What’s Muddy vs. What’s Surprising? Comparing Student Reflections about Class

Abstract

Jeff Nason is an associate professor of environmental engineering and associate school head for research and graduate training in the School of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. His research and teaching are primarily in the areas of physical/chemical processes for water quality control and aquatic chemistry. In the classroom, he facilitates conceptual learning and frequent formative feedback using the AIChE Concept Warehouse and promotes formal cooperative learning through the use of studio based instruction in high enrollment classes. Dr. Milo Koretsky, Oregon State UniversityMilo Koretsky is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Oregon State University. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from UC San Diego and his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, all in Chemical Engineering. He currently has research activity in areas related engineering education and is interested in integrating technology into effective educational practices and in promoting the use of higher-level cognitive skills in engineering problem solving. His research interests particularly focus on what prevents students from being able to integrate and extend the knowledge developed in specific courses in the core curriculum to the more complex, authentic problems and projects they face as professionals. Dr. Koretsky is one of the founding members of the Center for Lifelong STEM Education Research at OSU. Classroom assessment techniques that ask students to reflect on material covered in class are believed to help improve learning by allowing the student to actively participate in the learning process while evaluating their understanding of course content.1 Promoting students to be more reflective about their learning experiences allows them to develop robust learning strategies and metacognitive skills that are characteristic of expertise.2 Students' written reflections can also provide instructors with formative information about students conceptions of course content. In this paper, we use the definition of Turns and Atman that reflection is the act of "exploring the meaning of experiences and the consequences of the meanings for future action." 3 Instructors have used several forms of short reflection activities at the end of class. In this paper we compare two such activities which we term Muddiest Point and Most Surprised. Muddiest Point asks the students to answer the exit question, "What was the muddiest point in class this week?" In this activity, the instructor asks students to write a brief, anonymous written comment describing the concept or topic that they found to be the most difficult to understand during class. Similarly, in the Most Surprised reflection activity, the instructor asks students to answer the question "What surprised you most about class this week?" In this study, we use a quasi-experimental design to empirically investigate students' in-class responses to these two end of in-class activities where students were asked to reflect on the class over the last week. One recitation sec...

Surprises in the Muddy Waters of High-Enrollment Courses

“…Thus, for both students and instructors, this type of activity fits within the definition of Turns and Atman of reflection as the act of "exploring the meaning of experiences and the consequences of the meanings for future action." 15 In a previous study, 7 we compared two end-of-class reflection questions which we labeled Muddiest Point and Most Surprised. The Muddiest Point required the students to respond to the prompt, "What was the muddiest point in class this week?"…”

“…12,17 And studies that explicitly investigate the use of the Most Surprised prompt in various settings are lacking. 18 In the previous study, 7 we used a quasi-experimental design to examine students' in-class responses to these two exit questions where students were asked to reflect on the class over the last week. Each week, one section of students was given the Muddiest Point prompt while the alternate section was given the Most Surprised prompt.…”

“…These activities are often termed the minute paper − or the exit slip . Several different prompts have been used, including asking students to write about the aspect of class that they thought was the most important, , interesting, confusing or muddiest, ,− or surprising. , However, there is scant comparative empirical evidence about the ways students respond to these prompts that would allow an instructor to make an informed choice about which prompt or sets of prompts to use.…”

“…In a previous study, we compared two end-of-class reflection questions which we labeled Muddiest Point and Most Surprised. The Muddiest Point required the students to respond to the prompt, “What was the muddiest point in class this week?” whereas the Most Surprised activity asked students to answer the question “What surprised you most about class this week?” The Muddiest Point minute paper is common, and its use has been reported in a variety of university classrooms including chemistry, , biology, statistics, materials science, , aeronautics, and chemical engineering .…”