Chemical Education: Supporting Student Laboratory Learning
Donald Wink
(University of Illinois at Chicago)
The first of two workshops focusing on chemical education will enable
participants to investigate, plan, and test ideas for new approaches to
laboratory instruction, based on principles we have established for faculty
development and student laboratory instruction. Participants should emerge
from the workshop with an initial plan for writing and implementing innovative
laboratory experiences on their campuses. The workshop leaders are co-PI's
on the NSF-funded curriculum development program, the "Chemical
Professional Laboratory Program" from which the text, Working with
Chemistry was developed to incorporate research-based problem and
inquiry learning strategies. Experience in that effort forms the basis for this
workshop.
The workshop discusses how faculty in a chemistry background can consider different learning strategies and different scientific perspectives in teaching general chemistry. The workshop begins with letting participants experience examples of the Working with Chemistry laboratory groups. This sets the tone for the rest of the discussion by providing a hands-on experience with what student-focused learning environment may look like. Later sessions, drawing on workshop materials developed for faculty development, include discussions of the nature of learning in young adults, the importance of connected learning in diverse student groups, and the way that a structured approach to student-designed experiments can support all students in learning general chemistry.
Day 1: Laboratory - Introduction to Inquiry: The Floating Egg; Chemical Proportionality followed by a discussion, What Is Important In What We Do? and another laboratory Thermochemistry of a Reaction (The Fire-proof Safe).
Day 2: Discussion - Student Meaning Making and Laboratory Work and Laboratories: A Student-focused Scenario Lab (determination of serum iron) and Chemistry in a Working Environment (Design of a Buffer, Cardiac Arrest!).
Day 3: Discussion - Supporting Student Cooperation; Assessment of Group Work; followed by a working group activity - Determining Critical Content.
Day 4: Working group activities: Reference Resources for New Lab Development and Planning a New Laboratory Module.
Day 5: Discussion - Testing, Safety, Dissemination and Working Group Activity: Planning Steps to Implementation
Technical resources for the course include the teaching instruments commonly available in a general chemistry setting, including equipment for titrations, thermochemistry, and spectrophotometry. Online library resources will also enable participants to investigate new experiments they wish to design. Text resources will include copies of the Working with Chemistry Laboratory and Instructors Manual. Depending on the interest of the participants, they will also receive a copy of a major reference text in an area that uses chemistry in its operation. Examples include reference texts in materials and chemical engineering, nutrition and physiology, or pharmodynamics.