Download Unscramble the Numbers Peer-Led Team Learning Activity

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.
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).
Unscramble the Numbers
89732
2324
4334
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 4 Illustrates the
effectiveness of
Unscramble the
Numbers.
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
89732
2324
4334
3246
52749
Answer:
Answer: Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
32.978 g of 2.432 mol 3.443105 M of 46.23 g of -752.94 J
Na
of HCl
Na2 CO3
glucose
Problem #3
Problem #5 Problem Problem #1
Problem #4 Team 3
Team 2
#2
Team 3
Team 2
Team 3
61723
Answer:
17.362 L of
N2
Problem #6
Team 1
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.