This study investigated how students' level of motivation and use of specific cognitive and self-regulatory strategies changed over time, and how these motivational and cognitive components in turn predicted students' course performance in chemistry. Participants were 458 students enrolled in introductory college chemistry classes. Participants' motivation and strategy use were assessed at three time points over the course of one semester using self-report instruments. Results showed an overall decline in students' motivational levels over time. There was also a decline in students' use of rehearsal and elaboration strategies over time; students' use of organizational and self-regulatory strategies increased over time. These trends, however, were found to vary by students' achievement levels. In terms of the relations of motivation and cognition to achievement, the motivational components of self-efficacy and task value were found to be the best predictors of final course performance even after controlling for prior achievement.

This paper describes a graduate-level class project centered on editing chemistry-related entries in Wikipedia. This project enables students to work collaboratively, explore advanced concepts in chemistry, and learn how to communicate science to a diverse audience, including the general public. The format and structure of the project is outlined and assessment metrics are discussed. A panel survey of current students provided an evaluation of the effectiveness of this project in contributing to the learning objectives of the course. Last, a discussion of the challenges involved in implementing this project is provided.

Cooperative learning was employed as an instructional approach to facilitate student development of spectroscopy problem solving skills. An interactive online environment was used as a framework to structure weekly discussions around spectroscopy problems outside of class. Weekly discussions consisted of modified jigsaw-style problem solving activities in which students cooperatively interpreted infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance spectra. Students' use of the discussion site was monitored and revealed that they accessed discussions in the days prior to examinations. Together with attitudinal surveys, which were used to gauge student perceptions of the activities, these results indicate that students found the discussions to be a useful resource for learning spectroscopy.

Narrowing the gap between how we understand chemistry and how we teach it.

Contemporary strategies in STEM education focus on developing pedagogies that more actively engage students in their own learning. A method that has proven effective to this end has been peer instruction and discussion, particularly those in which participating students must organize information in such a way as to be able to verbally articulate it to others. The success of peer learning raises the question of what other communicative activities could lead to similar learning gains. Writing is a reasonable choice for such an activity, as there is strong historical evidence of the value of writing in facilitating student learning. Presented here is "writing-to-teach"; a fusion of writing and peer instruction that is rooted in the theories of meaningful learning and situated cognition as well as research on student-generated explanatory knowledge. Writing-to-teach activities were designed and implemented in an introductory physical chemistry course and evaluated using student surveys. In addition, a novel expert-ranking methodology was employed to evaluate the quality of explanatory writing produced by students engaging in writing-to-teach activities. Lastly, suggestions are given on how writing-to-teach can be implemented more broadly in other STEM classrooms.