During Celebrate Learning Week 2021 chemistry educators (and a few additional folks!) from the UBC Okanagan and Vancouver campuses came together via videoconference to discuss teaching and learning online during the pandemic. The discussion was thoughtful and lively, and the knowledge exchange will undoubtedly be influential for our fall course planning and beyond. The dual-campus […]
In 2016, with the help of Science Education Specialist Dr. Jane Maxwell, I developed a “Choice Project” for use in Organic Chemistry for the Biological Sciences (CHEM 233). This assignment was inspired by the “writing to learn” concept and aims to provide an opportunity for students to connect course content to their own interests. Additionally, […]
Research invitation for transgender, Two Spirit, gender non-binary, and otherwise gender-diverse (T2SGD) students We are conducting a study to identify non-academic challenges that transgender, Two Spirit, gender non-binary, and otherwise gender-diverse (T2SGD) students face that may prevent them from succeeding in their studies. If you are a T2SGD student in science, we would love to […]
Eight Chemistry teaching faculty and one undergraduate travelled to Seattle to join the Western States Chemical Education Group conference last weekend. While the major themes of the meeting were inclusion, diversity and access; posters and talks were welcomed on all aspects of chemical education. We enjoyed a talk by Scott Freeman (of biology textbook fame), […]
Sydney Inthof presented a progress report of the research she is conducting with me in her CHEM 445 Research Learning Experience course. Her main goal for this year is to gather content validity evidence regarding our acid-base concept test which has been in development since Jessie Zhang worked on the project during the 2016-2017 academic […]
On February 15th, the Department’s Science Education Specialist Dr. Jeanette Leeuwner presented an overview of UBC’s new CHEM 100 course, Foundations of Chemistry. CHEM 100 was created to prepare students for first-year chemistry (CHEM 121 and 123) at UBC. Students without Grade 12 chemistry (or equivalent) write the Chemistry Basic Skills Test (BST) and are placed into […]
I presented on behalf of Sydney Inthof, a Research Learning Experience (CHEM 445) student working on conducting validity and reliability studies of an acid-base concept test. The test was first developed by directed studies student Jessie Zhang in 2016-2017 (supervised by Jane Maxwell and me). The concept test measures students’ abilities to rationalize the strength […]
Ian Park, an undergraduate student enrolled in CHEM 445: Research Learning Experience, provided an overview of his project. His main project goal is to use Alchemy to deliver practice exam content to Chemistry 233 students. Alchemy is an online learning tool that develops students’ critical thinking and decision making skills, and has powerful feedback capabilities. […]
I was invited to attend the NSF-funded TRESTLE annual meeting, which took place last week at the University of Kansas. TRESTLE (TRansforming Education, Stimulating Teaching and Learning Excellence) is is a multi-institution, NSF-funded project for improving STEM education through discipline-based education experts and other models. Gülnur Birol and Warren Code of Skylight lead UBC’s involvement in the network. UBC’s main role in the project […]
Those involved in chemistry education research (CER) met at our inaugural department-wide CER group meeting Monday Sept. 10th, 2018. Anka Lekhi presented some of her work investigating the relationship between first-year international students’ personal epistemologies and problem solving approaches. She found that students’ successful completion of a conceptual problem in chemistry is positively linked to […]
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