While involved in undergraduate research the students are learning at the highest cognitive levels. According to the revised Bloom’s taxonomy, at the evaluating level the students can make judgments and justify decisions. In order to enhance learning at that level, the thematically linked cluster experiments approach is designed and applied in CUREs. This presentation deals with the experimental physical chemistry course in which this new approach was tested. The course was taken by five sections each consisting of twenty students divided into five groups. In one of the sections all the experiments were performed on water – isopropanol mixture; the project title was “Hydrogen bonding in water – isopropanol binary system”. The subprojects were: (1) Temperature resolved density and viscosity, (2) Temperature resolved Raman spectroscopy, (3) Concentration resolved vapor pressure, (4) Concentration and temperature resolved refractive index, (5) Temperature and concentration resolved surface tension. The students had six weeks to complete the project. When compared to the other sections taking experimental physical chemistry course in which the subprojects were not thematically linked, an apparent increase of students’ interest and enthusiasm was noticed in the section in which this new approach was applied. In the beginning of each class period, the students were discussing their data trying to accomplish the common task-i.e., to better understand hydrogen bonding in the mixture. By comparing the data obtained using different experimental techniques, the students were able to make judgments about the results obtained by the other groups thus enhancing their learning at the evaluating level. In addition, this approach had positive effects on the students’ communication skills and professionalism.  <br/>

Thematically linked cluster experiments aimed to enhance the students’ learning at the evaluating level of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

[Author Benefits](https://scimeetings.acs.org/?utm_source=pubs_content_marketing&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=0320_MCF_NPI_Launch_Spring_Homepage&ref=pubs_content_marketing)

[How to use SciMeetings](https://storage.googleapis.com/dl.morressier.com/acs/SciMeetings-ACSSpring2020-HowToGuide_M3020-Final.pdf)

[Frequently Asked Questions](https://storage.googleapis.com/dl.morressier.com/acs/SciMtng_ACSNMSp2020_FAQ_M3120_Final.pdf)

ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.