The ChemLinks Coalition and the Modular Chemistry Consortium, based at Beloit College and the University of California-Berkeley, respectively, are now in their third year of collaboration to develop and test topical modules for the first two years of the college chemistry curriculum. This report describes our implementation of a modular approach and some of the active learning strategies it employs, plans for evaluating the effectiveness of this approach, and plans for disseminating it broadly within the undergraduate chemistry community. An Example of the ApproachEach 3-5-week module is based on an important, but general, question that is the centerpiece of the module: Why does the ozone hole form in the Antarctic spring? How can we drive the reactions of integrated circuit design? How can we make our water safe to drink? As students develop the chemistry needed to answer such questions, they model how chemistry is actually done and discover connections between chemistry, other sciences, technology, and society. In order to develop critical thinking skills as well as cover chemical content, the modules feature student-centered active and collaborative classroom activities and inquiry-based laboratory projects, rather than relying primarily on traditional lectures, examinations, and verification laboratories. This approach is based on research showing that students learn best when they can build on past experience, relate what they are learning to things relevant to them, have direct "hands-on" experience, construct their own knowledge in collaboration with other students and faculty, and communicate their results effectively.To illustrate our approach, we will use the module "What should we do about global warming?" by Sharon Anthony and Tom Brauch from Beloit College. This module, which is currently being tested by 650 students in 7 institutions, is intended to be used during the first three or four weeks of a general chemistry course to introduce dimensional analysis and unit conversion, significant figures, balancing chemical equations, stoichiometry, Lewis dot structures, and VSEPR theory. In addition, this module develops data analysis, problem-solving, and written communication skills.The opening session in every module introduces a larger question that students generally find interesting because of its personal or societal relevance. We involve the students by finding out what they already know about the question and getting them to suggest some approaches to answering itidentifying promising subquestions they will need to answer during the next few weeks. In this case, students often have some prior knowledge of greenhouse gases and global warming from the news media or from high school classes, so many of them can contribute what they already know, and the instructor can assess the range of backgrounds in the class. Using a short video and articles that are supplied by the instructor or by the students themselves, small groups are asked to identify scientific arguments that support and oppose the propos...
Introductory biochemistry courses are often challenging for students because they require the integration of chemistry, biology, physics, math, and physiology knowledge and frameworks to understand and apply a large body of knowledge. This can be complicated by students' persistent misconceptions of fundamental concepts and lack of fluency with the extensive visual and symbolic literacy used in biochemistry. Card sorting tasks and game‐based activities have been used to reveal insights into how students are assimilating, organizing, and structuring disciplinary knowledge, and how they are progressing along a continuum from disciplinary novice to expert. In this study, game‐based activities and card sorting tasks were used to promote and evaluate students' understanding of fundamental structure–function relationships in biochemistry. Our results suggest that while many markers of expertise increased for both the control and intervention groups over the course of the semester, students involved in the intervention activities tended to move further towards expert‐like sorting. This indicates that intentional visual literacy game‐based activities have the ability to build underdeveloped skills in undergraduate students.
Higher education evaluation or assessment plans generally look to key assessments within the curriculum for critical demonstrations of students’ learning. Increasingly, accreditation agencies (e.g., Southern Association of Schools and Colleges, National Council on Accreditation of Teacher Education) have asked for evidence of how faculty have made use of student outcome data in their own ongoing planning. This is a condition that expands the notion of evaluation as a collection of data from which to examine the merit or worth of a program to the collaborative and analytic meaning making of evaluative action. This has been an area of traditional complication where evaluators work to support the use of evaluation findings while maintaining appropriate independence from the program administrators with operational responsibility. However, this combination of instructional needs, accountability expectations, and insight into evaluative outcomes amplifies the need for evaluator expertise for collaborating in these dimensions of practice. This study then examines the work of a faculty and its assessment team—including evaluation researchers—to (a) implement and evaluate a general education program through a midprogram assessment, (b) analyze the faculty's engagement with the results and (c) adapt the reporting and meaning‐making processes to further invest the faculty as coinvestigators in the evaluation and its use in improving the program.
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