The work presented here is the summary of a 3 year study that aimed to uncover how students' perception of science changes with the chance to participate in a mini-conference that is incorporated into the biochemistry lecture course. Students were asked to work in groups of 2 or 3 and research a topic that is related to the material covered in…

Our Introduction to Research Methods course is a first-year majors course built around the idea of helping students learn to work like chemists, write like chemists, and think like chemists. We have developed this course as a hybrid hands-on/ lecture experience built around instrumentation use and report preparation. We take the product from one…

The flipped classroom is a blended, constructivist learning environment that reverses where students gain and apply knowledge. Instructors from K-12 to the college level are interested in the prospect of flipping their classes, but are unsure how and with which students to implement this learning environment. There has been little discussion…

College students often find general chemistry to be a very challenging rite of passage on their way to degrees in various science, technology, and mathematics disciplines. As teachers, we make efforts to simultaneously patch gaps in students' prior knowledge and instill valuable learning strategies and sound study habits. In this paper, we…

We report the student response to a two-year transformation of a one-semester organic chemistry course for nonchemistry majors. The transformed course adopted a peer led team learning approach and incorporated case studies. Student attitudes toward the course transformation were assessed throughout the semester, and adjustments to the methods were…

Research has consistently shown that active problem-solving in a collaborative environment supports more effective learning than the traditional lecture approach. In this study, a flipped classroom format was implemented and evaluated in the chemistry majors' sequence at Purdue University over a period of three years. What was formerly lecture…

Dimensional analysis is traditionally one of the first topics covered in a general chemistry course. Chemists use dimensional analysis as a tool to keep track of units and guide them through calculations. Although unit conversions are taught in a variety of subjects over several grade levels, many students have not mastered this topic by the time…