Implementation and Assessment of Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) in Large-format Classrooms for Introduction to Materials

The current study presents the implementation strategy and evaluates the instructional effectiveness of process oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) in an introductory level materials science course over a period of four semesters. The course is required of all engineering majors in their junior year (~500 students annually). During the implementation period the use of POGIL activities expanded significantly ultimately replacing nearly all lecturing in the course. Student performance was shown to be directly correlated to class attendance and participation in POGIL activities. In addition, students’ self-evaluation of learning behaviors indicate that the POGIL approach resulted in significant gains (p<0.01) in nearly all assessed areas over traditional lecture based coursework including: critical thinking, participation, interest, motivation, and reading. Students viewed provided model solutions, take home problem sets, concept check activities (learning catalytics), lecture, in-class demos, and guided inquiries as significantly supportive of learning. Finally, students found the course and instructional methods: (1) aided in seeing relevance of engineering to real-world needs, (2) increased their interest in own major, and (3) felt the material presented will be value following graduation. Introduction: Despite a general dissatisfaction with large format stand and deliver lecturing by instructors and students alike, many engineering disciplines have been slow in implementing change through the adoption of active learning and evidence based teaching methods. In the current introductory level material science course, the transition to evidence based teaching methods was supported through a virtual community of practice (VCP) in Chemical Engineering and Materials.1 In addition, the recent availability of topical model activities2 and web enabled instructional technologies3,4 has significantly reduced the barrier for the instructor in adoption and implementation of a chosen approach. The specific instructional approach investigated was the process oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) method.5 POGIL is an evidenced based instructional strategy using guided inquiry, in place of lecture, to allow students to develop their own understanding of the presented material. The foundation of the POGIL method is “guided inquiry” in which students work in small learning teams to complete activities based on the learning cycle of exploration, concept formation, and application. Using a series of guiding questions, student teams start by exploring a provided data set or physical model. The data or model provided is used to inform understanding and ultimately discover the mechanism of action or underlying phenomena responsible for the behavior being studied, i.e., “concept invention.” Finally, the newly developed knowledge or concepts are applied to a related application or system. Various POGIL implementations may replace nearly all or some fraction of lecture/recitation time with POGIL activities.5 P ge 26898.2 Instructional Method: The specific POGIL implementation in the current course employs several specific instructional/assessment strategies. Prior to each in-class activity, students are assigned a topical reading from a traditional introductory textbook.6 The assigned reading is paired with an online quiz focusing on terminology, to be completed each week prior to the classroom sessions. POGIL activities are the predominate feature of each class meeting. Typically each class begins with a brief topical introduction (<5 minutes), followed by the first team based POGIL activity. The majority of the POGIL activities employed are based on model activities in a recently published topical textbook.2 For the team based activity, students are asked to self-select a learning team of 3-4 students with whom to complete the activity. During the activity, the instructor and up to three peer instructional assistants “float” between teams to help facilitate discussions and overcome common misconceptions. Near the end of each timed activity, a webbased bring your own device (BYOD) polling platform3,4 is employed to deliver one or more “Concept Checks.” These are applied conceptual or quantitative questions, intended to provide real-time formative assessment to the students and instructor. Depending on the outcome of the “Concept Checks,” further team based discussion, whole class discussions, or a mini lecture may be used to address any specific areas of misunderstanding. Typically 3-5 cycles of POGIL activities, concept checks, and review/discussion are conducted during each class meeting. Class sessions are occasionally broken up by short (5-10 minute) in-class experiments or demonstrations (preferably once per week). Example activities include: making Elmer’s glue silly putty, super conductor levitation, zinc electroplating and inter-diffusion to make a “gold” penny, or observing the work hardening behavior of a paper clip. Finally, at the end of most class sessions students are asked to reflect on the material covered by completing an exit ticket (either paper copy or on-line). The exit tickets consist of three brief activities: 1) “Reflection on Learning: List three key topics or concepts presented discussed in class today?,” 2) “SelfAssessment: How has your understanding of materials or materials properties changed following today’s discussion?”, and 3) “Muddiest-Point: What one area or concept discussed in class today are you still having trouble understanding?”. Depending on the results of the concepts checks and feedback from the exit tickets, the students may be referred to additional outside resources including: the MaterialsConcepts YouTube Channel7, topical videos from University of Michigan8, and/or Materials Concepts Quizlets9. Additional out of class practice on each topic is then gained through follow up homework assignments. These assignments focus on engineering problem solving and the application of the knowledge gained in-class. Finally, following each the four topical modules an in-class two-hour exam is given. Course grades are assigned from a combination of quiz, problem set, and exam scores. These various instructional strategies have been implemented and revised over the course of the past four semesters, with significant support in the first two semesters from the VCP program.1 With minor modifications the approach has been implemented in classrooms with widely varied room layouts and enrollment numbers (from 70 to 145 students). All told over 850 students have been participated in the course since the first introduction of the POGIL method. P ge 26898.3 Example Materials: The majority of the POGIL activities employed are taken from a recently published topical textbook Introduction to Materials Science and Engineering: A Guided Inquiry, by Elliot Douglas.2 An example guided inquiry is presented in Figure 1. Once sufficient time has elapsed for most groups to complete the assigned activity one or more applied questions (i.e., Concept Checks) are delivery using a BYOD online poling platform (e.g Learning Catalytics or Socrative; as an alternative to “clicker” systems). An example concept check, accompanying the provided guided inquiry example is provided in Figure 2. Figure 1. Example guided inquiry activity on crystals and glasses (after Douglas 2013).2 Figure 2. Learning catalytics4 “Concept check” example for “Crystals and glasses” activity, student view (left) and instructor view and results (right). P ge 26898.4 Assessment Methods and Statistical Analyses: The effectiveness of the POGIL method was evaluated using both objective and subjective measures. The overall impact of in-class activities on student performance was evaluated by correlating attendance data to the final course grade. Attendance was determined from exit ticket data recorded by learning catalytics.4 The percentage of classes attended was determined by the counting the number of exit tickets completed or attempted over the total number of exit tickets distributed over the course of the semester. Students were grouped by course grade “A”, “A-”, “B+”, “B”, “B-”, and “lower”. One way ANOVA was performed to determine whether attendance was a significant factor in course grade. Course grade was used as the between groups variable and attendance was the dependent variable. Post-hoc Tukey’s HSD was performed to determine significant pairwise comparisons. The attendance findings are supplemented by data obtained by two different anonymous survey tools distributed to the students. The first tool, typically distributed at end of the final class session each semester, asked students assess their behaviors and learning experience in the current POGIL learning environment and the same behaviors and learning experience in their other concurrent stand-and-deliver lecture coursework. This survey tool was developed specifically for this assessment from a tool used by the VCP to gauge faculty perceptions of student attitude and motivation.10 Paired t-tests were used to determine which behaviors were statistically significant between the two different course formats. The second survey tool employed (distributed at the half way point of the semester) was the students’ evaluation of instructional strategies and impact (SEISI).11,12 The SEISI tool was used to assist in identifying the specific instructional strategies students found to be most helpful and their perceptions of the overall impact of the course relative their broader education. Students were asked to rate the effectiveness of instructional strategies on a five level Likert-like scale (1Not at All Supportive, 2-Not Supportive, 3-Nuetral, 4-Supportive, and 5-Very Supportive). Impacts were also rated on a five level Likert-like scale (1-Strongly Disagree, 2-Disagree, 3Nuetral, 4-Agree, and 5-Strongly Agree). Effective strategies and primary impacts were identified according to the percentag