To promote student success in gateway courses, five UMBC faculty recently concluded an 18-month Every Learner Everywhere grant, which was designed to enhance digital learning & equity. The UMBC instructors included Sarah Bass and Tara Carpenter (Chemistry) and Eric Anderson, Lili Cui and Cody Goolsby-Cole (Physics).
Specifically, Bass and Carpenter focused on the use of open educational resources (OER) and students' time on task practice in CHEM 101 and 102. Anderson, Cui and Goolsby-Cole focused on providing timely feedback on low-stakes assessments. Findings from both departments’ projects included better student-instructor relationships in the face-to-face classes of spring 2022 compared to the previous year's online classes. Also, the results of student surveys showed positive changes in student perceptions of feedback. Finally, all projects adopted an approach that emphasized using open educational resources (OER), where possible, and supporting productive practice through adaptive learning and formative assessments.
Long term, the goal of ELE is to eventually use these approaches to inform redesign of large, introductory STEM courses that promote equity in achievement for all students. Toward this end, a preliminary analysis of the use of adaptive learning in CHEM 102 showed an overall 10% improvement in exam scores and a decrease in the score gap between white students and students of color.
Note: As an experiment, the first "draft" of this post was initially generated by ChatGPT, summarizing the full ELE project report to focus on UMBC participants, and then revised by John Fritz and Tom Penniston.
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