St. Joseph’s College of Maine has initiated the use of community based learning (CBL) throughout their chemistry curriculum with the goal of helping students become more engaged in learning chemistry such that both their learning of chemistry content and their retention in STEM programs would improve. Using the framework of identity theory, multiple assessments have been used to measure student engagement, scientific identity, and student perceptions of scientific professional skills. The first year of data is comprised of  general chemistry and organic chemistry students who participated in service learning projects  with local middle school and high school students, respectively. A comparison control group for each class engaged in an analogous video project without community partners. This presentation will describe preliminary results from student surveys about professional skills in scientific careers as well as student confidence in performing various community based learning activities. Results will include comparison of the two cohorts within each class, assessment of students across multiple semesters of involvement, and contrasts  between the two different courses.

Assessment of student perceptions of professional skills in curriculum-wide community based  STEM learning

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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