Finding Time for Active Learning with Just-in-Time Teaching

A version of Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) was implemented in a two-semester organic chemistry course for non-chemistry majors with fewer than 15 students at a medium-sized, regional, religiously-affiliated university. Before every class session, students read assigned sections of the textbook, reviewed instructor-written learning objectives for that assignment, watched instructor-developed YouTube videos, and completed an online quiz that asked them to reflect on what they found most interesting, comprehensible, and confusing about the content. This placed responsibility on students to obtain preliminary content knowledge on their own, freeing much of class time to practice applying content knowledge and developing problem-solving skills. In a typical 90-minute class session, approximately 30 minutes were spent addressing concepts that students reported as most challenging, leaving 60 minutes available to work in small groups on instructor-designed practice problems in an, essentially, "semi-flipped" classroom.