This paper presents research and analysis to indicate how multiple post-constructivist frameworks, rooted in the work of Bruno Latour, material feminisms, and the environmental humanities, lead to a reconsideration of important questions on laboratory work in chemistry and chemistry education. The continuing and vibrant discussion of the value of laboratory in chemistry education, which has been so well advanced by the research and commentaries of Stacey Lowery Bretz, has centered on critical questions of student chemistry learning. This reflects the long-standing focus of education as a place where knowledge is constructed within the experiences and interactions of students with learning environments, all deeply rooted in constructivist frameworks for learning and, sometimes, science itself. Recent work in science studies and related fields has moved beyond discourse- and human-centered analysis to reconsider the role of the material world, and of material agents, in knowledge construction. Using the particular construct of Latour’s collective of humans and nonhumans, this talk will examine a specific sequence of events in a laboratory curriculum to discuss how this perspective may shift understandings of the importance (and content) of laboratory learning.

Post-constructivist frameworks for discussing the importance (and content) of laboratory learning

ACS Spring 2022

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