Paul Andrade HIED 546 Dr.

Jackson 6/5/14
Learning Activity Project
Lesson Plan

Prior to coming to class, the students are instructed to read and annotate the pertinent text on the
most common organic reactions, which I envision would be done on an interactive web-based
classroom tool like Classroom Salon from Carnegie Mellon. This flipped-classroom style is
meant to provide the instructor with an idea as to what topics students are finding interesting
and/or difficult so as to guide discussion prompts during class. The students will also be asked to
engage in self-directed learning to find supplemental information from free online open
education resources (OERs) like MITs OpenCourseWare, Curriki, or relevant MOOCs. To this
end, students will be assigned a particular reaction type to guide their self-directed learning with
the expectation that they will have to teach it to others during the group activity. A list of
potential resources that the students could take advantage of would be included in the syllabus
and mentioned again in reminder notes on the preparation for next class emails.


Objective 1: The student will categorize organic chemistry reactions according to the common
processes known as addition, elimination, or substitution reactions. (Bloom Level
IV)

Objective 2: The student will predict the possible products of a reaction by applying the different
reaction types. (Bloom Level III)


Start the class by doing a demonstration of an actual (and safe!) chemical reaction that gets the
attention of the class (reactions that makes noise, or bubbles, or shows a color change are not
hard to find). Give a short description of a particular chemical reaction using the jargon of
organic chemistry and asking if the students can translate to ordinary language what was just said
(through an interactive classroom tool). Then ask what types of reactions they remember from
previous courses or experiences (anything from outside of school, like television or movies).
There may be many examples in addition to the ones we will focus on, like acid-base,
combustion, redox, complexation reactions that will have been encountered in other courses, but
restate that we will be looking at important reaction types in organic chemistry for this class.
State the class objectives for the lesson and begin the group activities.

Activities for Objective 1:
1) Students will be separated into groups and given one of the three processes to review
and discuss.
2) Students will talk about and come up with general examples of what they think their
assigned reaction means/looks like to present to the class.
3) Instructor will provide information about each reaction so that the class as a whole can
evaluate and determine whether the group presentations accurately represent the
concepts of the reactions. This is followed by feedback from the class and the
instructor.
4) Students will get into their groups again and analyze a set of organic reactions from a
process different than the one they presented on.
Paul Andrade HIED 546 Dr. Jackson 6/5/14
5) Students will discuss as a group and report the various constituents of the reaction
(labeling reactants, products, catalysts, solvent, among others as they apply) and the
consistencies in their set of reactions to the rest of the class using the appropriate
chemical terms (but also can say in their own words and be guided to the correct
terms).
6) Students and the instructor from other groups will evaluate clarity by commenting or
asking questions.


Activities for Objective 2:
1) Reform groups to include equal amounts of members from the different groups formed
in the first part of the class.
2) Provide several reactions to each group, this list will include known, totally inaccurate,
and plausible but inaccurate examples of the reactions being discussed. Ask the
students to compare reactions and as a group categorize them as being correct or
incorrect. Encourage that members discuss and use their prior knowledge from their
original groups to instruct and persuade other group members. Encourage the students
to attach questions to their answers to spark discussion in the next part.
3) When groups are ready, ask for examples from each category from each group and
allow for discussion by all the groups together as to whether they agree or disagree.
(For the incorrect reactions, the groups will identify what is wrong, and provide/sketch
out the correct predicted results.)
4) Allow the groups to reexamine their answers after the discussion and state whether
they stick by their answer or want to amend their answers after the class discussion.
5) The instructor will then reveal what the correct responses are, and provide constructive
feedback.

Wrap up:
The instructor will restate the key points about the most common organic reaction processes will
summarize and comment on the important questions/trouble areas and the solutions that arose in
the discussions. The students are asked to provide any thoughts, feedback, or questions they may
have on the class.


How I used to Kolbs Model:
Kolbs model is a learning theory that combines experience, perception, cognition, and behavior
as processes that must be present to achieve complete learning. Svinicki and Dixon (1987)
presented it as a framework that can be used for the creation and implementation of classroom
activities. The Kolb model incorporates four stages in the cycle. Learning begins with an
experience (concrete experience), which can be reflected on (reflective observation), eliciting
conclusions about the experience (abstract conceptualization), which guide further experiences
reinitiating the cycle (active experimentation).

I used figure 2 in Svinicki and Dixon (1987) to guide my design of activities in my lesson plan as
follows:
Paul Andrade HIED 546 Dr. Jackson 6/5/14
Concrete Experience through self-directed learning before class, asking the students to
discuss examples of what reactions are both conceptually and specifically, and through
problem sets.

Reflective Observation through discussion, questioning, and evaluation in groups and
with the class.

Abstract Conceptualization through the creativity of analogies that students in groups
come up with to explain their answers or ideas.

Active Experimentation through the implementation of group nano-case studies of
reactions to determine the salient similarities among sets of reactions with chemical
representations that may at times look like a different language. I also included the
possibility of having examples of reactions that appear to be correct but are not real in the
problem sets to stimulate thought.


Explanation of the activity
This lesson plan is intended to be used for a non-science major introductory organic
chemistry class in the beginning stages of the course a majority of which could be liberal arts
majors taking a course to satisfy a general education science requirement. I envision that this
plan can be accomplished within the time allotted for one session of a class that meets twice a
week for an hour and a half class periods during the fall or spring semester. This material would
be covered after the students have been exposed to the general structures and nomenclature of
common organic compounds. Exposure to these concepts provides a foundation in organic
reactions which will be built upon later in discussions on the different chemical processes used in
the petroleum and pharmaceutical industries, as well as those that occur in living organisms.
The purpose of the course would be to expose non-science majors to various important
chemical concepts and relate them to the experiences of everyday life. The course would
promote awareness of the chemistry occurring in ourselves and in the world around us and aim to
provide knowledge that dispels common misconceptions about chemical notions and /or
processes.
The course will follow a flipped classroom model to minimize lecturing while
maximizing the amount of time we have for discussion and group activities. The course will also
make use of a web-based interactive classroom platform to incentivize students to read the text,
to allow students to annotate and ask questions related to the text, and to provide a safe
environment during class for anonymous questioning and assessment.
The group activity I planned follows the backwards design model. This model
emphasizes that course design begins with the selection of learning objectives, followed by
identification of assessment methods of the objectives, concluding with the implementation of
the content to achieve the learning objectives.
The objectives for the lesson are meant to promote thinking on levels higher than
remembering and understanding according to Blooms revised taxonomy (total of six levels
of thinking). Objective one allows for analyzing (Level IV thinking). Objective three places
thinking at the level of applying knowledge (Level III). After stating the learning objectives, I
selected to assess their achievement through mini-presentations and interactive questioning using
Paul Andrade HIED 546 Dr. Jackson 6/5/14
a problem set in a social learning environment in which their analysis and application of the
selected organic reactions is tested and retested in the group activities. I think this method
allows students to learn as they are being assessed, not only by assessment of the instructor but
also by assessing and being assessed by their peers. The group activities allow for assessment
throughout the lesson plan.
I designed two group activities to stimulate discussion and learning. In the first activity,
students form birds of a feather groups in which everyone studied the same reaction type prior
to coming to class. I think the self-directed learning portion may allow for students to bring in
examples that may concern them, such as topics related to global warming, drug manufacturers,
environmental concerns, etc... Presentation and discussion of mini-presentations, followed by
peer and instructor feedback is meant to supplement and strengthen self-directed learning.
The second activity forms new groups that are a combination of members from previous
activity. Each group now has expertise in each of the reaction types. This exercise is directed
towards a learning by teaching in a social environment followed by presentation of responses
to a set of problems to assess knowledge. During the wrap up portion, the instructor will ask the
students to provide their thoughts and/or any questions they still have through the classroom
interactive tool. This is done to provide the instructor with feedback that leads to reflection on
the success of the activities and what can be done to improve upon the design of the class.