Learning chemistry requires both, mastery of abstract concepts and development of the ability to make sense of representations used to explain and communicate chemistry concepts. The latter skill is known as representational competence, a set of practices a person employs to reflectively use a variety of representations to support claims, draw inferences, and make predictions about chemical phenomena. Despite the important role that representational competence plays in student success in chemistry, and the considerable number of investigations into student ability to reason with representations, little is known about faculty approaches to helping students develop this set of skills. This study aims to address this gap in literature by characterizing faculty intensions toward cultivating representational competence skills in their students. Three organic chemistry instructors participated in semi-structured interviews that explored their goals, instructional materials, and pedagogical beliefs about teaching and learning with representations. Kozma and Russell’s representational competence framework was used to analyze the interviews, as well as instructors’ course artifacts (i.e. syllabi, lecture notes, and assessments). Preliminary findings will be presented.

Organic chemistry faculty approaches toward teaching with representations

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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