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As research has shown, collaborative peer learning is effective for improving student learning. Peer-led team learning (PLTL) is one well-known collaborative-group approach in which groups are facilitated by trained undergraduate peer leaders. This paper contributes to the literature on peer-leader training by examining how peer leaders for a large introductory science course translate their training into practice during their sessions. By conducting qualitative analysis on annual advice books written by emergent peer leaders, we examined the practiced advice and strategies of these peer leaders as they facilitate PLTL groups in a university-level general chemistry course. These advice books are passed on to future peer instructors, creating a community of practice between new and more experienced peer leaders. From the analysis, we discovered that peer leaders focus on developing robust student–student discussion during complex problem solving by 1) creating a community-oriented social and intellectual environment, 2) adapting their tactics and the collaborative-learning strategies to balance different personalities and promote equal participation among all students, and 3) modifying collaborative group approaches when facilitating their sessions. Also, in their correspondence across cohorts, peer leaders provided near-peer support to one another. These annual books disseminate practiced advice between peer-leader generations and are used during new peer-leader training.

Making decisions about the production and use of chemical substances is of central importance in many fields. In this study, a research team comprising teachers and educational researchers collaborated in collecting and analyzing cognitive interviews with students from 8th grade through first-year university general chemistry in an effort to map progression in students’ ability to make decisions about the consequences of using and producing chemicals. Study participants were asked to explain their reasoning about which fuel would be best to power a small vehicle. Data were analyzed using a “chemical thinking” lens to characterize conceptual sophistication and complexity of reasoning. Results revealed that most reasoning was intuitive in conceptual sophistication and relational in argumentative nature, driven by the consequences of using the fuels based on their composition. Implications are discussed for the design of learning experiences and assessments that better support students’ development of decisi...

A perspective is presented on how the representation mapping framework by Hahn and Chater (1998) may be used to characterize reasoning during problem solving in chemistry. To provide examples for testing the framework, an exploratory study was conducted with students and professors from three different courses in the middle of the undergraduate chemistry curriculum. Each participant's reasoning while solving exam problems was characterized by comparing the stored knowledge representation used as a resource and the new instance representation associated with the problem being solved. Doing so required consideration of two ways in which abstraction occurs: abstractness of representations, and abstracting while using representations. The representation mapping framework facilitates comparison of the representations and how they were used. This resulted in characterization of reasoning as memory-bank or rule-based (rules processes), or similarity-based or prototype (similarity processes). Rules processes were observed in all three courses. Similarity-based reasoning seldom occurred in students, but was common to all of the professors’ problem solving, though with higher abstractness than in students. Examples from the data illustrate how representation mapping can be used to examine abstraction in problem solving across different kinds of problems and in participants with different levels of expertise. Such utility could permit identifying barriers to abstraction capacity and may facilitate faculty assessment development.

Professional development that bridges gaps between educational research and practice is needed. However, bridging gaps can be difficult because teachers and educational researchers often belong to different Communities of Practice, as their activities, goals, and means of achieving those goals often differ. Meaningful collaboration among teachers and educational researchers can create a merged Community of Practice in which both teachers and educational researchers mutually benefit. A collaboration of this type is described that centered on investigating students’ abilities to apply chemical thinking when engaged in authentic tasks. We describe the design-based principles behind the collaboration, the work of the collaborative team, and a self-evaluation of results interpreted through a Communities-of-Practice perspective, with primary focus on the teachers’ perceptions. Analysis revealed ways in which teachers’ assessments shifted toward more research-based practice and ways in which teachers navigated t...

The Center for Authentic Science Practice in Education (CASPiE) is a course-embedded undergraduate research curriculum that aims to introduce authentic research experiences for students in their early college years. A cohort of students who were randomly assigned to the CASPiE laboratory sections was tracked during and two and three years after course enrollment. Students from the traditional laboratory sections were also tracked for control purposes. This paper presents students' perceptions of the laboratory course at the time of enrollment, based on their answers to an online survey, and a comparison to students' later responses to semi-structured oral interviews about their course involvement. We found that students' views of the curricula persisted over the years. CASPiE students thought the curriculum allowed them to learn how to do research and in turn gained confidence to do such work. In contrast, students from the traditional sections thought they did not learn the practice of research in their course. These and related comparisons are presented with evidence from survey results and interview vignettes. The implications of the CASPiE curriculum implementation and its effects over the long term are discussed.

ResumenComo continuación del documento anterior, en el que fue introducido y explicado el concepto de identidad química, se procede a presentar en este los elementos que se utilizan para colectar y analizar entrevistas cognitivas y los resultados, las implicaciones y las conclusiones de un estudio de comparación cultural entre estudiantes de una universidad en Costa Rica y otra en Estados Unidos. También se marcan las diferencias curriculares entre los dos países investigados. Los resultados de la investigación indican, tentativamente, la manera de razonar sobre la identidad química, lo que además se puede usar como parte del contexto de razonar sobre los beneficios, los costos y los riesgos y las relaciones entre la estructura y las propiedades en la química. Este trabajo muestra la diversidad del pensamiento sobre la identidad química en países con diferentes currículos, con poblaciones estudiantiles de diferentes tamaños y que presentan contextos de diferente carácter geográfico, cultural y social, lo que fortalece la validación de la progresión de aprendizaje hipotética.AbstractIn continuation from a previous paper, in which the concept of chemical identity was introduced, the elements that were used to collect and analyze cognitive interviews are presented, along with the results, implications and conclusions of a cultural-comparison study between students from a university in Costa Rica and another in the United States. Curricular differences between the two countries studied are also described. The results indicate, tentatively, patterns of reasoning about chemical identity, and also how they manifest in the context of a problem about benefits, costs and risks, as well as relationships between structure and properties, in chemistry. Diversity of thinking about chemical identity is shown across two countries with different chemistry curricula, and among student populations of different educational performance, in contexts with different geography, culture, norms, and other societal variables, which strengthens the validation of the hypothetic learning progression.

The value of the concept of substance, both in its theoretical and phenomenological constructions, should be considered in the learning of chemistry. The central idea of chemical identity is defined to consist of the assumptions, knowledge and practices of chemists in determining whether substances are the same or not the same. Within a collaboration between two universities, one in Costa Rica and the other in the United States, an exploratory study was conducted to uncover trends and to validate empirically, within undergraduate and graduate levels of education, including professors, a hypothetical learning progression of chemical identity that was previously reported. This work is presented in two parts. In this first part, a brief history of the macroscopic concept of substance is presented, as well as a summary of the hypothetical learning progression of chemical identity and how it relates to the theoretical framework of chemical thinking. This manuscript precedes the second part in which the results, implications and conclusions are presented.ResumenEl valor del concepto de sustancia, tanto como construcción teórica y fenomenológica como macroscópica, debe ser considerado en el aprendizaje de la química. Este trabajo define una idea principal en química —identidad química— que consiste en las sugerencias, conocimientos y prácticas de trabajo de los químicos para saber si las sustancias químicas son diferentes o iguales entre sí. Dentro de una colaboración entre una universidad en los Estados Unidos y otra en Costa Rica, fue conducida una investigación exploratoria para descubrir tendencias y validar empíricamente una progresión de aprendizaje hipotética sobre la identidad química, que fue reportada anteriormente, para alumnos y profesores de pregrado y postgrado. Este trabajo es presentado a través de dos documentos. En el primero, a continuación, se presenta una breve historia del concepto macroscópico de sustancia, un resumen de la progresión de aprendizaje hipotética, y cómo se ubica dentro del marco teórico del pensamiento químico. Este manuscrito conduce al segundo trabajo en el que se presentan el marco analítico, y los resultados, implicaciones y conclusiones.