CHED 88 |
| A new laboratory course has been designed and executed for the first time at Haverford College following partly on models from other institutions. Haverford's spring 2008 advanced general chemistry course, which is a one-semester accelerated survey, includes the new laboratory component drawing on theories of inquiry-based learning. The goal of the laboratory course is to teach chemistry students how to think like scientists rather than simply to follow the recipe-like instructions common to undergraduate chemistry lab manuals. The course proceeds as follows: students synthesize and purify a “mystery molecule” and subsequently spend the semester working in groups attempting to identify and characterize the compound and its precursors. After the initial synthesis, student-initiated procedure directs the course: the students decide what experiments to perform to help identify their unknowns, and they are only guided in the specific details of implementing certain kinds of experiments. This course should prepare students more effectively for early introduction into faculty-led research programs than the traditional laboratory, while still providing students with the skills necessary for other, more advanced lab courses. |
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General Posters
7:30 PM-9:30 PM, Sunday, April 6, 2008 Morial Convention Center -- Hall A, Poster
Sci-Mix
Division of Chemical Education |