Adapting the three man game scenario as a collaborative learning strategy in chemistry

CHED 382

Eva M. Deemer, emdeemer@miners.utep.edu, Jeffrey E. Hernandez, jehernandez5@miners.utep.edu, Giannina Heredia, gheredia2@utep.edu, Christina Gonzalez, cgonzalez13@miners.utep.edu, and James E. Becvar, jbecvar@utep.edu. Department of Chemistry, University of Texas at El Paso, 500 West University Ave, El Paso, TX 79968
Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) is a collaborative pedagogical strategy achieving positive results in student learning gains. The ‘Plus Two' format at UTEP replaces one hour of lecture with two hours of PLTL Workshop: small group, team based, active learning sessions integrated with lecture. Plus Two PLTL has increased the C-or-better passing rate from 53% to 74% in general chemistry here. One continuing difficulty is in engaging students to effectively participate because of wide variance in abilities. An effective way to keep students' involvement at a maximum is to use competition in the form of a game. The origins of the Three Man Game come from a common thinking pool, the college party. ‘Three Man' can be applied to any subject, using two dice and two decks of questions: one deck being fast paced, concept based questions, the other deck containing problem solving and strategy based questions.