Integrating Research Experiences in the General Chemistry Laboratory Course (original) (raw)
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An Investigative, Cooperative Learning Approach for General Chemistry Laboratories
International journal for the scholarship of teaching and learning, 2012
The integration of research and education is an essential component of our university's teaching philosophy. Recently, we made a curricular revision to facilitate such an approach in the General Chemistry Laboratory, to teach students that investigative approaches are at the core of sciences. The curriculum revision included new interdisciplinary experiments and a research project. Investigative, peer review, and cooperative learning strategies were introduced to enhance student learning and engagement. An environment in which students can analyze results within a laboratory session and reach comprehensive and quantitative conclusions was encouraged. To assess our results, students completed questionnaires, evaluated their peers and themselves. Instructors evaluated students through written reports, oral presentations, pre-and post test, a practical exam and a final exam. Assessments of the learning outcomes were performed to determine the level of research skills development, the improvement in laboratory techniques, and depth in analysis of concepts. The experimental designs, implementation of results, and comparisons of student performances using traditional approaches are presented.
Journal of Chemical Education, 1990
Students who take analvtical chemistry courses, especially a t the beginning of their training, tend to accept the analytical techniques that are handed to them, without trying to find out whether they are working in optimum conditions or whether they are using the best possible analytical procedure. Formal teaching methods, such as lectures, demonstrations, and laboratory experiments have (in general) proved inadequate, both in solving this problem and in obtaining from students the desired degree of motivation. As an alternative, a group of analytical chemistry, statistics, and computing professors formed a team in order to test a different methodology to be tried out on an experimental basis, followed by the evaluation of its results. This new methodology intended t o cover both the theoretical and practical aspects of the subjects under consideration, introducing a t the same time the principles and concepts that support scientific research and integrating those subjects that constitute useful analytical tools. These subjects had heen studied in nrevious courses that isolated them from a . --practical application to chemistry; this approach had not nrovided sufficient motivation, and therefore learning ahout ;hem became simply a curricular obligation to the students.
Journal of Chemical Education, 2015
Research projects conducted by faculty in STEM departments served as the inspiration for a new curriculum of inquiry-based, multiweek laboratory modules in the general chemistry 1 course. The purpose of this curriculum redesign was to improve students' attitudes about chemistry as well as their self-efficacy and skills in performing inquiry activities. Students' ability to plan experiments and interpret data improved throughout the semester, as did their confidence in conducting research-like lab activities. Improved confidence was observed among men and women, science and engineering students, and Caucasian and international students. These outcomes are similar to those found with authentic research-based experiments. The curriculum had less of an impact on students' attitudes about chemistry. A research-inspired curriculum offers many benefits to students without the difficulties of designing actual research-based projects for general chemistry classes.
An Investigative, Cooperative Learning Approach to the General Chemistry Laboratory
2009
Investigative-and cooperative-based learning strategies have been used effectively in a variety of classrooms to enhance student learning and engagement. In the General Microbiology laboratory for juniors and seniors at James Madison University, these strategies were combined to make a semester-long, investigative, cooperative learning experience involving culture and identification of microbial isolates that the students obtained from various environments. To assess whether this strategy was successful, students were asked to complete a survey at the beginning and at the end of the semester regarding their comfort level with a variety of topics. For most of the topics queried, the students reported that their comfort had increased significantly during the semester. Furthermore, this group of students thought that the quality of this investigative lab experience was much better than that of any of their previous lab experiences.
Journal of Chemical Education, 2017
Innovative models of teaching through research have broken the long-held paradigm that core chemistry competencies must be taught with predictable, scripted experiments. We describe here five fundamentally different, course-based undergraduate research experiences that integrate faculty research projects, accomplish ACS accreditation objectives, provide the benefits of an early research experience to students, and have resulted in publishable findings. The model detailed is the Freshman Research Initiative (FRI) at The University of Texas at Austin. While there are currently 30+ active FRI research groups, or "streams", we focus this report on five different chemistry streams in these four areas (organic, inorganic, analytical, and biochemistry) to demonstrate how general chemistry laboratory skills are taught in the context of these varied research disciplines. To illustrate the flexibility of the FRI model for teaching first-year chemistry, we show how each stream teaches students three different skills within the context of their research: making (synthesis), measuring (UV-vis spectroscopy), and characterization. As a unifying example, all five chemistry streams describe using UV−vis spectroscopy to characterize new synthetic molecules, complexes, and compounds, followed by extensive quantitative collection, processing, and analysis of experimental data sets. The FRI model allows full integration of training in mandatory and accredited general chemistry skill sets with open-ended research experiences with unexpected outcomes in undergraduate science curricula. In turn, this model enables undergraduates to be productive contributors to new knowledge and scientific discovery at the earliest levels of the undergraduate experience.
Analysis of the Experiments in the Chemistry Textbooks in terms of the Laboratory Study Goal of the 2018 Chemistry Curriculum and Comparison with the Case of Science High School, 2022
This study aims to examine to what extent the goal of the 2018 Chemistry Curriculum for experimental studies overlaps with the acquisitions of the curriculum and to what extent upper-secondary school chemistry textbooks (high school) are prepared to meet this purpose. The study also seeks to assess the extent to which the activities in the chemistry textbooks are written to meet the four dimensions (gaining data by experimenting, inferring using data, interpretation, and generalization) of the 2018 Chemistry Curriculum. Finally, it is intended to compare this situation with the 2018 Science High School Chemistry Curriculum and determine the similarities and differences. For these purposes, the acquisitions including the experimental studies in the 2018 Chemistry Curriculum were determined at first. Then, the experiments in the 9 th , 10 th , 11 th, and 12 th grade chemistry textbooks were analyzed. Two ways were used for textbook analysis. In the first stage, it was defined to what extent the acquisitions in the 2018 Chemistry Curriculum and the experiments in the textbooks overlapped and how the experiments were distributed according to the units. In the second stage, the experiments in the textbooks were analyzed according to the four dimensions of the 2018 Chemistry Curriculum using a rubric. It was concluded that the acquisitions that include explanations about experimental studies are approximately 16% of the total acquisitions of the 2018 Chemistry Curriculum. Additionally, as a result of this analysis for SPSs, it is found that the experiments mostly focus on the basic SSBs, and they focus especially on "observation" and "measurement" skills.
Evaluating students’ learning from laboratory investigations
The concept of investigation is a central concept in science. Throughout the centuries, both the meaning of the concept and the characteristics of the processes associated with a scientific investigation have been strongly dependent on the dominant views of science. Nowadays, scientific investigation should be conceptualized as a problem-solving activity. Within the context of Science Education, laboratory investigations have had no clear meaning and been often non-differentiated from other types of laboratory activities. Laboratory investigations should be conceptualized as problem solving activities enabling students to both develop different types of knowledge (conceptual, procedural and attitudinal knowledge) in an integrated way and get into contact with the methods of science. Hence, the evaluation of students’ learning from laboratory investigations should concentrate on all these dimensions and be consistent with the holistic nature of this type of laboratory activity. Thus, the objective of this paper is to discuss the evaluation of students’ learning from laboratory investigations focusing on both the issues that can be evaluated in the different phases of an investigation and how those issues can be evaluated.
Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 2007
The Advancing Chemistry by Enhancing Learning in the Laboratory (ACELL) project aims to improve the quality of learning in undergraduate laboratories through two interlocking mechanisms. The first is to build a database of experiments that are both chemically and educationally sound by testing them in a third-party laboratory, usually through an ACELL workshop involving both academic staff and students, to ensure that they work. The second mechanism provides personal and professional development for staff and students through a workshop process, and reinforced through ongoing engagement with the ACELL community via the project website and experiment assessment and evaluation. The ACELL workshops include discussion of educational issues, both in abstract (through discussing laboratory learning in general) and concrete (through debriefing of each experiment tested) terms. This paper discusses the design of the ACELL project, and illustrates some of the successes of the staff and student personal and professional development aims. [Chem.
School chemistry vs. chemistry in research: an exploratory experiment
Journal of Science Education and Technology, 2001
This report describes a study which explores, from the out-of-school student viewpoint, why students are not studying chemistry anymore. In a 2-day stay at a research institution three groups of graduating high school students from different schools, together with their chemistry teacher, were confronted hands-on with molecular modeling in industry and in university. Each of these volunteer students had agreed to write an essay on "School Chemistry Vs. Chemistry in Research." These essays were evaluated together by the students, the teacher, and the researcher in a meeting at their school. The opinion of the students show that school chemistry does not convey today's chemistry in research and in industry. At the computer screen the students demonstrated their skill in performing molecular modeling experiments. Moreover, at the computer screen, chemistry was fun and easier to understand. Now we begin to see the solution: our students are also our teachers.