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The article presents a study which uses a quasi-experimental design to empirically investigate engineering 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 section is provided the more common Muddiest Point exit question. The alternate section is provided the Most Surprised exit question.

Incorporating user feedback is imperative for the adoption and continued usage of educational innovations in the classroom. We report on the development of an Android-based student mobile application, a user-suggested improvement for the AIChE Concept Warehouse. An Apple-based mobile application is also in development. Our intent is to share the applications' development and improvement process in the hopes that other innovators can benefit from the lessons learned through our experience. The AIChE Concept Warehouse was developed with the intent of fostering a community of learning within chemical engineering. The Concept Warehouse is a web-enabled database infrastructure that is designed to promote concept-based instruction through the use of concept questions. These concept questions are used in core curriculum courses like Material/Energy Balances, Thermodynamics, Transport Phenomena, Kinetics and Reactor Design, and Materials Science. Availability of high quality concept questions can lower the barrier for faculty to use concept-based instruction and assessment. This software allows the instructor to engage students and evaluate student learning in real-time. The instructor is then able to adjust the pace of lecture in response to student understanding. The Concept Warehouse also allows for reflective assessments such as "the muddiest point." The student mobile application was developed to make it easier for students to submit answers and written explanations to these assessments using mobile devices. Originally, students could submit their answers to conceptual questions using clickers, mobile browsers on smartphones, and laptops. Input via smartphones, however, proved cumbersome because it depended on the quality of the student's mobile browser and utilized the full-size webpage interface. The improved mobile student interface facilitates participation by making responses via smartphone more user-friendly. After the development of the application, we conducted initial usability tests with students who had previously used the web-based options for answer submission. In order to gauge usability, we collected usage statistics from student responses to a usability survey. Survey responses were used to identify student likes and dislikes as well as to compare different available options for answer submission. These results will be used to improve the design of the current application as well as guide our design decisions for the development of the iOS version of the student app. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two-way formative feedback has been used extensively in the JTF (Just-in-Time-Teaching with Frequent Formative Feedback) project to help instructors understand student thinking and respond with directed feedback and creation of web-enabled student learning resources. When students respond to an open-ended question about issues on content and concepts in a class (e.g. Muddiest Points) their anonymous responses extend beyond the boundaries of the framework an instructor uses to organize, communicate, assess and evaluate their knowledge and understanding. So, if there are hidden issues that impede student learning, such as misconceptions, skill gaps (like charting), difficult concepts, vocabulary ambiguities, etc., the instructor may never become aware of them. In formative feedback students' needs and issues are the defining framework of learning issues, impediments, and barriers that an instructor can address for more effective teaching. Thus, students are empowered to play a role in their learning when they provide input about their instruction. Instructors in the JTF project have created a variety of web-enabled tools and resources to address issues revealed by student feedback acquired by using Concept Warehouse or Blackboard survey tools. One tool is "pencasts" in which a smart pen captures a person's writing and/or drawing on a notepad along with audio input to make a "pencast" recording as an audio PDF. These tutorial problem pencasts have been made into videos for the YouTube on the channel MSEASUproblems. Another popular student resource is Muddiest Point YouTube videos at www.youtube.com/user/MaterialsConcepts. Another resource is at Quizlet.com, a web-enabled illustrated vocabulary resource at http://quizlet.com/MatSciASU. A final resource is SlideShare.net, a public web site to which slide sets can be uploaded, with an example at http://www.slideshare.net/mseasuslides. The use of these and other resources, such as textbooks, class notes, course slide sets, etc. has been characterized by a new survey tool called the Student Resource Value Survey (SRVS). The survey was administered four times during a semester before each of four exams. Thus, the research question for this work was, "What is the effect of two-way formative feedback and associated web-enabled resources on student resource use and impact on student performance?" The results of a collaborative of five materials courses at four universities were the following. There was a very positive impact of JTF teaching strategies on student attitude, learning, and persistence at all institutions. Student attitude results from a Student Impact Value Survey (SIVS) showed positive results of average 64% for Interest / Attainment Value and high values of 85% average of Utility Value, and also 84% agreeing that the cost of effort was low. Thus, the students have been well motivated through classroom practice using JTF pedagogy. The SRVS survey showed resources students used for exam study and problem solving changed across the semester. A few notable trends were, for exam study resource use, teaching assistant went from 25% to 80%, classmates went from 56% to 67%, YouTube Muddiest Point videos went from 47% to 67%, textbook readings went from 28% to 10%, and Google use fluctuated between 42% and 61%. Thus, these results generally show increasing preference to use a peer mentor and classmates as well as electronic resources and decreasing preference to use traditional resources like textbooks. Impact on persistence across collaborating universities was 97% for 227 students in four classes in Fall 2013 and 95% for 311 students in five classes in Spring 2014. Overall, the use of two-way formative feedback and JTF pedagogy helped guide development of web- enabled student resources as well as shifting students' resource use away from traditional resources like textbooks and more toward peer mentors, classmates and web-enabled resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses, project plan for integration of conceptual learning in chemical engineering curriculum to develop and promote the use of a cyberenabled infrastructure for concept based education. The major objective of the plan is to introduce chemical engineering faculty to concept-based learning into their classes.