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Attaining transferable skills is increasingly important for undergraduates and, while such skill development may be embedded within the curriculum, it is often not well recognised by students. This mixed methods study explores the use of skills badges as icons displayed on curriculum materials in several disciplines at two universities. The badges are designed to draw students' attention to skill development opportunities; an approach that is easily scalable in any discipline. Results indicated that more than half of students found the badges helpful and their recognition of the development of some skills increased. Other benefits included understanding the wider purpose of learning tasks, increased motivation and satisfaction and identification of examples for use in the job application process. The badges prompted some staff to communicate with students about skills and to re-evaluate their teaching approach to maximise skill development opportunities. Communication between staff and students is key to ensuring students understand the purpose of the badges and how to use them.

How students behave and learn in the teaching laboratory is a topic of great interest in chemical education, partly in order to justify the great expense of teaching laboratories. Much effort has been put into investigating how students think, feel and physically act in these unique learning environments. One such attempt was made through the generation and utilisation of the Meaningful Learning in the Laboratory Instrument (MLLI). This 30 question survey utilised Novak's theory of Meaningful Learning to investigate the affective, cognitive and psychomotor domains of the student learning experience. To date, this survey has been used to great effect to measure how students' perception of their own feelings and actions will change over the course of a semester. This study reports the use of a modified MLLI survey to probe how the expectations of students change over their undergraduate degree. To increase the generalisability of the outcomes of the study data was gathered from four universities from Australia (Monash University, the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney) and the UK (the University of Warwick). Students were found to start their university careers with very positive expectations of their teaching laboratory experiences. Their outlook became somewhat more negative each year that they were enrolled in the program. A further modified MLLI survey was presented to teaching associates and academic staff. Teaching staff were shown to have far more negative expectations of the students' feelings and actions, with academic staff more likely to believe that students do not undertake many items of positive meaningful learning. Overall, this study highlights the large gap between the expectations of teaching staff and students which, if left unaddressed, will likely continue to cause great frustration for both teaching staff and students.

Employers of chemistry graduates are seeking a range of transferable skills from prospective employees, and academics are increasingly seeking to build employability skill development opportunities into the undergraduate curriculum. However, research suggests that undergraduates do not recognise or value such skill development without prompting. This recognition is essential if graduates are to be able to articulate their skills in the employment process. This study involves research amongst almost 1000 undergraduates studying chemistry at two institutions, using open-ended questions to collect qualitative data. The extent to which students recognised course-related skills development and understood the skills that employers are looking for was investigated, as was their desire to develop additional skills. Similarities and differences in student views between institutions are discussed, as well as trends across year levels and by gender. Results indicate that undergraduates studying chemistry are most likely to value and recognise development of some key skills sought by employers (teamwork, communication, thinking/problem solving, organisation/time management and laboratory/practical skills), but are very unlikely to value or recognise others (numeracy, independent learning, commercial awareness, interpersonal, research, computer/IT, creativity/innovation, flexibility/adaptability and initiative). Opportunities to develop the latter skills and recognition of the value of doing so will require improved communication with students and/or provision of new experiences within the curriculum.

The aims of teaching laboratories is an important and ever-evolving topic of discussion amongst teaching staff at teaching institutions. It is often assumed that both teaching staff and students are implicitly aware of these aims, although this is rarely tested or measured. This assumption can lead to mismatched beliefs between students and teaching staff and, if not corrected for, could lead to negative learning gains for students and become a source of frustration for teaching staff. In order to measure and identify this gap in a manner that could be readily generalised to other institutions, a single open question--'What do you think the aims of doing a practical chemistry course are?'--was distributed to students and teaching staff at two Australian universities and one UK university. Qualitative analysis of the responses revealed that students and teaching staff held relatively narrow views of teaching laboratories, particularly focusing on aims more in line with expository experiences (e.g. development of practical skills or enhances understanding of theory). Whilst some differences were noted between students at the three institutions, the large amount of similarities in their responses indicated a fairly common perception of laboratory aims. Of the three groups, academics actually held the narrowest view of teaching laboratories, typically neglecting the preparation of students for the workforce or the simple increase in laboratory experience the students could gain. This study highlights gaps between the perceptions of students and teaching staff with regards to laboratory aims alongside revealing that all three groups held relatively simplified views of teaching laboratories.

A 1 h classroom activity is presented, aimed at consolidating the concepts of microstates and Russell-Saunders energy terms in transition metal atoms and coordination complexes. The unconventional approach, based on logic and intuition rather than rigorous mathematics, is designed to stimulate discussion and enhance familiarity with quantum numbers in classes of chemistry undergraduate students.