‘Generic prompts give students autonomy and flexibility to expand their ideas’

Many university science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) instructors incorporate guiding prompts in their courses and labs to deepen students’ understanding of the material through reflection. Like other STEM instructors, I have incorporated guiding prompts into my first-year chemistry laboratory classes, hoping to enhance my students’ conceptual understanding of the content. Previously, I employed a directed-prompt approach, a strategy widely used in STEM that follows a bottom-up systematic thinking path. For example: “In the synthesis of aspirin experiment, what is the purpose of adding concentrated sulfuric acid?” Another example would be: “Why does the aqueous tea solution need to be cooled to 15-20॰C before the dichloromethane can be added to the caffeine experiment?” 

Directed prompts are questions designed to draw out a response or guide a particular line of thinking. Their structured nature leads students to a narrow range of acceptable answers, often resulting in unsatisfying and fragmented outcomes for them. This fragmentation can stem from differences in students’ education, language proficiency or personal experiences. Thus, as student bodies become more diverse, instructors must implement other strategies that better support a wide range of learners. 

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My recent exploration into effective prompting for teaching and learning has highlighted the importance of formulating guiding prompts to help students connect new information to their existing knowledge, making the new information both familiar and relevant. Rather than using directed prompts, a “generic prompts” approach – broad, open-ended questions that follow a top-down thinking path – can be more effective, according to research. These questions are open to a wider range of interpretations and can apply to many situations and subjects. For example: “Stop” and “Think” are generic prompts where students are given the autonomy and flexibility to expand their repertoire of ideas and draw links and distinctions to stimulate their thinking about content materials and experiences. Applied to the general chemistry laboratory class context, a generic prompt question could be: “My thoughts about kinetics are…Think about concepts such as reaction rates and chemical processes.” This is particularly important for a diverse cohort because each individual student can enhance their personalised learning, interdisciplinary connections and communication skills for real-world application in terms of their own experiences and perspectives.

Over the past year, I have redesigned the guiding questions in the General Chemistry II laboratory manual with “generic prompts”. This instructional strategy has taught me the following:

Students respond to generic prompts more quickly than they do to directed prompts 

Overall, students respond more quickly to generic prompts. This includes reading, processing, evaluating, reflecting and responding to the questions. This suggests that generic prompts are more accessible because students’ responses can serve as a way to express their prior knowledge or thoughts, setting the stage for further discussion and exploration of the topic. Furthermore, as students build confidence and understanding of the subject, instructors can introduce more complex questions that require deeper thinking. Thus, generic prompts can reduce students’ anxiety, encouraging them to participate in complicated questions immediately. 

Students respond more coherently to generic prompts

Most students can explain the science content and practice inside and outside their chemistry laboratory classes more coherently with generic prompts. Knowledge becomes more integrated and organised as students try to incorporate newly learned ideas into their intuitive understanding of science. Another observation I have encountered is that students are more comfortable sharing their ideas and personal connections around generic prompts. 

Shortcomings of and recommendations for using generic prompts

While generic prompts can be helpful in first-year chemistry courses, especially for initial engagement or to build confidence, they may become less effective in more advanced course contexts. A balanced approach that starts with generic prompts but proceeds to more complex, directed prompts may often be the best strategy to support student learning across different stages and contexts.

Generic-prompt questions allow students to draw upon and expand their repertoire of ideas by connecting ideas from the prompt question, previous experiences, chemistry laboratory classes or other circumstances. Students express scientific concepts more coherently, logically and clearly in connection with different ideas and examples. Overall, generic prompts are powerful for guiding first-year university science students to connect previous experiences with new knowledge and to apply them to their complex day-to-day activities. 

Karen Ho is a senior laboratory instructor in the department of chemistry and physics at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada. Douglas B. Clark is a professor in the Werklund School of Education at University of Calgary, Canada. 

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