The Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) emphasize students’ development in the scientific practices and science content as equally important outcomes. However, traditional approaches to teaching and learning have been heavily content-focused to the neglect of the practices. There is a need for more reformed pedagogies which are more closely aligned with the goals of the Framework and the NGSS and provide a more balanced and simultaneous focus on both the practices and the content. Project-based labs, in particular, engage students in using science content in planning and carrying out investigations, analysing and interpreting data, and argumentation and constructing explanations, among other practices. Our work focuses on the development of tasks to assess students’ use of the scientific practices and the use of these tasks to evaluate the effect of different laboratory environments on students’ development of proficiency with the practices. This presentation focuses on how second semester general chemistry students exposed to two different laboratory curricula (traditional verification and project-based), engaged with selected tasks to elicit particular scientific practices. We provide pre-post analysis of students’ proficiency with the practices, and discuss the pedagogical implications of these results.

Exploring students’ proficiency with selected scientific practices in traditional and reformed laboratory environments

2019 Spring National Meeting

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