Tracy Halmi, associate teaching professor of chemistry.
New mid-semester slide-over course helps students struggling in chemistry principles
Tracy Halmi, associate teaching professor of chemistry, knows a student is going to fail her CHEM 110: Chemistry Principles class long before they do.
Call it optimism, denial, or delusion, but struggling students rarely seek help or admit defeat until they get an “F” in the course, Halmi said.
“It’s like an oncoming freight train,” Halmi said. “I can see it coming a mile off, but they can’t. They keep thinking they can fix it if they just do better on the next exam, but the hole just gets deeper.”
A must-pass for many
CHEM 110 is the first semester of a two-semester, comprehensive general chemistry sequence that introduces students to the basic principles of chemistry. CHEM 110 is a required course for science and pre-health majors at Behrend and for many other majors, including most of the engineering disciplines.
“This is not an elective course for most students,” Halmi said. “They must pass CHEM 110 to move forward. Unfortunately, the national data shows that about 30 percent of students fail a first-year chemistry principles course. That’s almost one-third of the class.”
For that reason, CHEM 110 has been referred to as “weed-out” course, one that forces a struggling student to reconsider their career path. But Halmi said that is not what any professor wants.
“No faculty member wants to fail a student,” she said. “It’s our job to teach them. We want them to succeed.”
Why do so many students fail college-level chemistry?
“Research suggests that it’s related to math skills, but I think another big factor is maturity,” Halmi said. “This is a first-year course, and it’s a hard one. It might be easier to pass if it were a second-year course, when students have learned how to ‘do’ college.”
It’s a first-year course because it provides foundational information that future instruction is built on. Moving it is not an option.
But those at risk of failing CHEM 110 have a new option thanks to Halmi and a group of Commonwealth Campus faculty members (see list below) who worked together to find strategies to help first-year students.
Slide, instead of failing
The group worked together to repurpose CHEM 101: Introductory Chemistry as a hybrid mid-semester replacement course for students struggling with CHEM 110.
“It allows students who are struggling in CHEM 110 to ‘slide over’ into CHEM 101 midway in the semester to get the help they need when they need it,” Halmi said. “They basically drop CHEM 110 and enroll in CHEM 101 without any penalty.”
Should the student decide to change majors, CHEM 101 can be used to fulfill a General Education requirement. Those who choose to stay in a career path that requires CHEM 110 and 112 will still have to take and pass both courses, but CHEM 101 will prepare them to do so.
“The sole intent of the hybrid course is to give students the foundation they need to make it through CHEM 110,” Halmi said.
Though it will take years to collect data on the effectiveness of the slide-over course, the preliminary results are impressive.
“On the second attempt at CHEM 110 without the slide-over course, two-thirds of students fail again,” Halmi said. “For those who take the slide-over course, the failure rate is much lower, less than one-third.”
Chemistry faculty members have observed additional benefits for those who opt to slide over: self-efficacy and reduced anxiety.
“I had a student who chose to slide into the CHEM 101 class who enrolled in CHEM 110 the next semester,” Halmi said. “He got a 76 on the first exam, which is a score most students would be thrilled to get, but when I congratulated him, he told me, ‘I can do better.’”
He did, and he is now a third-year biology student.
Chemistry collaborators
Penn State faculty and staff who developed the CHEM 101 slide-over course include:
- Laura Cruz, research professor, Schreyer Institute
- Dr. Roger Egolf, associate professor, Lehigh Valley
- Tracy Halmi, associate teaching professor, Behrend
- Dr. Michael Hay, associate professor, Beaver
- Elizabeth Huck, instructional designer for the Commonwealth Campuses
- Kurt Kistler, teaching professor, Brandywine
- Dr. Christine Krewson, associate teaching professor, Abington
- Claudia Tanaskovic, assistant teaching professor,
Beaver