What Happens When Discovery Laboratories Are Integrated into the Curriculum at a Large Research University?

TCE

The Chemical Educator

ISSN: 1430-4171 (electronic version)

Table of Contents

Abstract Volume 3 Issue 3(1998), S1430-4171(98)03214-1

What Happens When Discovery Laboratories Are Integrated into the Curriculum at a Large Research University?

George Bodner,^*1 William Hunter,¹ and Ram S. Lamba²

¹Department of Chemistry, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1393

²Department of Chemistry, Inter American University, San Juan, Puerto Rico 00919-1293

Published online: 1 June 1998

Abstract. Traditional laboratories are often based on the hidden assumptions that students can, and indeed should, work alone, and that they can leave the laboratory when they have finished collecting the data or observations. Discovery laboratories provide an alternative to traditional laboratories in which one or more routes are taken by groups of students working toward the discovery of a specific scientific relationship or concept. The discovery laboratories used in this study were developed by colleagues from institutions where faculty teach the laboratory component of the course. The goal of this study was to see what happens when discovery laboratories are integrated into the general chemistry curriculum at a large research university where teaching assistants are in charge of the laboratory sections.

For the purpose of this study, we differentiated between a minimal level of success, in which discovery laboratories become an alternative approach to traditional experiments, and a significant level of success, in which they become a preferred approach. Evidence is presented to support the notion that discovery laboratories can be successfully integrated into the curriculum at a large research university, that students in the discovery laboratories believe they had to take responsibility for what happened in the laboratory, that both teaching assistants and the students reacted positively to the discovery laboratories, and that we achieved at least our definition of the minimal level of success.

Key Words: Laboratories and Demonstrations; discovery laboratories; pedagogy; general chemistry

(*) Corresponding author. (E-mail: gmbodner@vm.cc.purdue.edu; rlamba@zorzal.inter.edu )

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