Keeler, J., & Brooks, B. J., & Friedrichsen, D. M., & Nason, J. A., & Koretsky, M. (2015, June), What’s Muddy vs. What’s Surprising? Comparing Student Reflections about Class  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.25067

\bibitem{asee_peer_25067}
  Keeler, J., \& Brooks, B. J., \& Friedrichsen, D. M., \& Nason, J. A., \& Koretsky, M. (2015, June), \emph{What’s Muddy vs. What’s Surprising? Comparing Student Reflections about Class}
  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington.
  10.18260/p.25067

Jessie Keeler, Bill Jay Brooks, Debra May Friedrichsen, Jeffrey A Nason, and Milo Koretsky.  "What’s Muddy vs. What’s Surprising? Comparing Student Reflections about Class".  2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2015.  https://peer.asee.org/25067 Internet.  26 Apr, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_25067}
  Jessie Keeler, Bill Jay Brooks, Debra May Friedrichsen, Jeffrey A Nason, and Milo Koretsky.
  "What’s Muddy vs. What’s Surprising? Comparing Student Reflections about Class".
  \emph{2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2015.
  https://peer.asee.org/25067 Internet.  26 Apr, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_25067
author = "Jessie Keeler, Bill Jay Brooks, Debra May Friedrichsen, Jeffrey A Nason, and Milo Koretsky"
title = "What’s Muddy vs. What’s Surprising? Comparing Student Reflections about Class"
booktitle = "2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2015"
month = "June"
address = "Seattle, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/25067}
number = {10.18260/p.25067}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -                         What’s Muddy vs. What’s Surprising?                      Comparing Student Reflections about ClassPromoting students to be more reflective about their learning experiences allows them to developrobust learning strategies and develops the metacognitive skills that are a characteristic ofexpertise. It can also provide instructors formative information about students conceptions ofcourse content. We use the definition that reflection is the act of “exploring the meaning ofexperiences and the consequences of the meanings for future action.”A simple reflection activity commonly used in class is a Muddiest Point exit question, “Whatwas the muddiest point in class this week?” In this activity, the instructor asks students to write abrief, anonymous written comment describing the concept or topic that they found to be the mostdifficult to understand during class. In this study, we use a quasi-experimental design toempirically investigate students’ in-class responses to two end of in-class activities wherestudents were asked to reflect on the class over the last week. One recitation section is providedthe more common Muddiest Point exit question. The alternate section is provided the MostSurprised exit question, “What surprised you most about class this week?” In this qualitativestudy, we ask the research question, “How do the student reflection responses differ based on thetype of exit question asked?”Participants were enrolled in a required, core sophomore-level, undergraduate Material Balancesengineering course at a large public university. The students from each cohort attended acommon lecture and self-selected into one of two weekly, one-hour recitations (labeledRecitation 1 and Recitation 2). The lectures and recitations for both cohorts were taught by thesame instructor. For each cohort the second recitation (Recitation 2) was scheduled immediatelyafter the first (Recitation 1) and held in the same room. A cross-over design was used where therecitations sections alternated between exit question. Data were collected on mobile devicesthrough an online system. The Institutional Review Board approved the research and participantssigned informed consent forms.Content analysis was performed in two ways. Each week’s responses were compared bycompiling word clouds of the responses. Two weeks’ sets of responses were then coded in moredetail where the word clouds differed the most. For this analysis, we also selected sets whereeach section answered one Muddiest Point and one Most Surprised. An emergent coding methodwas used where sets of codes were identified based on the written content in the reflections. Boththe week’s technical content and epistemological frames are evident. Our hypothesis is thedifferent reflection prompts will elicit different types of thinking about the class, but that bothwill provide the learners and the instructor productive information. By understanding thedifferences in how students answer these reflective exit questions, instructors can moreintentionally select appropriately.
AU  - Jessie Keeler
AU  - Bill Jay Brooks
AU  - Debra May Friedrichsen
AU  - Jeffrey A Nason
AU  - Milo Koretsky
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - What’s Muddy vs. What’s Surprising? Comparing Student Reflections about Class
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/25067
DO  - 10.18260/p.25067
ER  -