CASTLE Seminar Series - Jeffrey R. Raker

Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry and the Center for the Improvement of Teaching and Research in STEM Education at University of South Florida Title: Understanding the meaning ascribed by students to representations used in organic chemistryAbstract: STEM disciplines rely on representations (e.g., equations, graphs, pictures) to communicate the relationships, trends, models, and theories of our disciplines. Success in organic chemistry is heavily related to not only a student_s ability to interpret representations of molecules, but also their ability to integrate those representations into models of the stepwise transformation of molecules into new molecules (i.e., reaction mechanisms and reaction coordinate diagrams). Previous work by organic chemistry education researchers has noted that students can successfully recreate molecular representations and reaction mechanisms without any understanding of the representations. Through several large-scale studies, we have both replicated this work and uncovered previously not found serendipitous connections made by the students between prior and new learning as well as unintended ascription of meaning to meaningless surface features of chemical representations. Implications for how organic chemistry instruction might address this unintended learning will be discussed. In addition, we will consider how the unintended learning might impact learning in courses that have an organic chemistry prerequisite requirement.