Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are an integral part of the instructional personnel in undergraduate general chemistry courses. Professional development programs for GTAs are well-established across STEM disciplines ranging from two-day to week-long sessions, covering a wide variety of topics, ranging from pedagogy and safety standards to…

The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of organic chemistry textbooks in developing student representational competence skills with eight representations of molecular structure (Lewis structures, Kekulé structures, condensed structures, electrostatic potential maps, skeletal structures, dash-wedge diagrams, Newman projections,…

This longitudinal study examines the responses of student sat two different institutions to creative exercises related to models of chemical bonding. Questions in the form of creative exercises required students to provide relevant, accurate, and distinct statements about two compounds for which they were provided only the formula and…

This paper shows a method for integrating computer programming into a standard physical chemistry laboratory sequence to augment student data analysis abilities and allow them to carry programming skills forward to other courses. The Python programming language is used, taking advantage of the pedagogical benefits of Jupyter notebooks, primarily…

Self-efficacy is a situational and subject-dependent construct instead of a personal characteristic, general perception, or personal competence. This study aimed to develop and validate a scale that would determine chemistry teachers' perceived self-efficacy for teaching in the laboratories. To this end, a self-efficacy perception scale for…

Does invention belong in the chemistry classroom? This article attempts to answer this question by describing how invention education first took root in a chemistry class at Ridgewood High School in Ridgewood, NJ, and then expanded to other students with diverse interests to find a solution to two worldwide problems: satisfying the need for safe…

Educational games have consistently proved that they are valuable didactic instruments, which can contribute to teaching and learning in an enjoyable background. In organic chemistry courses, considerable effort has been made to encourage the learning of nomenclature, an important topic, often perceived as complex, boring, and unconnected to other…

This article is focused on the effectiveness of an innovative research-based learning model that employs chemistry-based research projects in developing high school students' research competency and attitudes. The chemistry-based research projects were carried out as a part of an informal program, in real-world laboratories on 330 high school…

High-voltage plasma arcs from solid-state Tesla coils were used to produce characteristic atomic emissions of various metals. The colored arcs produced were highly visible and vibrant, making for a spectacularly engaging demonstration for groups of varying sizes. The demonstration used an inexpensive solid-state Tesla coil to generate low-current,…

The purpose of this study was to improve preservice chemistry teachers' understanding of surface tension by using guided-inquiry activities. Ten preservice chemistry teachers participated in this study. Data were collected with open-ended questions on the effect of molecular weight, branching, and temperature on surface tension before and after…

Raman scattering is a powerful tool for revealing the vibrations of molecules, but as a nonlinear optical phenomenon, its signals can change via mechanisms like resonance enhancement that have no direct analogue in infrared spectroscopy. In this work, complementary measurements conducted on 4-nitrophenol and its conjugate base allow students to…

The overhead mechanical stirrer is a versatile and valuable tool for the laboratory. Even a low-end mechanical stirrer is rather expensive and can pose serious safety concerns for use by high school or undergraduate students. The construction and application of a low-cost overhead mechanical stirrer is described in this work. The mechanical…

Over the past several decades, science education reform has emphasized moving from content driven courses to more interactive, inquiry-based methodologies. This change has been supported by research by Chi (2009) and represented as three-dimensional learning in the Next Generation Science Standards (NRC, 2013). The typical structure of many high…

In order for students to reach a level of meaningful understanding of chemistry, it is vital that they are able to form accurate relationships between different concepts. In particular, in organic chemistry, identifying intermolecular reactions, considering these reactions as a whole, and defining their results will make important contributions to…

A set of web-based stereochemistry tools which help students use virtual 3D models to translate Newman projections and chair conformations and assign "R/S" labels to stereocenters from 2D dashed-wedged structures is described. These tools are unique in the way they link 2D dashed-wedged structures to 3D models to help students develop…