New resources have recently been emerging for educators to implement systems thinking (ST) in chemistry education, including a proposed set of ST skills. While these efforts aim to make ST implementation easier, little is known about how to assess these skills in a chemistry context. In this study, we investigated ST skills employed by students…

As a representative catabolic reaction that widely exists in nature, anaerobic digestion (AD) exhibits great value regarding the global carbon cycle, renewable energy development, and environmental protection. Such an important biochemical reaction was ignored before and should be introduced into the teaching and textbooks of undergraduate…

Electrochemistry, a key topic in introductory chemistry, is a topic that many students struggle with conceptually. Visual learning tools like concept maps allow the externalization of key concepts and the relationships between these concepts may aid in students' acquisition and retention of newly learned electrochemistry concepts. Partnering with…

Researchers and educators have been exploring systems thinking (ST) in chemistry education to better equip citizens for 21st century challenges; however, little is known about students' perspectives and experiences. In this study, we investigated students' perspectives of ST and their experiences with ST activities. We designed and implemented a…

Numerous studies have proven the learning benefits of concept maps in science subjects, particularly for students with low prior knowledge. There is a scarcity of research dedicated to the examination of chemistry courses at the university level, and the findings pertaining to academic performance in that subject exhibit a lack of consistency.…

The American Chemical Society, Division of Chemical Education, Examinations Institute has been developing content maps for the undergraduate program based on subdiscipline specifications since 2008. The Anchoring Concepts Content Maps (or ACCM) have been published in four subdisciplines (general, organic, physical, and inorganic chemistry) with…

Learning progressions (LPs) are descriptions of students' growing sophistication in the understanding of a particular construct through a curricular sequence. They are particularly useful for organizing complex constructs for which students do not necessarily connect concepts as taught in different courses. However, they are challenging to…

Over 40 years of research, concept maps have shown that they are beneficial for learning. However, much of this research has been conducted in laboratory settings. Although there are a few studies conducted in the classroom, there is little understanding of the instructional efficacy of using different types of concept maps. In a between-subjects…

This study sought to determine the levels of conceptual understanding of undergraduate students regarding organic compounds within different functional groups. A total of 60 students who were enrolled in the Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education of a Faculty of Education at a state university in Turkey and who had followed an…

In this paper, we explore the use of concept maps (Cmaps) as instructional materials prepared by teachers, to foster the understanding of chemistry. We choose fireworks as a macroscopic event to teach basic chemical principles related to the Bohr atomic model and matter-energy interaction. During teachers' Cmap navigation, students can experience…

This study aims to analyse prospective chemistry teachers' cognitive structure related to the subject of covalent and ionic bonding. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants in order to determine their cognitive structure, and the interviews were audio recorded to prevent the loss of data. The data were transcribed and…

The green chemistry course taught at Westminster College (PA) incorporates nontraditional teaching techniques and texts to educate future chemists about the importance of using green chemistry principles. The course is designed to introduce green chemistry concepts and demonstrate their inherent necessity by discussing historical missteps by the…

Following collaboration between two chemistry lecturers and an academic developer an attempt was made to enhance the learning of students within a chemistry module through the adaptation of the delivery of content material. This paper reports a piece of practitioner led research which considered how effective the approach developed was upon the…

Using visual models is common in science and should become more common in classrooms. Our research group has developed and completed studies on the use of a visual modeling tool, the Concept Connector. This modeling tool consists of an online concept mapping Java applet that has automatic scoring functions we refer to as Robograder. The Concept…