Chemistry Discipline Network - General Chemistry

Conceptual Understanding in Science and Digital Explanation

Madeleine Schultz — Sat, 30 Dec 2017 19:34:29 +0000

Researching a misconception including the history of how people misunderstand this concept, and writing a report and preparing a digital explanation showing how the concept can be correctly understood.

Objective:

Year:

Topic:

General Chemistry

Investigating A Waste Sample: Analysis, Treatment and Disposal

TrevorDaniels — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 10:38:31 +0000

A laboratory based whole of subject 'Capstone' project which student carry out in teams. Multiple assessments cover lab performance, research skills, teamwork, communication in various modes and report writing.

This project constitutes a 6 credit point subject (1/8 annual load) and is designed to be a ‘Capstone’ subject. In teams, students investigate a complex waste sample for components of interest based on the team’s research of the material and its context. Teams or individual team members report at different times for different purposes. There are multiple assessments covering lab skills, research skills, teamwork, communication in various modes, report writing. Components of the assessments could easily be taken from the whole and utilised or adapted for use elsewhere.

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Assessment summary, details about each assessment follow:

#	Assess	%	Description
1	Laboratory performance	20	Individual: in-class observation and assessment of your actual laboratory practice, assessment of your laboratory notebook.
2	Individual contribution to team work. This assessment item is a hurdle component, requiring a minimum of 10/20 to pass the subject.	20	Individual, in four parts: Individuals are assessed in lab for collaborative activities and practices that support their team members. Regular contributions to online team discussion. Online end of session peer and self-assessment of individual input to team communication and collaborative processes. Individual students write two scaffolded self-reflection pieces on effective functioning in the team, one at beginning of session and one at end of week 13. Submitted to Moodle.
3	Week 4 Project Proposal	5	Team: Project proposal with introduction, methods and rationale; summary of planning to date; answers to set questions. Submitted via Moodle
4	Week 9 Results Summary	5	Individual: This is your individual table of results summarising all team data to date.
5	Major Report This assessment item is a hurdle component, requiring a minimum of 20/40 to pass the subject.	40	Individual: Written as a technical report, 30-40 pages.
6	Team Presentation	10	Ppt or other team presentation to class. Assessed on content, communication skills and team work.

Objective:

Year:

Three

Topic:

Popularising Chemistry

bdargaville — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 01:40:38 +0000

It always seems like we're starting from further behind than a lot of the other sciences are because they seem to know less about chemistry when they get here. If I say ‘think of a famous physicist’ you probably already have thought of three. Then you could go outside and ask someone to think of a famous physicist and they'd probably think of at least one of the same ones. You do the same thing with biologists. If I say to think of a famous chemist … that's within chemistry circles, we can't do it. We can name one but you know if you go out there and say, ‘Who is this person?’ they've got no idea. So for some reason … we've never … chemists have never been able to popularise our topic, our content. We've never been able to make it exciting enough that someone who is not studying it still wants to know about it. And so I do think we've got a bigger challenge, for whatever reason. Maybe there's something about chemistry that makes it less enjoyable, I don’t know. There's definitely been an ongoing issue for us that it's not … people just don't know anything about it... Most people know Einstein's theory of relativity. You don't see that really in everyday, go, "There's the theory of relativity at work." Newton's Law, sure, you see those and you … but, yeah, everybody knows Einstein. And a lot of … I'll call them lay people, I don't like the term, but non-science people, could probably give you a hand wave explanation of what the theory of relativity is about, which is a pretty abstract thing. I mean, if we think of the equivalent types of things in chemistry that are that abstract, nobody has a clue. We teach them in third year to the remaining hard core people that are left.

Topic:

Chemistry is a Continuum

bdargaville — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 01:38:29 +0000

The concept of a continuum is, I think, really important in chemistry and… what I see is that students come up with this issue of things being black or white. They struggle with this concept of the in between stuff.

Topic:

Molecules are Three Dimensional

bdargaville — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 01:36:49 +0000

It is vitally important for their understanding of chemistry that they understand that molecules are three-dimensional things and that they have a spatial requirement in that they have a shape of their own and that shape will change. They can't do higher level manipulations without an understanding of three-dimensional nature of molecules.

Topic:

Real Life Examples

bdargaville — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 01:34:33 +0000

I know it's hard for them to 'suspend reality' and just accept a concept. They grasp for real life examples or metaphors which make sense to them. Students don't like the concept of something that can shift/change. They like one answer which is set and that's it, right or wrong - not 'shifts to the left/right'.

Topic:

Changing Old Knowledge

bdargaville — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 01:31:58 +0000

Difficulties are having to relearn something that they thought was true from school and not understanding the evolving nature of science. New knowledge is easier to assimilate than changing old knowledge.

Topic:

Transferring Knowledge

bdargaville — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 01:30:26 +0000

Students see equations and panic. Students struggle to transfer mathematical knowledge to chemical situations. Students silo knowledge and find it hard to relate concepts to actual systems.

Topic:

Curiosity the Only Limit

bdargaville — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 01:28:56 +0000

Students should [only] be limited by students' curiosity.

Topic:

A Learning Process

bdargaville — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 01:23:16 +0000

They [students] expect to either succeed or fail immediately or very quickly on particular problems. They do not see the process as a learning process.