Address: School of Life and Environmental Sciences
Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment
Deakin University
Burwood
Victoria 3125
Australia
Every field of knowledge has two aspects: a practice component and research into the advancement ... more Every field of knowledge has two aspects: a practice component and research into the advancement of the discipline. Chemical education is the same. Chemical education research aims to evaluate improvements and innovation in practice and also investigate how students learn chemistry. The following examples illustrate the scope of chemical education research, with analogies to better well-known examples of research in chemistry.
In chemistry education, students learn not only chemical knowledge and skills, but also about the... more In chemistry education, students learn not only chemical knowledge and skills, but also about the culture of chemistry - how scientists think about, and practise, chemistry. Students often learn that science is practised according to the 'scientific method', which is a model of scientific discovery, expounded by science historians and philosophers. The idealised 'scientific method' has a number of steps: the collection of information about a phenomenon; the development of a hypothesis to explain those observations; an experiment to test a prediction that arises from the hypothesis, perhaps including more observations and collection of more information; improvement of the hypothesis; and so on.
Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd., ... more Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd., an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council or the Australian Government. This work is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia Licence. Under this Licence you are free to copy distribute, display and perform the work and to make derivative works. Attribution: You must attribute the work to the original author and include the following statement: Support for the original work was provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
In this paper we present our preliminary studies on the efficacy of eugenol for the recovery of e... more In this paper we present our preliminary studies on the efficacy of eugenol for the recovery of erased characters on polymers. We have found that eugenol rapidly recovers erased characters when applied to the surface of polymer substrates. By applying eugenol to the surface to be treated using a cotton bud or paintbrush, we were able to revisualize erased characters from a range of polymers, including acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, acrylic, high-impact polystyrene, and polystyrene. Eugenol is a safe, nonhazardous, and easily sourced reagent for this purpose.
Background Higher Education in Australia is in a phase of rapid change due to a number of regulat... more Background Higher Education in Australia is in a phase of rapid change due to a number of regulatory changes. Over the past five years the Australian Chemistry community has agreed on a list of Chemistry Threshold Learning Outcomes (CTLOs) that every student graduating from an Australian University will have attained. In addition, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) has changed its accreditation process for Chemistry degrees and now uses these CTLOs as the basis for accreditation. Therefore, it is now paramount to ensure that our assessment items allow students to demonstrate attainment of the CTLOs during a degree (Elmgren, Ho, Akesson, Schmid & Towns 2015). The “Assessing the Assessments” project, funded by the Australian Government’s Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT ID14-3562) is developing a framework designed to help academics at tertiary institutions to determine the alignment of their assessment items with the CTLOs. The project is also collating a database of...
The underlying assumption in chemistry education is that chemistry is a real, distinct discipline... more The underlying assumption in chemistry education is that chemistry is a real, distinct discipline, clearly differentiable from other sciences. So what makes chemistry special?
International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education
Teaching assistants (TAs) have a major impact on the undergraduate science student experience, an... more Teaching assistants (TAs) have a major impact on the undergraduate science student experience, and therefore training TAs is critical to support engagement and learning. We ran a one-day TA training program for two years and found that participation in the program increased TAs’ reflective practice and student-centered teaching over a semester of teaching. Open-ended pre-survey responses indicated that in addition to wanting to learn pedagogical approaches, TAs sought help managing challenging situations and student behaviour. Post-surveys confirmed that the program fulfilled most learning goals of TAs and they subsequently applied the new teaching approaches. Participants indicated high levels of empowerment within their teaching roles across the cognitions of impact, competence and meaningfulness, but low self-determination. All aspects of empowerment increased with experience.
It is widely recognised that the quality of the undergraduate experience in science often depends... more It is widely recognised that the quality of the undergraduate experience in science often depends on student interactions with sessional staff. In some cases, sessional staff have primary responsibility for teaching within tutorials, workshops and practicals, on field trips, and sometimes in lectures. Preparing postgraduate students to teach requires them to accept responsibilities that they may not have signed up for when they decided to become scientists, and they are unlikely to have been exposed to pedagogical theories in their science studies. In their role as teachers, postgraduate students and other sessional staff bring their own experiences, knowledge and attitudes towards teaching, which will influence their personal teaching practice. We held a full-day workshop with the goal of improving the learning experiences of undergraduate students by improving the training of sessional staff in teaching. This was designed based on the latest literature with three aims: 1. To enhan...
Many students find the first semester of tertiary chemistry very challenging. This may be due to ... more Many students find the first semester of tertiary chemistry very challenging. This may be due to having weak backgrounds in chemistry and mathematics, lack of sufficient study time, poor prior teaching or lack of interest in chemistry. Academic staff have implemented various measures to support student engagement and achievement including small group tutorials, a variety of online resources, in-class polling, PASS sessions and weekly online quizzes. In this study we have used a diagnostic survey at the transition to university to investigate students’ prior knowledge in mathematics and chemistry and to establish demographic factors. The results from this survey have been compared with student engagement in various resources and their final scores in the unit in an effort to determine factors that could be used to identify students at risk of failure, and to evaluate the utility of the additional resources offered to students. Gender effects have also been explored.
Spectroscopic techniques are widely used in forensic laboratories for quantitative and qualitativ... more Spectroscopic techniques are widely used in forensic laboratories for quantitative and qualitative analysis. This article provides an overview of the spectroscopic techniques most commonly encountered in forensic laboratories. Infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, x-ray fluorescence, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy are used mainly for identification or characterization of substances. Visible and ultraviolet spectroscopy, atomic absorption spectroscopy, and atomic emission spectroscopy are used mainly for measurement of substances or elements. Some techniques can be used for both identification and measurement. Related techniques such as molecular fluorescence, chemiluminescence, and synchrotron techniques are also discussed
International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education, 2020
The undergraduate laboratory occupies a large fraction of science students’ time. Over 3000 stude... more The undergraduate laboratory occupies a large fraction of science students’ time. Over 3000 students were asked to rate their laboratory learning experience using 12 metrics. 362 academics were asked to predict which of these 12 aspects of the student experience would correlate with the overall laboratory learning experience. Responses from academics in biology, chemistry and physics departments, and from the USA and Australia, are statistically the same. However, the correlation between these staff predictions and student results is poor. The student results are consistent with extant educational research, but it appears that these findings are not reaching those who are responsible for developing undergraduate laboratory courses. There is a great need for educational research to be made more accessible for academics who are trained in scientific, but not in educational research.
Why do people become teachers? Some of the reasons for entering science and mathematics teaching ... more Why do people become teachers? Some of the reasons for entering science and mathematics teaching include: wanting to make a difference, good job conditions, liking young people, loving science and maths, being good at teaching, having had a good maths/science teacher, a shortage of teachers, and a love of learning. We need good teachers, and especially teachers with good science and chemistry backgrounds. It is also true of all school levels, including primary. Job satisfaction and the joy of teaching are not enough. Everyone needs encouragement, acknowledgement and respect. Everyone needs to know that they and their work are valued. Teachers need these too. It is a good investment in the nation’s future
Students who do not intend to have a science-related career often ask why they should study STEM ... more Students who do not intend to have a science-related career often ask why they should study STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. This is strongly linked to the decline in the numbers of students studying the science-based subjects (see March 2012 issue, p. 40). In the 20 years between 1992 and 2012, the number of Australian year 12 students increased by 30 800, but the numbers of year 12 chemistry, physics and biology students declined by 4000, 8000 and 12 000 respectively.
Background Higher Education in Australia is in a phase of rapid change due to regulatory changes ... more Background Higher Education in Australia is in a phase of rapid change due to regulatory changes (TEQSA) and a shift towards a standards based framework. Over the past five years, the Chemistry community in Australia has developed the Chemistry Threshold Learning Outcomes (CTLOs) which articulate the outcomes that every student graduating from an Australian university with a major in Chemistry will have attained. In keeping with this development, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) now bases its accreditation for Chemistry degrees on the CTLOs. Therefore, it is now vital to the Chemistry community to ensure that the assessment items we use allow students to demonstrate attainment of all CTLOs during their chemistry degree. Our OLT funded project (Assessing the assessments: Evidencing and benchmarking student learning outcomes in Chemistry (OLT ID14-3562)) has developed a diagnostic framework that will help you to determine whether your assessment items actually deliver re...
Evaluative judgement is the ability to objectively evaluate the quality of one's own work. Th... more Evaluative judgement is the ability to objectively evaluate the quality of one's own work. This is an important metacognitive skill for all students and graduates. The tendency of inexperienced people to over-estimate their ability is called illusory superiority, which is also called the Lake Wobegon effect, after the fictional town where "all the children are above average", or the Kruger-Dunning effect, after the Ig Nobel Prize winners. In this study, students were rewarded if their self-evaluation was consistent with the evaluation of an academic marker. It was found that self-evaluations were consistent with markers' evaluations when a binary (achived / not-achieved) marking scheme was used. For multi-mark, non-binary marking schemes, students would eventually recalibrate their self-evaluations over a few assessment cycles.
Book review of a resource to improve the academic writing of international students who have Engl... more Book review of a resource to improve the academic writing of international students who have English as a second language.
This book is intended for undergraduate students of mathematics and subjects involving the applic... more This book is intended for undergraduate students of mathematics and subjects involving the application of mathematics. After a brief introduction, Part One describes generic mathematical skills with chapters on: Using Examples; Thinking Visually; Coping With Symbols; Taking Ideas Apart; Thinking Logically; and Making Connections. Part Two of the book applies these skills to the three main types of tasks in undergraduate mathematics: Solving Problems; Applying Mathematics; and Constructing Proofs. Part Three deals with study skills: Studying Actively; Using Technology; and Succeeding in Assessment. There is a Bibliography and short Index.
The basic idea of the book is that the best way of learning Mathematics is to develop metacognitive and metalearning skills. Students should develop an approach to learning, to reflect on the process of learning and problem solving, and thus know when and how to particular strategies in learning and problem solving. For example, Chapter Three (Thinking Visually) shows how diagrams can be used to better understand the qualitative behaviour of complicated equations and to visualise which data are significant.
Every field of knowledge has two aspects: a practice component and research into the advancement ... more Every field of knowledge has two aspects: a practice component and research into the advancement of the discipline. Chemical education is the same. Chemical education research aims to evaluate improvements and innovation in practice and also investigate how students learn chemistry. The following examples illustrate the scope of chemical education research, with analogies to better well-known examples of research in chemistry.
In chemistry education, students learn not only chemical knowledge and skills, but also about the... more In chemistry education, students learn not only chemical knowledge and skills, but also about the culture of chemistry - how scientists think about, and practise, chemistry. Students often learn that science is practised according to the 'scientific method', which is a model of scientific discovery, expounded by science historians and philosophers. The idealised 'scientific method' has a number of steps: the collection of information about a phenomenon; the development of a hypothesis to explain those observations; an experiment to test a prediction that arises from the hypothesis, perhaps including more observations and collection of more information; improvement of the hypothesis; and so on.
Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd., ... more Support for this project has been provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd., an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council or the Australian Government. This work is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia Licence. Under this Licence you are free to copy distribute, display and perform the work and to make derivative works. Attribution: You must attribute the work to the original author and include the following statement: Support for the original work was provided by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd, an initiative of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
In this paper we present our preliminary studies on the efficacy of eugenol for the recovery of e... more In this paper we present our preliminary studies on the efficacy of eugenol for the recovery of erased characters on polymers. We have found that eugenol rapidly recovers erased characters when applied to the surface of polymer substrates. By applying eugenol to the surface to be treated using a cotton bud or paintbrush, we were able to revisualize erased characters from a range of polymers, including acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, acrylic, high-impact polystyrene, and polystyrene. Eugenol is a safe, nonhazardous, and easily sourced reagent for this purpose.
Background Higher Education in Australia is in a phase of rapid change due to a number of regulat... more Background Higher Education in Australia is in a phase of rapid change due to a number of regulatory changes. Over the past five years the Australian Chemistry community has agreed on a list of Chemistry Threshold Learning Outcomes (CTLOs) that every student graduating from an Australian University will have attained. In addition, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) has changed its accreditation process for Chemistry degrees and now uses these CTLOs as the basis for accreditation. Therefore, it is now paramount to ensure that our assessment items allow students to demonstrate attainment of the CTLOs during a degree (Elmgren, Ho, Akesson, Schmid & Towns 2015). The “Assessing the Assessments” project, funded by the Australian Government’s Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT ID14-3562) is developing a framework designed to help academics at tertiary institutions to determine the alignment of their assessment items with the CTLOs. The project is also collating a database of...
The underlying assumption in chemistry education is that chemistry is a real, distinct discipline... more The underlying assumption in chemistry education is that chemistry is a real, distinct discipline, clearly differentiable from other sciences. So what makes chemistry special?
International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education
Teaching assistants (TAs) have a major impact on the undergraduate science student experience, an... more Teaching assistants (TAs) have a major impact on the undergraduate science student experience, and therefore training TAs is critical to support engagement and learning. We ran a one-day TA training program for two years and found that participation in the program increased TAs’ reflective practice and student-centered teaching over a semester of teaching. Open-ended pre-survey responses indicated that in addition to wanting to learn pedagogical approaches, TAs sought help managing challenging situations and student behaviour. Post-surveys confirmed that the program fulfilled most learning goals of TAs and they subsequently applied the new teaching approaches. Participants indicated high levels of empowerment within their teaching roles across the cognitions of impact, competence and meaningfulness, but low self-determination. All aspects of empowerment increased with experience.
It is widely recognised that the quality of the undergraduate experience in science often depends... more It is widely recognised that the quality of the undergraduate experience in science often depends on student interactions with sessional staff. In some cases, sessional staff have primary responsibility for teaching within tutorials, workshops and practicals, on field trips, and sometimes in lectures. Preparing postgraduate students to teach requires them to accept responsibilities that they may not have signed up for when they decided to become scientists, and they are unlikely to have been exposed to pedagogical theories in their science studies. In their role as teachers, postgraduate students and other sessional staff bring their own experiences, knowledge and attitudes towards teaching, which will influence their personal teaching practice. We held a full-day workshop with the goal of improving the learning experiences of undergraduate students by improving the training of sessional staff in teaching. This was designed based on the latest literature with three aims: 1. To enhan...
Many students find the first semester of tertiary chemistry very challenging. This may be due to ... more Many students find the first semester of tertiary chemistry very challenging. This may be due to having weak backgrounds in chemistry and mathematics, lack of sufficient study time, poor prior teaching or lack of interest in chemistry. Academic staff have implemented various measures to support student engagement and achievement including small group tutorials, a variety of online resources, in-class polling, PASS sessions and weekly online quizzes. In this study we have used a diagnostic survey at the transition to university to investigate students’ prior knowledge in mathematics and chemistry and to establish demographic factors. The results from this survey have been compared with student engagement in various resources and their final scores in the unit in an effort to determine factors that could be used to identify students at risk of failure, and to evaluate the utility of the additional resources offered to students. Gender effects have also been explored.
Spectroscopic techniques are widely used in forensic laboratories for quantitative and qualitativ... more Spectroscopic techniques are widely used in forensic laboratories for quantitative and qualitative analysis. This article provides an overview of the spectroscopic techniques most commonly encountered in forensic laboratories. Infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, x-ray fluorescence, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy are used mainly for identification or characterization of substances. Visible and ultraviolet spectroscopy, atomic absorption spectroscopy, and atomic emission spectroscopy are used mainly for measurement of substances or elements. Some techniques can be used for both identification and measurement. Related techniques such as molecular fluorescence, chemiluminescence, and synchrotron techniques are also discussed
International Journal of Innovation in Science and Mathematics Education, 2020
The undergraduate laboratory occupies a large fraction of science students’ time. Over 3000 stude... more The undergraduate laboratory occupies a large fraction of science students’ time. Over 3000 students were asked to rate their laboratory learning experience using 12 metrics. 362 academics were asked to predict which of these 12 aspects of the student experience would correlate with the overall laboratory learning experience. Responses from academics in biology, chemistry and physics departments, and from the USA and Australia, are statistically the same. However, the correlation between these staff predictions and student results is poor. The student results are consistent with extant educational research, but it appears that these findings are not reaching those who are responsible for developing undergraduate laboratory courses. There is a great need for educational research to be made more accessible for academics who are trained in scientific, but not in educational research.
Why do people become teachers? Some of the reasons for entering science and mathematics teaching ... more Why do people become teachers? Some of the reasons for entering science and mathematics teaching include: wanting to make a difference, good job conditions, liking young people, loving science and maths, being good at teaching, having had a good maths/science teacher, a shortage of teachers, and a love of learning. We need good teachers, and especially teachers with good science and chemistry backgrounds. It is also true of all school levels, including primary. Job satisfaction and the joy of teaching are not enough. Everyone needs encouragement, acknowledgement and respect. Everyone needs to know that they and their work are valued. Teachers need these too. It is a good investment in the nation’s future
Students who do not intend to have a science-related career often ask why they should study STEM ... more Students who do not intend to have a science-related career often ask why they should study STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. This is strongly linked to the decline in the numbers of students studying the science-based subjects (see March 2012 issue, p. 40). In the 20 years between 1992 and 2012, the number of Australian year 12 students increased by 30 800, but the numbers of year 12 chemistry, physics and biology students declined by 4000, 8000 and 12 000 respectively.
Background Higher Education in Australia is in a phase of rapid change due to regulatory changes ... more Background Higher Education in Australia is in a phase of rapid change due to regulatory changes (TEQSA) and a shift towards a standards based framework. Over the past five years, the Chemistry community in Australia has developed the Chemistry Threshold Learning Outcomes (CTLOs) which articulate the outcomes that every student graduating from an Australian university with a major in Chemistry will have attained. In keeping with this development, the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) now bases its accreditation for Chemistry degrees on the CTLOs. Therefore, it is now vital to the Chemistry community to ensure that the assessment items we use allow students to demonstrate attainment of all CTLOs during their chemistry degree. Our OLT funded project (Assessing the assessments: Evidencing and benchmarking student learning outcomes in Chemistry (OLT ID14-3562)) has developed a diagnostic framework that will help you to determine whether your assessment items actually deliver re...
Evaluative judgement is the ability to objectively evaluate the quality of one's own work. Th... more Evaluative judgement is the ability to objectively evaluate the quality of one's own work. This is an important metacognitive skill for all students and graduates. The tendency of inexperienced people to over-estimate their ability is called illusory superiority, which is also called the Lake Wobegon effect, after the fictional town where "all the children are above average", or the Kruger-Dunning effect, after the Ig Nobel Prize winners. In this study, students were rewarded if their self-evaluation was consistent with the evaluation of an academic marker. It was found that self-evaluations were consistent with markers' evaluations when a binary (achived / not-achieved) marking scheme was used. For multi-mark, non-binary marking schemes, students would eventually recalibrate their self-evaluations over a few assessment cycles.
Book review of a resource to improve the academic writing of international students who have Engl... more Book review of a resource to improve the academic writing of international students who have English as a second language.
This book is intended for undergraduate students of mathematics and subjects involving the applic... more This book is intended for undergraduate students of mathematics and subjects involving the application of mathematics. After a brief introduction, Part One describes generic mathematical skills with chapters on: Using Examples; Thinking Visually; Coping With Symbols; Taking Ideas Apart; Thinking Logically; and Making Connections. Part Two of the book applies these skills to the three main types of tasks in undergraduate mathematics: Solving Problems; Applying Mathematics; and Constructing Proofs. Part Three deals with study skills: Studying Actively; Using Technology; and Succeeding in Assessment. There is a Bibliography and short Index.
The basic idea of the book is that the best way of learning Mathematics is to develop metacognitive and metalearning skills. Students should develop an approach to learning, to reflect on the process of learning and problem solving, and thus know when and how to particular strategies in learning and problem solving. For example, Chapter Three (Thinking Visually) shows how diagrams can be used to better understand the qualitative behaviour of complicated equations and to visualise which data are significant.
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The basic idea of the book is that the best way of learning Mathematics is to develop metacognitive and metalearning skills. Students should develop an approach to learning, to reflect on the process of learning and problem solving, and thus know when and how to particular strategies in learning and problem solving. For example, Chapter Three (Thinking Visually) shows how diagrams can be used to better understand the qualitative behaviour of complicated equations and to visualise which data are significant.
The basic idea of the book is that the best way of learning Mathematics is to develop metacognitive and metalearning skills. Students should develop an approach to learning, to reflect on the process of learning and problem solving, and thus know when and how to particular strategies in learning and problem solving. For example, Chapter Three (Thinking Visually) shows how diagrams can be used to better understand the qualitative behaviour of complicated equations and to visualise which data are significant.