TY - JOUR
T1 - Reforming a Large Foundational Course
T2 - Successes and Challenges
AU - Talanquer, Vicente
AU - Pollard, John
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
PY - 2017/12/12
Y1 - 2017/12/12
N2 - Calls for educational reform in undergraduate STEM education have become more prominent in recent years, particularly in introductory/foundational courses. Such reform efforts were initiated 10 years ago in the general chemistry program at the University of Arizona. In this contribution, we describe the major successes and challenges encountered during the full implementation of a new chemical thinking curriculum across all sections of a large course serving thousands of science and engineering majors every year. Besides describing the goals and structure of the alternative curriculum, as well as its impact on student learning, our work seeks to provide insights into institutional conditions, resources, and constraints that foster or hinder the success of major educational reforms.
AB - Calls for educational reform in undergraduate STEM education have become more prominent in recent years, particularly in introductory/foundational courses. Such reform efforts were initiated 10 years ago in the general chemistry program at the University of Arizona. In this contribution, we describe the major successes and challenges encountered during the full implementation of a new chemical thinking curriculum across all sections of a large course serving thousands of science and engineering majors every year. Besides describing the goals and structure of the alternative curriculum, as well as its impact on student learning, our work seeks to provide insights into institutional conditions, resources, and constraints that foster or hinder the success of major educational reforms.
KW - Collaborative/Cooperative Learning
KW - Curriculum
KW - First-Year Undergraduate/General
KW - Inquiry-Based/Discovery Learning
KW - Second-Year Undergraduate
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85038218069&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85038218069&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00397
DO - 10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00397
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85038218069
SN - 0021-9584
VL - 94
SP - 1844
EP - 1851
JO - Journal of Chemical Education
JF - Journal of Chemical Education
IS - 12
ER -