of writing assignments into chemistry courses has been published in The Journal of Chemical Education by Shires in 1991. ⁷ More recent examples include the use of ungraded writing to gather information about student misconceptions⁸ and the use of short writing assignments to facilitate grading in large lecture courses.⁹

The writing assignment described herein was developed to accomplish a different set of goals. This writing assignment was developed for a one semester survey course in organic chemistry. Students from a wide variety of majors including agriculture, nutrition, and packaging are required to complete this course. These students enter this course feeling either that chemistry is not important to their careers or that it is beyond their ability to comprehend and use.

The writing assignment developed for the organic survey course is used in lieu of a final examination and requires a great deal of concept synthesis and application. It was hoped that student-selected everyday reactions would emphasize the relevance and importance of chemistry while being more interesting to the students than an assigned topic. Replacement of the final examination with a writing assignment was done in order to promote the application of chemical concepts learned in the course to unfamiliar situations and reduce the use of memorization and regurgitation of facts. The synthesis required by the assignment was intended to demonstrate the interconnected nature of chemical concepts and use of chemistry as a way of looking at the world.

The everyday reaction writing assignment required students to select an everyday organic reaction. Some substitution was allowed if students wished to select a reaction important to their major. Students were then asked to introduce the setting and relevance of their reaction, classify the reaction type according to the four major reaction categories studied in class, and to analyze the structure of the starting materials to indicate why they could undergo the assigned reaction type. The four reaction categories studied were acid-base, nucleophile-electrophile, oxidation-reduction, and free radical. Reactions that involved more than one mechanistic step often required selection of more than one reaction type. Representative topics that students have selected include:

• Formation of peroxide-based hair dyes
• The reaction forming acrylic nails
• Salon hair permanent reactions
• Combustion of gasoline (or propane, methane, butane...)
• The function of catalytic converters
• Smog formation
• BHT function as an antioxidant
• Lemon juice as a fruit browning preventative
• The browning of cooked foods (Maillard reaction)

This assignment has been used in three different semesters. During the first two semesters, the final draft of the paper was submitted to the instructor and to a peer evaluation group two class periods before the end of the semester. Students met with their peer evaluation groups on the last day of class and discussed each paper's merits and shortcomings. Students then wrote a critique of their own paper using input from their peer group. It was found that the majority of papers had a significant lack of scientific analysis, although introductions on the relevance and setting of the reaction were usually reasonably good. Some papers even failed to discuss organic reactions; others discussed chemicals or a class of chemicals, rather than a chemical reaction. The critiques usually did not address the scientific shortcomings of the papers, demonstrating that peer review in this case was not sufficient as most students were equally poor in applying scientific concepts to the new reactions. The few assignments received that had strong analysis and good use of concepts from the course were from students who had made repeated visits to office hours to seek help understanding the new reactions.

The shortcomings noted in the first two iterations of this writing assignment were addressed by the use of incremental deadlines, with feedback from the instructor returned to the students before the next deadline. The quality of the worst of the final papers was considerably better (Table 1) although the first draft of each increment was not (Table 2). For example, many students still initially selected net reactions (such as photosynthesis or glycolysis), but were directed to select a step within the process prior to completing their papers. These students were much better able to categorize their reaction and analyze the reactivity of the starting materials than were students in prior semesters that wrote their entire paper on net reactions. A much higher percentage of students discussed their reactions with instructors, most of this added discussion occurring after receiving feedback on a first submission. Table 1 shows the effect of implementing incremental deadlines with feedback on the final paper grades earned in the course.

Table 1. Final paper grades during three semesters. Incremental deadlines were instituted during the summer semester.

Table 1 demonstrates that the use of incremental deadlines with feedback at several stages of the assignment had the most significant impact on the low end of the grading scale. The same grading criteria were used and were applied by the same instructor during each semester. Unearned scores of zero are not included.

Table 2 shows the average percents earned on each increment prior to the final paper during the summer semester when incremental deadlines were used. It is clear from this information that students needed the most feedback on the analysis portion of their papers, followed by the reaction classification. Students performed best on their descriptions of the reaction impact and setting. This information is available from many sources familiar to students (WWW, texts, newspapers) and simply needs to be digested and paraphrased. It is not surprising that students can perform this function adequately by the time they reach a second college chemistry course.

Table 2. Average scores on increments turned in prior to final paper submission.

• "Having no tests (papers instead) is a much better learning experience."
• "I think what has helped me to understand organic cem more is by doing the final paper and the group project. It is a good and fun way of learning."
• "Tests force students to learn a whole bunch of information and then afterwards, they quickly forget it. The way this course was, students learned constantly and applied what they learned frequently, which helped us retain information better."

To conclude, the described writing assignment gives students an opportunity to apply chemical concepts to an area of personal interest. This assignment is challenging and student performance in the analytical area of the paper can be greatly improved by instructor feedback prior to the final due date. Students have responded well to this assignment, both by their formal evaluation input and personal comments to the instructor. Although no formal evaluation of information retention has been performed, it is the instructor's belief that students will be able to use concepts from the course in the future.

References

1. McHale, J. L. "Current Events as Subjects for Term Papers in an Honors Freshman Chemistry Class", J. Chem. Educ., 1994, 71(4), 313-314.
2. Jones, M. A. "Use of a Classroom Jury Trial To Enhance Students' Perception of Science as a Part of Their Lives", J. Chem. Educ., 1997, 74(5), 537.
3. Singh, B. R. "The Relevance of Chemistry to Nonscience Majors", J. Chem. Educ., 1995, 72(5), 432-434.
4. Stein, A. "The Suggestion Box-An Old Idea Brings the 'Real World' Back to Freshman Chemistry Students (and Professors)", J. Chem. Educ., 1997, 74(7), 788-790.
5. Wall, F. E. "The Importance of Technical Writing in Chemical Education", J. Chem. Educ., 1943, 20, 580-586.
6. Beall, H.; Trimbur, J. "Writing as a Tool for Teaching Chemistry: Report on the WPI Conference", J. Chem. Educ., 1993, 70(6), 478-479.
7. Shires, N. P. "Teaching Writing in College Chemistry: A Practical Bibliography 1980-1990", J. Chem. Educ., 1991, 68(6), 494-495.
8. Beall, H. "Probing Student Misconceptions in Thermodynamics with In-Class Writing", J. Chem. Educ., 1994, 71(12), 1056-1057.
9. Cooper, M. M. "An Approach for Large-Enrollment Chemistry Courses", J. Chem. Educ., 1993, 70(6), 476-477.

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