Engaging students in scientific practices has become an important pedagogical component in STEM education, although its implementation in laboratories is still emerging. This paper uses three types of guiding questions to facilitate scientific practices in introductory and analytical chemistry laboratories. What makes our instructional model…

High-impact practices, and other pedagogical advancements, have been successfully used to deepen student engagement with courses over a wide variety of disciplines. Here, we describe the design, implementation, and assessment of a cross-disciplinary, inquiry-based lab course built on the proven success of these deeply engaging principles. This new…

In this course, students encounter reactions and mechanisms in the context of landmark syntheses of biologically important molecules. Students closely examine pairs of syntheses of related or identical molecules to facilitate their appreciation for synthetic strategy. They then write short, creative papers that critically compare the two synthetic…