Assessment of reforms in the physical chemistry laboratory

CHED 399

James D. Batteas, Paul S. Cremer, colloid.program.chair@mail.chem.tamu.edu, Holly C. Gaede, hgaede@mail.chem.tamu.edu, Christian Hilty, chilty@mail.chem.tamu.edu, Simon W. North, north@mail.chem.tamu.edu, and Dong Hee Son, dhson@mail.chem.tamu.edu. Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, P.O. Box 30012, College Station, TX 77842
A team of faculty is redeveloping the physical chemistry laboratories at Texas A&M University. The aims of the overhaul are to provide students with authentic inquiry experiences that equip them with the practical skills necessary in graduate and industrial research laboratories. This approach contrasts with the earlier model that emphasized the illustration or reinforcement of concepts learned in lecture. The previous conceptual approach often resulted in “push-button” experiments and painstaking write-ups, and was not always successful in practice because of the rotating experiment schedule. In this presentation, the motivation for the changes, the experiments implemented thus far, and the plans for assessment will be presented.
 

Assessing Chemistry Laboratory Courses
1:30 PM-4:15 PM, Tuesday, August 21, 2007 Seaport -- Plaza A, Oral

Division of Chemical Education

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007