Expanding Instrumentation Access at Multiple Institutions Using Portable IR, Raman, and XRF Spectrometers

胡德学院、弗雷德里克社区学院和圣玛丽山学院的合作者寻求开发基于探究的实验室实验，同时提供一个可复制的模式，以增加跨多个机构的仪器访问。这些探究性活动的实施将把学习的责任放在学生身上，使他们在更深的层次上接触材料，而不是传统的确认？实验。这将导致材料更多地内化和整合，从而增加学生的学习和信心。这一改进本科教育项目的主要重点将是整合化学课程中的指导性探究经验，但其他学科的教师也将参与其中，包括物理、地球科学和艺术/考古学。每项活动将由一个机构制定，但尽可能多的活动将在多个地点进行测试。评估将允许对不同类型的机构(PUI或社区学院)的活动进行审查，并提供不同的学生资料，从而产生一个可与化学教育界共享的实验库。这项工作的结果将通过海报、演示文稿、出版物和网络资源广泛传播。从教师决定主题和问题的低级动手活动到学生决定实验的所有方面的高级调查活动，都有不同程度的探究。认识到这一点，合作者计划设计使用尽可能高水平的探究的实验，在这个实验中，学生选择主题、方法，最后分享他们对结果的解释。换句话说，学生将接触到科学研究中发生的学习和了解的方式。通过评估和评估产生的数据应该支持这样的基本原理，即通过在实验室环境中培养学生的自我效能，他们将拥有更好的内容知识和更好的科学能力保证。形成性和总结性评价将侧重于项目目标是否已经实现以及项目活动的有效性。每个实验都将进行定性和定量的评估(前、后测试和选定的试题)。由于所有三所参与机构的班级规模都很小，量化数据预计将对普通化学和有机化学等一些较大的课程有所帮助，但对小规模课程的效用有限。因此，将为每个实验建立即时的学生反馈机制。这项工作的结果将在个人活动和项目层面广泛传播。创新实验将发表在同行评议的期刊上，如《化学教育杂志》和《化学教育家》。研究结果还将在美国化学学会化学教育双年度会议(2016)上公布。在适当的时候，活动也将被上传到分学科特定的在线社区，如NSF支持的虚拟无机教学资源。项目交付成果将包括总结性评估的结果和所有课程材料。

Collaborators at Hood College, Frederick Community College, and Mount St. Mary's College seek to develop inquiry based laboratory experiments while simultaneously providing a replicable model for increasing instrumentation access across multiple institutions. The implementation of these inquiry-based activities will place the responsibility for learning on the students, so that they engage with the material at a deeper level than in traditional ?confirmation? experiments. This will lead to greater internalization and integration of the material, which increases both student learning and confidence. The primary focus of this Improving Undergraduate Education project will be on integrating guided-inquiry experiences across the chemistry curriculum, however faculty in other disciplines including physics, geosciences, and art/archaeology will also be involved. Each activity will be developed by one institution, but as many as possible will be tested at multiple sites. Assessment will allow the activities to be vetted across different institution types (PUI versus community college) with varied student profiles, resulting in a library of experiments that can be shared with the chemical education community. The results of this work will be disseminated widely through posters, presentations, publications, and web-based resources.There are varying levels of inquiry from low, level hands-on activities where the teacher determines the topics and questions to high level inquiry where the students determine all aspects of the experiment. Recognizing this, the collaborators plan to design experiments that use the highest level of inquiry possible, in which students choose the topic, methods, and finally share their interpretation of the results. In other words, students will be exposed to ways of learning and knowing that occur in scientific research. Data generated through assessment and evaluation should support the rationale that by cultivating students' self-efficacy in the laboratory environment, they will have better content knowledge and greater assurance in their scientific abilities. Formative and summative evaluation will focus on whether or not the project objectives have been met and the effectiveness of project activities. Each experiment will be evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively (pre- and post-tests and selected exam questions. Because of the small class sizes at all three participating institutions, quantitative data is expected to be helpful for some of the larger courses like general and organic chemistry, but will be of limited utility for small courses. Therefore immediate student feedback mechanisms for each experiment will be developed. The results of this work will be widely disseminated, both on the individual activity and project level. Innovative experiments will be published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Chemical Education and The Chemical Educator. The results will also be presented at the American Chemical Society Biennial Conference on Chemical Education (2016). When appropriate, activities will also be uploaded to sub-discipline specific online communities such as the NSF-supported Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Resource. Project deliverables will include results of summative evaluation and all course materials.