Madhu Mahalingam and Elisabetta Fasella from the University of the Sciences presented at the 2021 Lilly Conference online in May a recorded session entitled “‘Scaffolding’ Student Learning in General Chemistry for Online Synchronous Classes.” I have been learning about what others are doing with their labs to offer an online experience. At the University of Sciences, there is a general chemistry sequence with three lecture sections of 100-200 students and four recitation sections.The presenters shared information about their course and what they mean by “scaffolding.” They have tracked student trends and exam averages since 2001! They also used the SALG survey and categorized questions by Bloom’s taxonomy. They defined scaffolding using the definition of Lipscomb et al. 2004.
Scaffolding: The ‘support’ that is provided to the learner at the appropriate level to help them build comprehension and skills that they cannot yet accomplish alone.
Madhu Mahalingam and Elisabetta Fasella, Lilly Conference online 2021
Assignments in their course are scaffolded to “raise student knowledge and problem solving” by starting with pre-lecture and lecture activities in the pre-informational and remembering stages. Then, for lecture, homework, and quizzes, they address remembering and understanding levels. Finally, for recitation, they focus on application. I thought it was good to hear that they tell students about this model by presenting a “weekly learning cycle” and demystifying scaffolding for students.
For the transition to online learning, they kept the pre-lecture assignments through online asynchronous readings and TopHat questions. In the Zoom synchronous clases, they encouraged students to participate using the chat feature in Zoom and TopHat polling questions. The after class assignments remained online and asynchronous using the ALEKS adaptive question system. They also continued with multiple-choice quizzes on the learning management system. The other major adaptation for online was the use of Zoom breakout rooms for group worksheets. The presenters discussed challenges of online synchronous learning using group activities and Zoom breakout rooms.
Fasella then described the increase in the percent of students that scored at least 70% on the exam even during the transition to online. They have data from several years and also used the ACS final exam. They used a rubric to classify the exam question level. The main effect was that the exam average remained fairly constant even though the level of exam questions increased. They compared mean survey responses for the courses before and after the transition to the remote environment. Interestingly, students rated their problem solving skills the same in both environments (different years). This was a neat in-depth analysis of the online course and synchronous sessions building on decades of previous data. What impressed me most was the use of consistent surveys and assessments to be able to do powerful comparisons. I want to learn from people like the presenters who have done a fantastic job of documenting. This session also made me rethink how I use the term ‘scaffolding’ since the presenters were very systematic and thoughtful, whereas I often mean ‘chunking’ of assignments…
