1、Teaching Inquiry-Driven Organic Chemistry Labs,Jerry MohrigCarleton CollegeNorthfield, MNIntroduction andWorkshop ObjectivesSummer 2006,Provide the participants hands-on experience with question-driven, guided-inquiry organic chemistry projects and experiments.Allow the participants to evaluate what
2、 works well for guided-inquiry and design-based experiments and what are the practical constraints.Help the participants learn how to invigorate their laboratory courses by using inquiry-driven experiments and projects.Provide the participant experience with recasting a traditional experiment or pro
3、ject into a question-driven or design-based one.Encourage sharing of positive and negative experiences by participants regarding their teaching of organic chemistry labs.Explore whether graduate-student teaching assistants can provide competent supervision in the use of inquiry-driven organic chemis
4、try labs and what training will be necessary to do this successfully.,Two Important Questions,Why Do We Teach Labs?What Are Our Goals In Teaching Organic Chemistry Labs?,Teach students how to follow experimental directions Allow students to verify what the lab manual saysHigher-Order Traditional Lab
5、 Goals Help students experience the material taught inour lectures and deepen their understanding of it Teach modern laboratory techniques to students Teach students to synthesize organic compounds,Traditional Lab Teaching Goals,The Important “Non-Traditional Goals” of Laboratory Teaching,To teach s
6、tudents how to interpret experimentalresults and draw reasonable conclusions To teach students how to design their experimentalprocedures To encourage students to ask questions and findanswers To allow students to explore the process of science,Styles of Lab Teaching,TraditionalVerification Experime
7、ntsProvide confirmation of knowledge that students have been asked to learnMake a white powder, prove its what you expect, and donate it to chemicalwaste, again and again giving the word “cookbook” a bad name Inquiry Driven Guided-Inquiry or Discovery Experiments/ProjectsQuestion drivenOutcome not k
8、nown but the chemistry builds on what the students havestudied - experimental results must be evaluated and conclusions drawnA procedure is often givenDesign-Based Experiments/ProjectsAdapting generic procedures to synthesize target compoundsStudents make decisions on the design of experimental proc
9、edures andlearn the consequences of their choicesOpen-ended Inquiry Experiments/ProjectsStudents generate their own procedures and investigate the outcomes,Traditional Grignard Synthesis Project,Design-Based Grignard Project Purpose: To design and carry out the Grignard synthesis of a secondary or t
10、ertiary alcohol from a simpler primary alcohol,Traditional Acetylation of Ferrocene,Guided-Inquiry Diacetylation of Ferrocene Question: Which diacetylferrocene isomers form?,The Advantages of Multi-Week Projects,Promote student engagement and ownership Break out of the straightjacket by allowing fle
11、xible use of lab time Can utilize any pedagogy and are effective at all educational levels Promote guided-inquiry instruction Can use organic synthesis in the context of asking questions Provide good teamwork opportunities Allow lower lab costs,Keys to Success in Using Inquiry-Driven Labs Teaching t
12、he Art of Data Interpretation and Experimental Design,Communication of the lab goals and methods to allconcerned Faculty participation Providing time for pre- and post-lab discussions A range of inquiry-driven experiments and projects,from the straightforward to the sophisticated Availability of som
13、e modern instrumentation Availability of suitable written background materials,Suitable Written Background Materials,A clear well-defined question or purpose, stated up frontBackground material so that students can successfullyinterpret their experimental dataClear, student-friendly experimental dir
14、ections or modelsfor developing themA well-written techniques book, which contains modernspectroscopy as well as traditional lab techniques,Summary,Inquiry-driven experiments and projectsare effective: For allowing students to make hypotheses basedon what they have learned in the classroom For teaching students how to evaluate theirexperimental data and draw conclusions fromthem For helping students to learn how to design andcarry out experimental procedures For allowing students to experience first-hand thescience of organic chemistry,
