Fostering an Induction into Authentic Research in the Freshman/Sophomore Sequence

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This project is developing four undergraduate chemistry courses into a blended curriculum structure that revises the role of the teaching laboratory. The course sequence moves students from verification experiments to open-ended inquiry activities in order to provide students with a more genuine scientific research experience during their first two years of college. The courses include frequent and sustained use of instrumentation ordinarily used in research settings, including a graphite furnace atomic absorbance instrument, a high performance liquid chromatography instrument, and a gas chromatography instrument. The model includes co-enrollment of students from the first and third courses, as well as from the second and fourth courses, in order to build a community of practitioners who work together to solve related problems. The expectation is that these pedagogical approaches, when brought together, bring students to a greater awareness of what it means to participate in science, to do research, and to think independently and critically about the world around them. Intellectual MeritThe project is transforming the design of undergraduate laboratory experiences. The collection of data is designed to demonstrate whether this approach achieves the expected efficacy and benefits of establishing the community of learners in laboratory, and to test whether students who experience authentic experimentation earlier in their academic training persist in science career trajectories. The model combines proven elements of best practices in STEM education in a novel way that has not been previously tested.Broader Impacts The dissemination plan includes workshops designed to convey the model to STEM departments at other institutions. The model is expected to be portable to mid-sized institutions with research active faculty and to other STEM disciplines, thus potentially affecting all science majors. Students who experience the model may possess stronger problem solving, critical thinking, and laboratory skills when entering graduate study or the scientific workforce.