Chemistry Education

Chemistry Education

The Chemistry Education Group (CEG) promotes challenging, student-centered, and inclusive learning opportunities in our courses and develops teaching interventions for classes of 60 to 600. We are particularly committed to investigating the prevalence of gender, racial/ethnic, and socioeconomic opportunity gaps in our foundational coursework in order to implement methods of redress. Our instructional and research activities involve curriculum and pedagogy, as described below. Several Chemistry faculty members participate in our research projects by allowing us to measure the impact of various teaching interventions in their classes. As a result, many of our innovations have been adopted across the department.

Selected Instructional Activities

  • Design and implementation of “atoms-first” General Chemistry curriculum (Carroll, Craig)
  • Redesign of Preparation for General Chemistry curriculum (Carroll, Craig)
  • Appraisal of instructional technologies and development of support for departmental implementation (Carroll, Craig, Goldman)
  • Development of placement exam for General Chemistry (Wiegand)
  • Development of remote laboratory instruction for general and organic chemistry (Carroll, Goldman, Robinson)
  • Facilitation of support community for instructors teaching remotely (Carroll, Craig, Goldman, Maibaum, Robinson)
  • Implementation of course designs to decrease the opportunity gap among historically underserved students (Carroll, Craig, Goldman, Maibaum, Robinson)

Research Activities

  • Educational taxonomies and learning assessments (Craig)
  • Mathematics preparation (Goldman)
  • Measurement of the impact of course design on the opportunity gap among historically underserved students (Craig, Goldman, Kroll)
  • Pedagogy of chemical demonstrations (Wiegand)
  • Scientific argumentation (Goldman)

Highlighted Resources

Related Faculty

Emeritus, Adjunct, and Affiliate Faculty in This Area

Deborah Wiegand, Teaching Professor Emerita