Diapositiva 1

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Unscramble the Numbers Peer-Led Team Learning
Activity
Lucia B. Chacon, James E. Becvar, Wen-Yee Lee and
Juan Noveron, Department of Chemistry, University
of Texas at El Paso, El Paso TX.
The free-style nature of the chemistry Peer-Led
Team Learning (PLTL) Program at the University of
Texas at El Paso (UTEP) motivates Peer Leaders to
create new team-based learning activities that
make chemistry more appealing, involve team work,
and facilitate student understanding. The
Chemistry Peer-Leader Program at UTEP received
the 2006 STAR Award from the Texas Higher
Education Coordinating Board for dramatically
improving student success and retention in
science and engineering disciplines.
Figure 4 Illustrates the effectiveness of
Unscramble the Numbers.
Unscramble the Numbers is a Peer-Led Team
Learning activity that encourages student teams
to compete to solve word problems with numerical
answers, such as finding mass, number of atoms,
molarity and moles of elements or compounds. The
Peer Leader must have the numerical answers to
several problems before Workshop. In Workshop, a
common set of problems is assigned to all
teams. While the teams are busy solving the
problems, the Peer Leader writes the answers in
columns on the board, but the numerals for each
answer are scrambled along with the order of the
sequence of problems (See Figure 1).
The team that first solves a problem and
identifies one of the numeral sets on the board
must claim that answer by writing the answer in
correct numerical order (with appropriate units)
and by writing the team name below it (See Figure
2). The winning team is the one solving the most
problems correctly.
Unscramble the Numbers Unscramble the Numbers Unscramble the Numbers Unscramble the Numbers
89732 Answer 32.978 g of Na Problem 5 Team 2 2324 Answer 2.432 mol of HCl Problem 2 Team 3 2324 Answer 2.432 mol of HCl Problem 2 Team 3 4334 Answer 3.443105 M of Na2 CO3 Problem 1 Team 3 3246 Answer 46.23 g of glucose Problem 4 Team 2 52749 Answer -752.94 J Problem 3 Team 3 52749 Answer -752.94 J Problem 3 Team 3 52749 Answer -752.94 J Problem 3 Team 3 61723 Answer 17.362 L of N2 Problem 6 Team 1
Unscramble the Numbers Unscramble the Numbers Unscramble the Numbers
89732 2324 2324 4334 3246 3246 61723
Figure 1 Shows six columns (one problem each)
with its respective unscrambled answer. The Peer
Leader must not specify if the answer has a
decimal point, or if it is written in scientific
notation.
Figure 2 Illustrates the correct answers in the
correct order. Team 3 identified 3 problems.
Therefore, team 3 won.
Figure 3 Demonstrates the average quiz grades of
two workshops before and after playing Unscramble
the Numbers.
Figure 5 Shows the number of students who find
this activity enjoyable.