Student centered collaboration and guided inquiry pedagogies are being applied to the development of organic laboratory activities.  In these activities, students work individually on four complementary laboratory investigations with guided questions and discussion prompts.  The similar laboratory experiences build individual student knowledge while the group's collected data allows students to discover patterns and trends.  Materials feature tiered tasks with leading discussion questions designed to build and develop student knowledge and laboratory challenges which allow students to apply their knowledge.  Several examples of the laboratory activities covering basic organic laboratory and spectroscopy techniques, common reactions, as well as a class research project will be described. These collaboratively designed laboratory activities are being tested against the traditional model of all students in a laboratory doing the same laboratory activities and preliminary results of the benefits of this collaborative guided inquiry model will be presented.

Collaboration and guided inquiry in the organic chemistry laboratory

244th National Meeting (2012)

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