Decision-Based Learning (DBL) is an innovative pedagogy designed to help students to frame and solve problems. It encorporates the conceptual or the “why”, the proceedural or the “how”, and the conditional or” when” aspects of knowledge experts use as they frame and solve problems. Students are guided through a DBL decision-tree structured to integrate these three spheres of knowledge in a higharcial structure. At key decision points in the tree, they are provided just-in-time/just enough instruction to make an informed decision.<br/><br/>We are working to re-structure the general chemistry curriculum to incorporate DBL strategies. This has required grouping and aligning topics such that they can be used in a decision-tree model. The initial decision-step asks the student to decide if a question concerns the compositional, structural, physical or chemical properties of a material or mixture or if it is about a characterizing the energy change, the direction, or the rate of a chemical reaction. These questions link course topics to core conditions tied to overarching fundamental laws and foundational tenants. As a student proceeds down through the decision points of the tree, they continue to parse out the problem as they consider different conditional aspects that characterize the problem. Once the problem is characterized, they are presented with the process knowledge necessary to obtain the answer. Students develop a more holistic conceptual understanding as they analyze multiple problems considering all relevant conditions and thus, are not forced to rely solely on a factual description of the concept.

Re-structuring the general chemistry curriculum to faciilitate decision-based lerening

256th National Meeting (2018)

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