How to Make College Introductory Science Classes Suck Less
Science is hard. This is especially true in introductory courses because they teach the tools and frameworks for thinking about an entire discipline which can be extremely foreign the first time that you hear about it. Once you understand the rules of the game, it all of a sudden becomes significantly easier to tackle any other problems or concepts that come your way.
Take for example factor label method, which is taught in the first week of general chemistry, a method of converting from one unit to another. Say that we want to determine how many meters a 30 foot rocket is. We take 30 feet and multiply it by a conversion factor from feet to meters to determine how many meters are in 30 feet.
To someone who hasn’t seen this, the arrangement of numbers is just bizarre, but eventually once it sinks in, we can use this same concept to convert between many other units and also use it to solve problems like how much space a pound of gold will take up, how many molecules are in a drop of water, or how long it will take to get to mars if you move at a certain speed. (To me, this is perhaps my single favorite tool that I’ve learned in science. Stay tuned for a future blog post about why it is so awesome.)
It’s too easy in intro courses to miss a step and become totally lost, this leads to >50% drop out rates for intro science sequences
A fundamental problem that arises in introductory courses is that science should be taught in a step wise manner where each concept builds on the last, but if the step is slightly too big or you lose the instructor’s line of reasoning sometimes even just for a minute, a small confusion can snowball into an avalanche of hopelessness.
The ease with which someone can be totally lost is startlingly fast and this is a contributor to the high attrition rates that are seen in these introductory classes. A study conducted at Texas Tech University saw overall attrition rates as high as 70% for the introductory chemistry series and this trend was echoed at University of California at Los Angeles study which found that 40% of engineering and science majors and up to 60% of pre-med students eventually switch.
Instructors are the first line of defense against this confusion, but the lecture style format is not often conducive to get real-time feedback for issues that arise because it is often difficult for students in class to immediately pinpoint which particular issue they became stuck on.
How are students finding the resources they need to succeed?
Several students surveyed at Northwestern University revealed that their first resource for when they are confused on a topic is to find videos on the internet:
- Instructor provided videos: They are tailored to the individual course but they are not generally distributed outside the class and the quality varies based on the instructor.
- YouTube or Khan Academy: High in quality but it can be difficult to find the critical part of a video which explains the missing link.
- Coursera or University Lectures: These videos are often taped 45 minute lectures on broad topics, so it can be time consuming to find the particular video segment that will answer your question. They also generally delve into broader topics in a subject, which is a different skill than understanding the mechanics of actually solving a particular problem.
The students also complained for all of the video resources about the lack of practice problems to accompany the content that they learned, which they felt led to lower retention. In addition to online, students also turn to human resources including their classmates, TAs and course instructors which they found to be higher quality but with a slower turn around time.
How can the drop out rates for introductory courses be improved?
Actively engaging with the course material in a way other than passively listening has been shown to improve knowledge retention. Taking notes is a start, but it is even better to apply the material in a way that forces you to critically evaluate it.
Incorporating the lesson into an experiment is an excellent way to increase retention. For example, it is easier to remember that white light is a mixture of all the colors when you’ve actually used a prism to conduct the experiment yourself.
Another effective means to increase retention is to get continuous feedback on your progress through short lectures that are immediately followed up with quizzes to make sure that you understood what you just learned. Several textbooks use this approach through end of section questions, and a particularly great resource is Open Stax (www.openstax.org) which has free and open source introductory science and math textbooks.
Retention can be further improved by engaging several senses. I am currently developing a website called Pocket Scholar (www.pocketscholar.com) that will combine short 5 minute lessons with interactive quizzes that will adapt to when you don’t understand something to explain it a different way to increase retention even further. Gamification has been shown to improve retention and make it more fun, so you earn points as you progress and lose beakers if you miss something, to keep you on your toes. We are gearing up for the closed beta soon and we’d love to have you along for this experiment. Check the website for more details!
Key Takeaways:
- Introductory science classes are difficult because they introduce a new way of thinking about the world that take time and practice to get used to. Since they are taught in a stepwise manner, if you ever get lost it is challenging to catch up.
- Online resources such as youtube are widely used as companion study tools but some students prefer shorter teaching segments that zero right into the problem they are having.
- Active engagement improves retention. Testing yourself immediately after learning a topic and utilizing it in an experiment or real world problem helps make sure that it sticks.
What else am I missing?
Did you just take an introductory science course? Were you struggling to stay above water or did you find it a breeze? Were there resources that I missed?
References:
Why Science Majors Change Their Mind
