A Professional Development Activity to Help Teaching Assistants Work as a Team to Assess Lab Reports in a General Chemistry Course

Avargil, Shirly; Bruce, Mitchell R. M.; Klemmer, Susan A.; Bruce, Alice E.

doi:10.1002/ijch.201800086

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 44 publications

(47 reference statements)

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“…24 One of the professional learning activities that occurred in a prior semester of this graduate course revealed the difficulty that many TAs had in scoring student lab work consistently across multiple lab sections. 25 An important outcome of this activity was the development of rubrics for lab reports as resources for students and guides for TAs. When rubrics were added to our lab report procedures, we also created a lab report writing workshop, which was given early in the semester.…”

Section: In-person Supports Transitioned To the Remote Learning Envir...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing a Remote, Synchronous, Hands-On General Chemistry Lab Course

Bruce

Bernard

et al. 2021

J. Chem. Educ.

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The development of a remote, synchronous general chemistry lab course, which was offered to 800 students in the fall semester of 2020, is described. The course was designed with similar curricular goals as our in-person lab course and featured chemistry kits developed by a team of faculty, staff, and graduate TAs. The kits, which were distributed via a rental program through the university bookstore, provided students the opportunity to conduct hands-on experiments at home or in their dorm room. To create the remote lab course, the team negotiated logistical and curricular issues such as finding alternatives to costly precision glassware and instrumentation, adding strategies for engaging students online, decreasing chemical hazards of experiments, and encouraging a safety culture for students working remotely. A professional development graduate course for TA instructors, associated with the general chemistry lab program, was also enhanced by including topics that were relevant for understanding remote learning environments. In redesigning the lab course for remote delivery, we developed new experiments (e.g., calibration), introduced new engagement strategies (e.g., badging), revised several experiments (e.g., heats of reaction), included an Arduinobased spectrometer (e.g., visible spectroscopy and pulse oximetry), and provided new student supports (e.g., TAs on-call). Survey data was gathered to assess student evaluation of the hands-on activities, the presence of synchronous TA help, the badging experience, the value of the lab course, and challenges faced in taking the lab course during a pandemic.

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Section: In-person Supports Transitioned To the Remote Learning Envir...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Designing a Remote, Synchronous, Hands-On General Chemistry Lab Course

Bruce

Bernard

et al. 2021

J. Chem. Educ.

Self Cite

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“…Lab reports offer students opportunities to reflect on and write about chemistry following their laboratory experience. It is also important to recognize that, even though students are asked to generate their own ideas, instructors play a key role in facilitating understanding. , Thus, professional learning experiences for the TAs are part of successful delivery of inquiry-based approaches. − …”

Section: Creating Representation In Core: Building On Other Approache...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Creating Representation in Support of Chemical Reasoning to Connect Macroscopic and Submicroscopic Domains of Knowledge

Bruce

Walter

2022

J. Chem. Educ.

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Chemical reasoning takes many forms. The focus in this paper is on a reasoning process that facilitates using experimental evidence to make connections between macroscopic and submicroscopic domains, which we will refer to as creating representation. It is a particular type of reasoning that has played a critical role in chemistry, enabling numerous scientific advancements and discoveries. Yet, the skill of creating representation is often not explicitly addressed in our introductory classrooms or laboratories. This paper outlines a process for creating and using representation that builds on other constructivist approaches but is framed in a new way to afford consistency across a continuum of novice learners to expert scientists. We illustrate how this approach is enacted in the CORE laboratory learning cycle (Chemical Observations Representation Experimentation), where supports are provided to help students generate ideas about representation. We also illustrate how lab reports provide opportunities for reflection, which can generate new ideas leading to revision of a representation. A comparison of CORE with the Atkin and Karplus learning cycle is also included to show how these different learning opportunities engage students in complementary cognitive processes to promote chemical reasoning skills.

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“…Innovative practice teaching is an important link in the cultivation of professional talents in colleges and universities, which is related to the quality of talent cultivation in colleges and universities. The Ministry of Education issued the "College chemistry majors undergraduate (four years) basic training specifications and teaching basic requirements", the requirements of chemical professionals are, that chemistry students must be subjected to the methodology, developmental research basic training, and to understand the production of the actual initial, can initially combine the basic theory and knowledge of chemistry with the production of the actual combination of [7][8]. In recent years, the innovation and practice education in local universities has been strengthened, and positive progress has been made in improving the quality of higher education, promoting the overall development of students, and improving the practical hands-on ability and innovation ability of students [9][10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mingjie Chu. Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences, 9(1) (2024)[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] …”

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confidence: 99%

Exploring the reform path of chemistry teaching in agricultural and forestry colleges and universities by combining the background of the information age

Chu

2024

Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences

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The development of information technology promotes the reform of college education. In this paper, the attention mechanism is introduced based on the LSTM model, the Att-LSTM model is constructed to extract students’ learning characteristics quickly, and students’ learning level is analyzed by combining them with the Markov chain model. On this basis, the reform system of chemistry teaching in agricultural and forestry colleges and universities is constructed by combining with information technology and applied to the practice of colleges and universities. Its application effect is explored through the analysis of chemistry performance, experimental operation ability, and report writing ability. After the reform of virtual experiment App and multi-screen interactive technology, students’ chemistry scores increased from 63.17 to 86.95, the level of chemistry experimental operation ability improved significantly, the average level increased from 0.63 to 0.90, and the scores of theme aspect and idea aspect of chemistry report writing increased, and the comprehensive score reached 82.20. Meanwhile, due to the integration of virtual experiment app and multi-screen interactive technology virtual experiment app and multi-screen interactive technology, students’ interest in learning chemistry was stimulated and their understanding and internalization of chemistry knowledge were enhanced. The reform path in this paper has achieved better results in teaching and is expected to improve the teaching of chemistry in more agricultural and forestry colleges and universities, enhance the quality of teaching, and increase the fun of teaching.

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A Professional Development Activity to Help Teaching Assistants Work as a Team to Assess Lab Reports in a General Chemistry Course

Cited by 6 publications

References 44 publications

Designing a Remote, Synchronous, Hands-On General Chemistry Lab Course

Designing a Remote, Synchronous, Hands-On General Chemistry Lab Course

Creating Representation in Support of Chemical Reasoning to Connect Macroscopic and Submicroscopic Domains of Knowledge

Exploring the reform path of chemistry teaching in agricultural and forestry colleges and universities by combining the background of the information age

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