A Multidimensional Approach to Improving Chemical Education

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The Institute of Chemical Education (ICE) will offer three programs to address national needs and enhance chemistry teaching of different groups of teachers. The programs will be held at the Lawrence Hall of Science with the cooperation of the Department of Chemistry of University of California, Berkeley. The three participant groups are (1) 36 underprepared chemistry teachers, primarily drawn from the underrepresented population in California who will be selected for the Fundamentals Program, (2) 20 experienced chemistry teachers selected nationally for the Instrumentation Program and (3) 20 highly experienced, award- winning chemistry teachers chosen to participate in the Laboratory Leadership Program. The Fundamentals Program is designed to update the content background and teaching strategies of those needy teachers and will offer sequential four-week programs during two summers with appropriate follow-through activities planned for the intervening school year. This project design will allow time for teachers to integrate the body of knowledge and to maintain close contact with project staff. The Instrumentation Program is a three-week program that will emphasize frontier areas of research in chemistry and the use of modern instrumentation as research tools. Participants will prepare materials to share with others and will construct some simple instrumentation for their own use. The Laboratory Leadership Program continues an effort begun during the previous summer in which this very select group of teachers will identify the factors that influence use of the laboratory and develop means of assessing laboratory learning. Forty percent of the cost of the project is shared by participants' school districts, the University and individual staff contributions of time.