Knowledge building in chemistry education

Blackie, Margaret A.L.

doi:10.1007/s10698-022-09419-w

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…It ensures that we are not taking procedural competency as a proxy for understanding. The lead author of this paper developed the framework 38 and has found herself making the underlying principles much more explicit in her teaching. It remains to be seen whether this has added value or not.…”

Section: ■ Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The full theoretical foundation for this framework has been published elsewhere. 38 This framework can be used across all chemistry disciplines, but the middle column would require adaptation. For example, a multistep synthesis or mechanism question would not be applicable to analytical chemistry.…”

Section: ■ Interventions Knowledge Stratificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This framework is described in Table . The full theoretical foundation for this framework has been published elsewhere . This framework can be used across all chemistry disciplines, but the middle column would require adaptation.…”

Section: Interventionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Engaging Organic Chemistry Students in Knowledge Building

2023

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Organic chemistry is notorious for being difficult to learn. Herein we describe a two-pronged approach to engage students in the ability to afford successful knowledge building. We have drawn on focus group interviews with students to show that the approach is appreciated by the students. The two prongs comprise peer learning in small groups and the use of knowledge stratification. This stratification is achieved via the epistemic assessment framework and distinguishes between different kinds of knowledge that are operational in teaching chemistry. Formal assessments can be visually categorized with the EAF allowing students to judge their progress. In the small group tutorials, self-assessment of their contribution to the final submission also supports reflection on their own understanding.

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Section: ■ Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: ■ Interventions Knowledge Stratificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Engaging Organic Chemistry Students in Knowledge Building

2023

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“…This is to say the mechanism which causes the reaction existed prior to life on Earth and will exist long past the demise of human life. Many of the concepts used in undergraduate science courses, particularly in introductory courses, may have been in existence for at least the last five decades and have changed little over time (Blackie, 2022b). They have thus shaped the field and the thinking in the field over this time.…”

Section: Decoloniality and Science Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity Is an Asset to Science Not a Threat

Blackie¹

2022

IJCDS

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In this paper, Critical Realism is used as a theoretical framework to show that diversity is an asset to science not a threat. Critical Realism situates the reliability and reproducibility of science in the realm of the real and thus relocates the notion of “objectivity” from the person of the scientist to the process of science. This means that it no longer necessary to attempt to minimise the person of the scientist in pursuit of rigorous knowledge. The implication is that diversity both in terms of intellectual training (within limits) and in terms of being multicultural, gender, sexuality, multilingual, is revealed to be an asset. This is because the construction of knowledge draws on personal experience and having people with divergent experience interrogating the same problem is more likely to provide a reliable, reproducible solution. In the latter parts of the paper, the implications for teaching are described. In addition, it is demonstrated that this argument can be extended into different knowledge areas.

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“…In general, laboratorial activities in analytical chemistry suffers of this approach: teachers tend to explain the procedure and students execute the required steps of the laboratorial activity in an acritical way. Several authors have discussed the need of a meaningful learning of chemical concepts and the different levels of chemical knowledge related to different topics (Nakhleh 1993;Hartman and Nelson 2015;Taber 2020;Blackie 2022). According to Nakhleh (1993), students attending chemistry courses desire to explore the 'why of chemistry' than the 'how of chemistry'.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing UV–visible spectroscopy at high school level following the historical evolution of spectroscopic instruments: a proposal for chemistry teachers

Carpentieri,

Domenici

2024

Found Chem

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Spectroscopy is a scientific topic at the interface between Chemistry and Physics, which is taught at high school level in relation with its fundamental applications in Analytical Chemistry. In the first part of the paper, the topic of spectroscopy is analyzed having in mind the well-known Johnstone’s triangle of chemistry education, putting in evidence the way spectroscopy is usually taught at the three levels of chemical knowledge: macroscopic/phenomenological, sub-microscopic/molecular and symbolic ones. Among these three levels, following Johnstone’s recommendations the macroscopic one is the most useful for high school students who learn spectroscopy for the first time. Starting from these premises, in the second part of the paper, we propose a didactic sequence which is inspired by the historical evolution of spectroscopic instruments from the first spectroscopes invented by Gustav Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen in 1860 to the UV–vis spectrophotometers which became common since the 1960s. The idea behind our research is to analyze the conceptual advancements through the history of spectroscopy and to identify the key episodes/experiments and spectroscopic instruments. For each of them, a didactic activity, typically an experiment, is then proposed underlining the relevant aspects from the chemistry education point of view. The present paper is the occasion to reflect on the potentialities of an historical approach combined with a laboratorial one, and to discuss the role of historical instruments and related technological improvements to teach spectroscopy.

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Knowledge building in chemistry education

Cited by 10 publications

References 33 publications

Engaging Organic Chemistry Students in Knowledge Building

Engaging Organic Chemistry Students in Knowledge Building

Diversity Is an Asset to Science Not a Threat

Introducing UV–visible spectroscopy at high school level following the historical evolution of spectroscopic instruments: a proposal for chemistry teachers

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