From Faculty Academy 2007 Wiki
From Bench to Brain: Enhancing Critical Thinking in the Freshman Chemistry Laboratory
- Charlie Sharpless (Chemistry)
Not all freshmen in general chemistry will become chemists. Thus, I would argue that the broad goal of general chemistry lab is to make our students journeyman experimentalists, able to apply qualitative and quantitative scientific logic to empirical data. Students should learn to clearly explain cause and effect as it relates to experimental design and sources of error in final results. As instructors, how do we make this happen? The traditional pre-lab lecture, followed by experiment and write up, sacrifices time that could be put to use examining results during lab. Also, it leaves students on their own to think about the experiment and data. Guiding them through this process seems a more fruitful educational approach.
In this presentation, I will share my vision for the freshman chemistry laboratory and demonstrate technological resources that are being developed to make this vision a reality. This includes web-based tools for data sharing and analysis that I believe can help chemistry instructors make students better scientific thinkers. A key component is a system for online data sharing that allows average and individual results to be seen as they develop in-lab, opening natural ways for instructors to discuss random and systematic error and giving students access to higher quality data than many of them can generate individually. Augmenting the data sharing approach are experimental simulations available for use during lab by the instructor and after lab by students to investigate causal relationships between experimental variables and final results.
You can check out the developing technological framework yourself at http://www.chemiscool.org
