Dr. Kelly Hogan
Before each class, Hogan’s students receive questions to guide their assigned reading and then log in online to complete graded homework that is designed to prepare them for the next lesson.
The more structured, active-learning model Hogan uses has borne precious academic fruit. A study she co-authored last year found that all her students achieved at higher levels. But some subgroups benefited even more.
Black students cut their achievement gap with Whites in half. It disappeared totally for first-generation students, compared to those whose parents had gone to college.
“The only way to cut an achievement gap is to have a disproportionate benefit for the groups that there is already a gap for. I think that’s significant,” says Hogan, director of instructional innovation in the College of Arts and Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Those results, published in the CBE-Life Sciences Journal, hold the promise of making progress—at least for Black students at research universities like UNC-Chapel Hill—on the stubborn problem of the achievement gap in STEM courses. Could the teaching style also help increase the retention of students through graduation with degrees in those fields? “We have a glimpse of it, and I think the answer is yes. We need to follow students longitudinally,” Hogan says.
The numbers, too, only reinforce the achievement gap. A 2012 report from the American Council on Education (ACE) found that, within five years of enrolling in college, 74 percent of Asian Americans and 70 percent of Whites earn an academic credential, while only 49 percent of Hispanics and 48 percent of African-Americans do.
