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Professors Geeta Govindarajoo & Christine Altinis, Rutgers University
Tuesday, December 03, 2019, 11:00am - 12:00pm
 

Christine and Geeta Cropped“Exploring Creative Methods to Engage Students in Learning Chemistry: From Modifying Existing Methods to Techniques in Active Learning”

Teaching chemistry at the undergraduate or the graduate level is fraught with its challenges. There is pedagogical research that shows that much of learning is propelled based on prior knowledge or inhibited due to fear. "Chemistry - it is too hard!", "I am never going to learn anything in that course", "I will fail it". All familiar refrains heard by those of us who teach non-major undergraduates. We will discuss different methods to motivate students to challenge themselves thus decreasing the fear of struggling with chemical concepts.

Additional questions we will tackle will be: In terms of curriculum content how much is too much? Is it better to be the “guide on the side” or the “sage on the stage” when presenting lectures no matter the size? We will explore ways in which students will be expected to clearly demonstrate that they are actually learning what is being disseminated in lecture and lab courses.

We will be discussing how existing methods can be tweaked and how new ideas in active learning can be incorporated. We will be exploring what myths about Chemistry need to be busted and how we can encourage students to be open to new ways of learning. You may find that there are unlikely sources to tap for in-spiration.

References:
Melanie M. Cooper *, Sonia M. Underwood and Caleb Z. Hilley Development and validation of the implicit information from Lewis structures instrument (IILSI): do students connect structures with properties? Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2012, 13, 195-200; DOI: 10.1039/C2RP00010E

Towns, M. Harwood, C. J.; Robershaw, M. B.; Fish, J.; O’Shea, K. (2015). The Digital Pipetting Badge: A Method To Improve Student Hands-On Laboratory Skills, J. Chem Educ. 92(12), 2038-2044; DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00464)

Melanie M. Cooper, Charles T. Cox Jr., Minory Nammouz, Edward Case, and Ronald Stevens. An Assessment of the Effect of Collaborative Groups on Students' Problem-Solving Strategies and Abili-ties, J. Chem. Ed. 2008 85 (6), 866; DOI: 10.1021/ed085p866

~Coffee/tea will be served prior to lecture~

Location CCB Auditorium (1303)
Hosted by Professor Lu Wang