Course Design
Current Research Methods in Chemistry (CH201)
For the last few years I have been working on re-developing the chemistry course “Current Research Methods in Chemistry” (CH201). This course is generally offered in the spring to 1st year chemistry majors within the UAB Sci-tech program that are interested in pursuing undergraduate research opportunities in Chemistry. Previously the course was taught utilizing teacher centered learning techniques such as lectures and demonstrations on current instrumentation and lab techniques; however, these methods of instruction have been shown time and time again to be minimally effective in learning. In order improve this course and make it more student centered, instead of teacher centered, I have restructured the course. In the redesigned course, lectures are replaced with active learning techniques developed to encourage classroom and group discussions, and demonstrations are replaced with a semester long group research project that culminates with a poster presentation at the annual UAB Undergraduate Research Fair.
In order to prepare students in this class for the critical thinking skills required of a researcher, students are not given a lab manual, but instead are taught to derive their own procedures and background research from given objectives, and literature handed out in class as well as literature they find on their own. In the final poster session at the UAB undergraduate research expo the students are be able to showcase their experience in the class as well as interact with other students and faculty currently participating in research. Ultimately, the goal of the class is to facilitate these students in finding a chemistry research lab that they are interested to work in as well as equip them with the skills to feel capable and confident in implementing their future research projects. My responsibilities for this course were to design the course as a whole as well as design and implement all of the experiments in the course; teach the students how to research and discern reputable literature in order to help design an experiment; teach good lab techniques basic to all research labs; foster independent thought and critical problem solving skills; grade all lab reports and projects while giving feedback for improvement; and assist in finding guest speakers from research labs on campus.
In order to prepare students in this class for the critical thinking skills required of a researcher, students are not given a lab manual, but instead are taught to derive their own procedures and background research from given objectives, and literature handed out in class as well as literature they find on their own. In the final poster session at the UAB undergraduate research expo the students are be able to showcase their experience in the class as well as interact with other students and faculty currently participating in research. Ultimately, the goal of the class is to facilitate these students in finding a chemistry research lab that they are interested to work in as well as equip them with the skills to feel capable and confident in implementing their future research projects. My responsibilities for this course were to design the course as a whole as well as design and implement all of the experiments in the course; teach the students how to research and discern reputable literature in order to help design an experiment; teach good lab techniques basic to all research labs; foster independent thought and critical problem solving skills; grade all lab reports and projects while giving feedback for improvement; and assist in finding guest speakers from research labs on campus.