It is challenging to promote meaningful learning in large chemistry courses taken primarily by non-chemistry majors. Students can lack motivation when courses are required and the content seems disconnected from their lives. This is especially true in organic chemistry, where students are motivated to succeed because of the importance to their degree progress and to their future admission to professional school, but not necessarily by the content itself.<br/><br/>In this presentation, I will describe the learning theory underlying the design of an organic chemistry “Choice Project”, including intrinsic motivation, writing to learn, and authentic assessment. The project goals are to provide students with an opportunity to take control of their learning and to capture student-created learning objects to be used in future offerings of the course. For the project, students choose how they want to meet one of the following three goals 1) address chemophobia in the public, 2) link the course content to their field of study or future career goal, or 3) teach a concept from the course. Formats options are video, podcast, infographic, or news article.<br/><br/>I will briefly describe the assignment instructions and provide information about proper attribution, copyright, and plagiarism. I will discuss the grading rubric, and how I incorporated peer review into the second offering of the project using the open-source software tool ComPAIR. I will present examples and student perceptions about the project. I will describe the characteristics of the students who opted into the assignment, the extent to which the project goals were met, and the content of peer review. I will also present tips and lessons learned to help others implement similar assignments in their classes.

Organic chemistry choice project to tap into students’ intrinsic motivation for learning

2019 Spring National Meeting

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