Electrophoresis is integral to analytical and biochemistry experiences in undergraduate education; however, fundamental principles of the method are often taught in upper-level laboratories through hands-on experiences. A laboratory activity is reported that teaches the concepts of electrophoretic mobility and electroosmotic flow. A single…

Digestion is a fundamentally important process for an individual's life. However, the physical process of digestion is hidden inside the body, making it challenging to understand and a particularly difficult topic for students to learn in the classroom. Traditional approaches to teaching body processes include a mixture of textbook teaching and…

Community-based learning (CBL), also known as service learning (SL), provides students with an active and meaningful learning environment and has been studied in STEM courses for several decades. Chemistry for the Community is a novel chemistry curriculum that weaves service-learning projects throughout multiple courses, including gateway courses,…

In 1996, the Chemistry Department at Norwich University converted its two-semester General Chemistry course from a traditional lecture to a Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) classroom. The change to POGIL teaching in Norwich General Chemistry classes was brought about by a steady decline in student performance, as demonstrated by…

We tested the long-term effects of a utility-value intervention administered in a gateway chemistry course, with the goal of promoting persistence and diversity in STEM. In a randomized controlled trial (N = 2,505), students wrote three essays about course content and its personal relevance or three control essays. The intervention significantly…

Knowledge transfer refers to the (1) recognition of overlap in past learning and new academic goals, (2) recollection of previously learned information, and (3) application of past learning in a new context or discipline. Promoting effective transfer remains a notorious challenge for chemistry educators. To address this need, the step back,…

Students vary in their perceptions of teachers' motivational supports, even within the same classroom, but it is unclear why this is the case. To enable the design of equitable environments and understand the theoretical nature of motivational climate, this study explored demographic differences in university students' perceptions of instruction…

This review examines the evolution of tertiary undergraduate chemistry teaching from 2019 to 2023, including in response to the global pandemic's impact on teaching and learning methods and whether those adaptations have persisted. The authors assessed the current educational landscape against standards set by leading accreditation bodies, the…

To optimize learning experience and improve learning performance, current virtual experimental systems usually assist students with stepwise guidance before operations and feedback after them. However, stepwise and excessive guidance can lead to student overreliance, while late feedback cannot avoid potential errors during experimental learning.…

Learning about redox and electrochemistry in senior secondary school science has long been recognised as both impenetrable to many students and problematic for teachers. A significant barrier to understanding this area of learning has been the apparent exclusive use of implicit analogous definitions for the foundation concept of an oxidation…

In this paper, we introduce and discuss a construct called "graphical forms," an extension of Sherin's symbolic forms. In its original conceptualization, symbolic forms characterize the ideas students associate with patterns in a mathematical expression. To expand symbolic forms beyond only characterizing mathematical equations, we use…

Descriptive correlational research was conducted to discover misconceptions on Rate of Reaction (RR) that impact on Chemical Equilibrium (CE) misconceptions. This research was conducted to 245 eleventh-grade students of High School in Gowa, South Sulawesi, Indonesia, that having been studied the RR and CE topics. Misconceptions data were collected…

The separation of suspensions and immiscible liquids by the laboratory centrifuge is widely used in such fields as chemistry, biology, biochemistry, and clinical medicine. In this paper, an Arduino-based microcentrifuge was fabricated using a computer DVD (digital versatile disc) drive. The hardware part consisted of inexpensive mechanical and…

The science laboratory is a politically entrenched space where complex power relations interplay while social agents learn about the rules and routines to ensure safety, precision and reproducibility in research work. This paper presents a case study of two Singaporean students undergoing apprenticeship in a 3-year school-based School Scientist…

The objective of this study was to analyze visual representations of redox reactions and related content in four Brazilian secondary school chemistry textbooks. The study aimed to identify which representations were used and to evaluate how these representations were linked to one another and to the main text. Data were analyzed regarding…