Abstract:

Chemistry can be a daunting course and even more so on-line. Invitational education and Marzano rubrics were used to increase the “friendliness” and accessibility of an on-line chemistry course. Invitational education intentionally creates a positive atmosphere of trust, respect, and caring for the student. The Marzano rubrics create a standard method of assessment that allowed for creative questions, the inclusion of real-world problems and weekly contact with the students.

The course was designed to be very clear about course goals and objectives, clear about how content would be assessed, cognizant that students learn in different ways. Therefore, the content of the chemistry course was divided into units. Each unit had the same basic structure. Since some students are “big picture” people each unit began with a set of learning objectives and a concept map that detailed the ideas taught in that unit. Each unit was then divided into pages where the content was presented in short chunks that included a concept per page. This reduced the chance that students would be overwhelmed. All content was present verbally and as pictures, cartoons, drawings, and videos. Many of these resources already exist on the web and students can be simply sent to view the website. Care was also taken to ensure that the content met the needs of the students in the course. Since this was a course for students majoring in environmental science and policy, the content was geared to that audience. This meant that some areas of basic chemistry that would normally be included in a chemistry course was eliminated because it is content that these students will probably not encounter. Other content that normally would not be included in a basic chemistry course was included.

To maintain close contact with the students in an invitational way, questions were always answered promptly and courteously. If a student was not turning assignments in, an email of concern was sent asking what could be done to help the student. Assignments were scored and returned promptly with explanations that helped the student understand concepts that were missed and comments that applauded good work. Friendly announcements were sent out periodically applauding the class for good work and encouraging them to call or email with questions.

The Marzano rubrics are based on a 4.0 scale where each whole number is consistently linked with a specific level of question. The 2.0 level reflects a basic understanding of the concepts as covered in the unit. The 3.0 level reflects the ability to apply those concepts. The 4.0 level reflects the ability to use those concepts in new situations. The use of a four point grading scheme allows students to recover from a poor score. When using a 100 point scale it is almost impossible to recover from a very low score. The three levels of questions provides room for basic questions, interesting application questions, and challenge questions. The creativity of the person making the questions is the only limit to the kinds of questions that can be created. Questions at the different levels provide a picture of what the students understood and what they can do with their knowledge. A series of questions at the different levels was included with each unit. This provided a weekly check with the students about what they were learning and whether they were keeping up with assignments.

Keywords:

chemistry, on-line, invitational education, marzano.