A General Chemistry Laboratory Course Designed for Student Discussion

摘要

We report a study of the general chemistry laboratory course at one university over four years. We found that when taught as a traditional laboratory course, lab experiences do not encourage students to deepen their understanding of chemical concepts. Although the lab instructor emphasized that the lab experiences were designed to enhance understanding of chemistry, both survey and interview data show that students instead feel that the lab is primarily useful in learning laboratory procedures. As a result of these studies, the laboratory course was reconfigured to include weekly, separately scheduled times for teaching assistant-moderated student discussion of concepts, analysis of data, and reflection on the laboratory. With the inclusion of required discussion, students did report that the lab was a place for learning chemistry and visualizing the chemical phenomena discussed in class.