EMBEDDING CREATIVE EXERCISES TO PROMOTE LEARNING-CENTRED EXPERIENCES IN CHEMISTRY TUTORIALS

Authors

Keywords:

creative exercises, linking concepts, first-year tutorials

Abstract

An ongoing universal challenge for chemistry education is combatting the historical “silo-ing” of content into distinct topics. One approach towards addressing this challenge is the use of open-ended activities and assessments to prompt students to access prior knowledge and connect concepts through the use of Creative Exercises (CEs) (Trigwell & Sleet, 1990). This study has adapted the CEs as described by Ye and coworkers (2019) to operate as a formative learning activity in first-year chemistry tutorials. Preliminary testing in 2018 anecdotally indicated students persisted in struggling to access prior or interdisciplinary knowledge when confronted with open-ended CEs. Reflecting on this experience, a longitudinal approach has been taken by implementing a portfolio-style approach to encourage students to build upon this through a semester. In addition to the portfolio addition, limited scaffolding being built to support tutors and students when undertaking tutorial CE activities. In this presentation, we will focus on the student-generated artefacts by analyzing the identified connecting concepts and provide insight into the next iteration of this study design for 2021.

Author Biographies

Reyne Pullen, The University of Sydney

School of Chemistry, Lecturer

Stephen George-Williams, The University of Sydney

School of Chemistry, Lecturer

Peter Rutledge, The University of Sydney

School of Chemistry, Professor

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Published

2020-09-26