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Chemistry Unbound: Designing a New Four-Year Undergraduate Curriculum Tracy L. McGill,*,† Leah C. Williams,† Douglas R. Mulford,† Simon B. Blakey,† Robert J. Harris,† James T. Kindt,† David G. Lynn,†,‡ Patricia A. Marsteller,‡ Frank E. McDonald,† and Nichole L. Powell§ †
Department of Chemistry and ‡Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, United States § Department of Chemistry, Oxford College of Emory University, Oxford, Georgia 30054, United States
J. Chem. Educ. Downloaded from pubs.acs.org by TULANE UNIV on 12/16/18. For personal use only.
S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: This article describes the process of designing a new four-year curriculum at Emory University. Acknowledging the limitations of traditional curricula and pedagogy, the major goals of this reform effort include an emphasis on core ideas and scientific practices rather than content and historical course boundaries in order to convey the excitement, relevance, and interdisciplinary nature of 21st century chemistry to undergraduate students. KEYWORDS: First-Year Undergraduate/General, Second-Year Undergraduate, Upper-Division Undergraduate, Curriculum, Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary
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drastically over time. The critiques of “traditional” chemistry curricula and pedagogical methods are numerous: • the continuous addition of content, particularly to the general chemistry curriculum, with an expectation to teach the entirety of that content in the span of two semesters (i.e., the focus on breadth versus depth)9 • the disjointed structure of topics, both within a course (like general chemistry) and also between courses (like the disconnect between general and organic chemistry) and the lack of a clear, scaffolded progression of content10−12 • the primary focus on discrete concepts with little emphasis on larger core ideas, cross-cutting concepts, or scientific practices valued by the scientific community3,13−18 • the lack of an interdisciplinary approach: research activities in chemistry are increasingly interdisciplinary, yet undergraduate chemistry courses remain segmented along subdisciplinary lines19 • the implicit assumption that the majority of students in foundation chemistry courses will become chemistry majors, resulting in the content of the first two to four semesters of chemistry often being geared toward preparing competent majors1,12 • the traditional mode of content delivery by lectures, which only supports passive engagement of the students with the course material4,5
INTRODUCTION
The chemistry education literature is filled with calls for both curricular1−3 and pedagogical4−6 reform. Overall, these calls have been driven by the evolving nature of the discipline and its integrated relationship to other disciplines as we try to better shape students into learned and professional scientists. As early as 1929, Robert Havighurst argued for an overhaul of the chemistry curriculum:7 From a field which was adequately covered by four college coursesgeneral, analytical, organic, and physical chemistrythe science of chemistry has expanded over hitherto undiscovered territory as well as over territory which had previously been allotted to other sciences until now it covers such an area that no one man could hope to survey it all. In the middle of the 20th century, the preface to the second edition of Linus Pauling’s general chemistry textbook stated, “The problem of teaching chemistry to students has become a very difficult one, because of the great increase in chemical knowledge during the past 50 years.”8 More recently, Melanie Cooper has issued a specific call:2 Although reform efforts call for evidence-based pedagogical approaches, supportive learning environments, and changes to the faculty teaching culture and reward systems, one important aspect needs more attention: changing expectations about what students should learn, particularly in college-level introductory STEM courses. This demands that faculty seriously discuss, within and across disciplines, how they approach their curricula. Despite these calls, meaningful large-scale reform across even a small fraction of postsecondary institutions is scarce. However, research-based evidence in support of reform has increased © XXXX American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Received: July 20, 2018 Revised: November 12, 2018
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incremental shifts in pedagogy and departmental culture led to increased dialogue and a constructive critique of our own fouryear undergraduate degree program.
So with a resounding call from chemistry educators over the last 100 years and many recent advances in educational research that have provided the scientific community with evidence for the need for reform, why has the discipline of chemistry been so slow to evolve its curriculum for current and future students? There are substantial challenges at all levels, ranging from the culture of departments and the institutions where they reside to the major commitment to reform required from faculty already juggling other responsibilities associated with teaching, research, and service. At Emory University, the chemistry faculty began exploring options for curriculum reform more than 10 years ago. This article outlines the process for developing and implementing Chemistry Unbound,20 a new four-year undergraduate chemistry degree program, designed to break down barriers between traditional chemistry subdisciplines while building lasting thematic frameworks around core ideas and scientific practices. This process and design has been unique to Emory’s institutional culture and strengths,21 and thus we expect that this publication will add to the robust and essential dialogue around curriculum reform21 rather than serving as a strict model for implementation at other colleges and universities.
Reform Goals
We developed a series of reform goals in the context of the critiques of undergraduate curricula cited in the chemistry education literature as outlined above, as well as the challenges we aimed to overcome at our specific institution. 1. Incorporate Themes and Connections throughout the Curriculum. The four-year degree program did not help students make connections between courses. Recurring topics and themes within the discipline were not explicitly clear to students. For example, the traditional first-semester general chemistry course included Lewis structures, hybridization, and resonance, but then these topics were not revisited until a year later in the first-semester organic chemistry course, requiring a thorough review. The intervening second-semester general chemistry course focused largely on mathematical problem solving with little connection to structure, whereas the firstsemester organic chemistry course was rich with qualitative structural examples and reactivity but developed few connections to mathematical reasoning or experimental evidence. As a result, students had little opportunity to delve into the richness of these topics and build upon those ideas. Similarly, at the advanced level, the physical chemistry course was largely mathematical, with a heavy focus on diatomic molecules and minimal connections to the larger themes of the first two years. 2. Articulate and Incorporate Scientific Practices. Faculty teaching advanced courses in biochemistry, inorganic chemistry, and physical chemistry noted that many students seemed unable to demonstrate basic scientific practices such as using mathematical and computational thinking, constructing an explanation, or developing models to predict and explain chemical phenomena.17 Unfortunately, these scientific practices were not learning outcomes for any of the courses and were therefore not being explicitly taught. Instead, learning outcomes focused predominantly on content. As a result, we assumed that students had gained proficiency with scientific practices, even though we had not supported this expectation within our own courses and instructional activities. 3. Maximize Flexibility at the Advanced Level. In the traditional curriculum, all students took the same palette of advanced chemistry courses regardless of their career goal. After completing general education requirements on top of the courses required for the chemistry major, only a few credit hours were allotted for advanced electives. Students pursuing a B.S. degree were only able to choose one elective course for themselves. 4. Increase Student Satisfaction with Coursework at All Levels. The department developed and administered an exit survey to all chemistry majors in the semester before graduation in order to assess their overall chemistry experience within the department. Feedback over the last seven years revealed consistent dissatisfaction with course options at the advanced level and with some of the pedagogical methods employed. Additionally, many students who were not chemistry majors did not see the relevance of foundation courses in chemistry or their connection with other scientific disciplines. 5. Increase Exposure to the Subdisciplines of Chemistry Earlier. Students in the Emory College of Arts and Sciences were required to declare a major by the end of their sophomore year. Yet with the traditional curriculum, most
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DRIVING FORCE FOR CHANGE The undergraduate program at Emory University is housed on two campuses: the Emory College of Arts and Sciences (ECAS) in Atlanta and Oxford College of Emory University located about 35 miles east-southeast of the Atlanta campus. Students beginning at Oxford College earn an Associate of Arts degree after two years and then continue their bachelor’s degree studies on the Atlanta campus, joining all ECAS students for years 3 and 4. The ECAS Department of Chemistry comprises 22 tenured or tenure-track faculty and 7 untenured lecture-track faculty, whereas the Oxford Department of Chemistry consists of 6 tenured or tenure-track faculty and 3 untenured lecture-track faculty. Approximately 60−70 B.S. and B.A. chemistry majors graduate per year, and approximately 22−24 of these majors originate from the Oxford campus. The ECAS introductory chemistry courses enroll approximately 500−600 students each year. Over 40% of the incoming first-year class enrolls in at least one chemistry course and over 50% of ECAS students take a class in the chemistry department at some point during their academic career. Conversations about curricular reform began in 2007, when a small group of tenure-track and lecture-track faculty critically examined the curriculum, which had not changed substantially in 30 years. At the same time, some faculty teaching at the foundation level started implementing evidencebased pedagogical methods22,23 in their own teaching practices. A cultural shift slowly gained momentum, eventually resulting in construction of a new teaching space designed for activelearning approaches24 in 2015 and the creation of a course-based undergraduate research experience in an advanced laboratory25 in 2016. The role that pedagogical reform has played in curricular conversations cannot be understated. By employing evidence-based methods such as those demonstrated in StudentCentered Active-Learning Environments with Upside-down Pedagogies (SCALE-UP)26 and Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL),22,27 content delivery was restructured to allow more creativity, not only in how faculty teach but in what they teach. Chemistry curriculum reform discussions were further catalyzed by a 5-year grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2014, supporting the design, implementation, and assessment of the proposed curriculum. These cumulative B
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curriculum based on the larger themes of structure, reactivity, and quantitation. Their stated goal is to present a “more unified view of how traditional subdisciplines of chemistry relate to each other.”21 The foundation level consists of six courses, with each course tying to the three larger themes.55−58 These courses prepare students to take a variety of upper-level, special topics courses based on student career interests and choice of major. CSB/SJU has also implemented a redesigned laboratory curriculum independent of their lecture courses, with themes of purification, synthesis, and measurement.59
students had only seen shallow surveys of subdisciplines in general chemistry and a full two-semester treatment of organic chemistry. Without effectively highlighting all that chemistry has to offer, students could not make a fully informed choice of major. Additionally, students who were nonscience majors generally took only one course in chemistry, greatly limiting their view of the potential of the discipline. The faculty emerged from these conversations with a common sentiment that we had an opportunity to share with students what is captivating about our discipline, and a responsibility to provide a sense of the centrality of chemistry in the broader scope of science. The foundation courses in the traditional curriculum contained too much content, lacked focus, and did not highlight the complex, engaging, and exciting aspects of chemistry.
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TAKING THE LEAP: DESIGN AND PROCESS In the design of Chemistry Unbound, we thoroughly examined the reform work of other institutions and drew heavily on the ideas and foundational work in curricular reform of these programs. However, we ultimately found that these reforms only addressed a subset of the goals outlined above. For example, reforms addressing a single course or the reorganization of a set of foundation courses did not address the concerns spanning the entire four-year degree program. Also, Emory, like other institutions, has a unique culture and set of challenges and opportunities that should be reflected in our curriculum design. This includes our unique student body that is housed on two separate campuses with distinct faculty and departmental research priorities in the areas of organic, biochemical, and physical subdisciplines with less emphasis in the areas of analytical and inorganic chemistry. As a result, a small group of lecturers and tenured, research-active faculty met regularly for several years to discuss reform. We acknowledged that the traditional curriculum was not anchored by larger themes or core ideas and did not effectively demonstrate the richness of the field. During early discussions, faculty rearranged critical pieces of course content within individual courses in an attempt to address larger core ideas. However, in order to achieve the stated goals, we eventually realized that eliminating the boundaries between courses would allow for blending course content in a way that was not restricted by historical or arbitrary course titles or traditional progressions. This shifted the focus from covering the vast expanse of chemistry knowledge within the span of 4 years to adopting a set of core ideas and scientific practices.60 Concurrent with these discussions, the American Chemical Society (ACS) published new guidelines encouraging nontraditional coursework by de-emphasizing the need for specific subdivisional courses.61 Faculty meetings to discuss the redesign of the curriculum were quite lively, charged with personal opinions and colored by the passions and biases of specific subdisciplines. As with any innovation, our reform process seriously considered several other proposals before developing a “blended content model”, which transformed into Chemistry Unbound with a focus on core ideas and scientific practices at its heart. This process aligned roughly with the five stages of innovation adoption listed in Dif f usion of Innovation62 and summarized by Holme in Undergraduate Chemistry Education: A Workshop Summary:63 1. Knowledge of the innovation 2. Persuasiveness of the innovation−is it better for me? 3. Decision−adopt or reject 4. Implementation−adapt and adopt 5. Confirmation−to keep or not to keep As stated by Holme, enthusiasm for reform was critical for launching stages 1 and 2.63 These introductory stages required the knowledge and tenacity of the subset of faculty who were
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PREVIOUS REFORM EFFORTS: LITERATURE REVIEW In response to the calls for reform mentioned above, several institutions have attempted reform efforts on a variety of scales. However, most of the well-known efforts have been predominantly pedagogical in nature.27−29 Both Process-Oriented Guided-Inquiry Learning (POGIL)28 and SCALE-UP29 incorporate student-centered group work and collaboration through carefully designed materials, room layouts, and pedagogical techniques.23,29,30 These reform efforts, which include activelearning strategies grounded in education literature, generally report positive outcomes31−33 and have been adopted by multiple institutions. Others have explored curriculum reform in recent years,34−38 though most of these reform efforts have focused on changing course content34−38 or the order of coverage for a single course or a two-semester sequence of courses in an otherwise traditional curriculum.36,38−41 The majority of these efforts have focused on introductory level chemistry courses, although upper-level courses have increasingly received more attention. Well-known examples include 1:2:1 curricula (consisting of one semester of general chemistry, two semesters of organic chemistry, and then one semester of general chemistry or another subdiscipline like biochemistry),42,43 “organic first” curricula,38,44−47 and context-based or case-study curricula.48−50 A smaller number of universities and researchers are exploring innovative, theme-based curricular changes implemented in tandem with pedagogical best practices.3,9,51,52 For example, Cooper and Klymkowsky have developed an evidence-based curriculum called Chemistry, Life, the Universe, and Everything (CLUE) to replace the traditional general chemistry curriculum. CLUE emphasizes four core chemistry ideas: structure and properties, bonding and interactions, energy, and change and stability. By integrating these core ideas with scientific practices, students are better able to develop a causal, mechanistic understanding of key chemistry processes and phenomena.9,11,53 Talanquer and colleagues have redesigned their introductory chemistry curriculum to emphasize “chemical ways of thinking.” The curriculum is framed around themes, like “analysis, synthesis, transformation, and modeling of chemical systems”, illustrating how chemists answer questions instead of conveying a list of chemistry topics and concepts.3,18,54 These theme-based curricula have focused primarily on introductory chemistry. Few programs have attempted to redesign their entire undergraduate curriculum. Schaller and colleagues at the College of St. Benedict−St. John’s University (CSB/SJU) have implemented an entirely new undergraduate chemistry C
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• ask questions and define problems • plan and carry out investigations • use mathematics and computational thinking • engage in an argument from evidence • develop and use models • analyze and interpret data • construct explanations and design solutions • obtain, evaluate, and communicate information The need to include these practices in the new curriculum arose from the faculty’s expressed desire to help students “think like scientists” and better understand the process of conducting chemistry research. The practices outlined by the NGSS provide specific, measurable skills and activities that collectively better define what it means to engage in inquiry or “think like a scientist.”13 The laboratory environment is ideal for providing students with hands-on and engaging experiences with these practices. Emory has explicitly blended these practices into each foundation laboratory course as part of a larger emphasis on laboratory-specific skills and practices in the Chemistry Unbound curriculum. Although these practices are easily incorporated into the laboratory, they have also been blended together with the core ideas throughout the foundation lecture courses. Our hypothesis, shared by others,13,14 is that connecting and continually emphasizing these core ideas and practices in all courses will lay the foundation for lasting conceptual understanding.
implementing evidence-based pedagogical methods in their courses. The motivation to achieve the stated goals for reform, as well as observations within our student population, were both integral for reaching stages 2 and 3, as those most active in the reform effort sought broad support from the rest of the faculty. Most faculty members were assigned to one of the subcommittees charged with designing one of the foundation courses, bringing expertise and content related to the central core ideas. This ensured that each subcommittee had representation from several traditional subdisciplines as well as lecture-track and tenure-track faculty. This collaborative effort was instrumental in building consensus to eventually adopt a nontraditional curriculum. The process was long, tenuous, and required multiple iterations to build consensus. Faculty in “turf wars” battling for material in specific subdisciplines had to set aside some traditionally covered content to instead emphasize larger core ideas and promote depth over breadth. The difficulty of getting nearly 30 faculty members to agree to change cannot be stressed enough. The process culminating in the approval of Chemistry Unbound is described in more detail later under Challenges. However, a small subset of faculty remains at stage 2 and are currently not convinced that Chemistry Unbound will be better for students. As stages 4 and 5 of the process unfold, the department is committed to obtaining convincing evidence through a rigorous assessment plan to determine whether or not Chemistry Unbound has been a worthwhile endeavor. Additionally, this evidence could convince faculty who remain at stage 2 that this curriculum reform is beneficial for students. The assessment plan is described in more detail under Assessment.
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Foundation Coursework
With these core ideas and practices as the focus, our methodology for designing the curriculum was to “build from the bottom up”. We meant this literally and chose to start with atomic structure in the first course (CHEM 150: Structure and Properties). Then we asked, “Now that students have knowledge of atomic structure, what are they ready to learn next?” This granular, detailed methodology necessitated designing daily learning objectives and larger course goals for each foundation course in Chemistry Unbound. It was essential to the design process that faculty did not start by revising or reorganizing traditional curriculum content lists. This process clarified goals for the foundation courses, aligned content across all sections of the same course and between multiple courses, and prompted development of targeted exam items to better assess students’ understanding of core ideas and key concepts. The process of writing individual learning objectives aided faculty in removing extraneous content in a conscious decision to emphasize depth of coverage over breadth. Each learning objective was built to support the larger goals for a given course, and ultimately contributes to the overarching core ideas and scientific practices guiding the new curriculum. The course goals and daily learning objectives for the first two courses are provided in the Supporting Information, as these courses were the most developed and classroom-tested at this writing. Not unlike other reform efforts,21 the first foundation course, CHEM 150: Structure and Properties, is devoted entirely to a discussion of structure and its relationship to physical properties. The course includes discussions of atomic, ionic, and molecular structure, Coulomb’s Law, bonding models, three-dimensional representations of molecules (including line structures and Newman projections), chirality, polarity, and intermolecular interactions. The core ideas of Atomic/Molecular Structure and Properties, Electrostatic and Bonding Interactions, and Energy are all featured prominently throughout the first-semester course. Specifically, the interactions between atoms, between
CHEMISTRY UNBOUND
Core Ideas and Scientific Practices
As part of the innovation efforts to design a new curriculum, we took to heart the words from How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice: “Moreover, in-depth study in a domain often requires that ideas be carried beyond a single school year before students can make the transition from informal to formal ideas. This will require active coordination of the curriculum across school years.”64 To coordinate the curriculum and address the first reform goal, we identified a set of core ideas to serve as pillars for all five foundation courses and to be interwoven into the in-depth, upper-level courses. Cooper succinctly summarized the larger chemistry core ideas published in the STEM-education literature,60 and not surprisingly, the lists are all very similar.12,17,65−68 The core ideas of Emory’s chemistry department align with those proposed by Michigan State University (MSU):68 • Atomic/Molecular Structure and Properties • Electrostatic and Bonding Interactions • Energy • Change and Stability in Chemical Systems MSU has used these core ideas to structure their general chemistry course, but as Cooper has suggested, we recognize that these ideas apply to the larger study of chemistry as a whole.60 The first foundation course incorporates the first three of these core ideas, and all four are threaded throughout the subsequent foundation courses. We have explicitly emphasized these core ideas as connections between courses. Informed by calls to blend science practices into chemistry courses,2,13,68,69 the eight science practices outlined by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have been incorporated into the new curriculum:14 D
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ions, and between molecules provide a progression of topics that culminate in a structural explanation of observable physical properties. In subsequent publications, a more detailed rationale for the progression of ideas and topics for each foundation course will be provided. To gain a better understanding of the flow of topics, see the learning objectives provided in the Supporting Information. With a strong background in chemical structure, the second course, CHEM 202: Principles of Reactivity, explores how atoms and molecules react. This course uses the structural content introduced previously to expand on ideas of energetics, kinetics, equilibrium, and thermodynamics. The core ideas of Energy and Change and Stability in Chemical Systems are couched in the context of acid−base reactions and two aspects of nucleophilic substitutions, namely, nucleophilic acyl substitution in carbonyl compounds and nucleophilic alkyl substitutions of organic halides (i.e., SN1 and SN2 mechanisms). Unlike traditional general and organic chemistry courses, Principles of Reactivity blends together both the quantitative and qualitative treatments of many traditional topics like kinetics and acid−base chemistry, emphasizing mathematical skills and rigor with structural studies. For example, when studying acids and bases, students use quantitative skills, such as the use of ICE tables and calculations, to determine pH and equilibrium constants (Ka). Students then use their structural understanding of the same acids and bases to explain the observed chemical behavior, like using conjugate base stability to explain the pKa differences between ethanol and acetic acid. Ultimately, equilibrium calculations (a quantitative skill) and structure (a core idea) are then connected to Gibbs free energy and equilibrium position (core ideas). This is in stark contrast to the typical General Chemistry II curriculum, which is largely quantitative with minimal connection to structural relationships and relatively weak connections to energy, and the Organic Chemistry I curriculum, which is largely structural with minimal connections to quantitative skills or interpretation of mathematical data. In addition to looking at how multiple core ideas are integrated when discussing a single subject, it can be useful to look at how each of the core ideas are spread throughout the course. Figure 1 illustrates how the core idea of Atomic/ Molecular Structure and Properties appears in various places throughout this course. A similar figure for the core idea of Energy in this course can be found in the Supporting Information. The third course, CHEM 203: Advanced Reactivity, expands on these core ideas and introduces molecular orbital theory to explain and predict reactivity for organic, biomolecular, and inorganic systems. For example, the course begins with a discussion of substitution reactions, which is covered with a strong kinetics focus at the end of CHEM 202. This same class of reactions is highlighted to introduce the predictive power of molecular orbitals. Additional emphasis is placed on organometallic chemistry to highlight more modern examples of carbon−carbon bond formation such as in Suzuki−Miyaura cross-coupling reactions. Students then discuss C−C bond formation, aromaticity, and sterics. This topic builds on the kinetics covered in CHEM 202 in the context of catalysis and broadens the scope of mechanistic reasoning to include reactions at noncarbon centers, all in the context of molecular orbital theory. The fourth course, CHEM 204: Macromolecules, highlights a class of important molecules that are given little prominence in a traditional curriculum at the foundation level. However, the
Figure 1. Examples of the core idea of Atomic/Molecular Structure and Properties throughout CHEM 202: Principles of Reactivity.
significance of synthetic and natural polymers in connection with advanced engineering and medical materials, as well as questions of sustainability and global environmental impact, have dramatically shifted in the last 50 years. Aligning with the ACS guidelines’ emphasis on higher-order interactions,70 synthetic polymers and biopolymers provide rich case studies for structure−function relationships, synthesis, and energy landscapes. Retracing the functional properties of macromolecules from the molecular structure of their building blocks, discussing radical chemistry in the context of polymerization reactions, and exploring protein folding through enthalpy, entropy, and Gibbs free energy represent only a few examples of how such a course can complement and expand on foundational concepts. The final foundation course, CHEM 205: Light and Matter, ties together the core ideas of Atomic/Molecular Structure and Properties with those of Energy and Bonding by focusing on a more thorough understanding of the physical origins and mathematical descriptions of these interactions. The absorption and emission of electromagnetic energy by molecules, ranging from small molecules to macromolecules, are investigated to highlight how spectroscopy can be harnessed to determine molecular structure and provide insight into molecular environments and dynamics. For example, students learn about the fundamentals of fluorescence spectroscopy starting with small molecules, and then they build on their knowledge of macromolecular dynamics from CHEM 204 to explore applications of green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a probe in biomolecular reactions and cellular systems. More detail about each of these courses will be addressed in subsequent publications. All of the foundation lecture courses highlight the core ideas outlined earlier. As an example, Figure 2 shows how the core idea of Atomic/Molecular Structure and Properties appears in each of the five foundation courses. A similar figure for the Energy core idea can be found in the Supporting Information. Our new curriculum better addresses reform goals 1 and 5 by focusing on core ideas and offering earlier exposure to multiple subdisciplines of chemistry. These courses are designed to E
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Figure 2. Core idea of Atomic/Molecular Structure and Properties throughout the five foundation courses.
Figure 3. Chemistry Unbound curriculum. Foundation courses are highlighted in light yellow with accompanying lab requirement in gold. All other courses are considered in-depth. The integrated analytical lab experience in purple will be required coursework for all chemistry majors. The asterisks (*) indicate that the 300-level courses listed here are proposed courses and are a subset of the full range of courses we intend to offer. For a comparison of degree requirements between the traditional curriculum and Chemistry Unbound, see the Supporting Information.
will better prepare students for discovery71 in the in-depth laboratory courses. In addition to blending scientific practices into the lab, each foundation lecture course has selected two or three practices to integrate into their learning objectives, course materials, and assessment items. For example, CHEM 150: Structure and Properties emphasizes “constructing explanations” as one of its selected scientific practices. Students are introduced early in the course to the necessary components of a scientific explanation, including making a claim, providing evidence, and giving their reasoning.14 They then have numerous opportunities to work individually and in groups to develop explanations for a variety of observations and phenomena. Instructors and student mentors give feedback and model “good” explanations in their class discussions and lectures. Moreover, instructors design freeresponse exam items at various points in the course that require students to demonstrate their proficiency with writing scientific explanations.
bridge and unify conceptual ideas from a variety of chemistry subdisciplines within the first 2 years of study. The five accompanying foundation laboratory courses are currently being designed and will have their own set of overarching goals that integrate chemistry content, scientific practices, and basic laboratory skills. The proposed laboratory courses are meant to accompany the five foundation lecture courses and build on the ideas covered in those courses, but they are not explicitly intended to verify or reinforce lecture content from a laboratory perspective. Instead, the laboratory space highlights the strengths and advantages of laboratory work, including identification, analysis, synthesis, and discovery and provides students with “real world” aspects of chemistry. This shift in perspective lends itself to the purposeful and systematic inclusion of all eight NGSS scientific practices. The goal is to incorporate those practices into laboratory work, discussion, and assessment in all foundation laboratory courses. We hypothesize that continual exposure and engagement with these practices F
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In-Depth Coursework
provides a strong preparation for prehealth students. The admissions board of the Emory University School of Medicine has enthusiastically endorsed the Chemistry Unbound curriculum as an excellent curriculum for chemistry and nonchemistry majors alike who plan to pursue careers in medicine. Incoming first-year students with AP or IB credit in chemistry have two options when enrolling in Chemistry Unbound at Emory. The curriculum offers an advanced track for first-year chemistry majors that consists of a variation of the second and third courses entitled CHEM 202Z: Principles of Reactivity and CHEM 203Z: Advanced Reactivity. After their first year, these students will then join the mainstream curriculum students with CHEM 204: Macromolecules and CHEM 205: Light and Matter. Further discussion of this track is beyond this scope of this article. Alternatively, students may choose to enroll in the mainstream CHEM 202: Principles of Reactivity course in the spring semester of their first year. We provide these students with supplementary material from the CHEM 150: Structure and Properties course that is not covered by a traditional AP curriculum. We are continuing to monitor the progress of these students and may alter our recommendation in future years.
Upon completing the foundation courses, all chemistry majors will participate in an integrated analytical laboratory experience. This laboratory course will use a multidisciplinary approach to highlight specific skills and scientific practices traditionally covered in an analytical chemistry course and will be designed to build a sense of community among chemistry majors. With a solid foundation that spans all chemistry subdisciplines, students will be prepared for a variety of advanced courses. The new curriculum design provides more flexibility and encourages chemistry majors to enroll in courses that align with their career goals (reform goal 3). The department will offer three types of advanced courses for students: (1) broad, integrated courses designed around themes or areas of study that combine multiple chemistry subdisciplines (e.g., medicinal chemistry or materials chemistry); (2) subdiscipline-specific courses that delve deep into content within a single chemistry subdiscipline (e.g., quantum mechanics or organic synthesis); and (3) advanced laboratory courses that emphasize scientific practices, discovery, and discipline-specific writing conventions. All of these courses at the 300-level can be taken in any order, with only the foundation courses as the prerequisite for any one course. Students will complete their chemistry experience with a capstone course in one of their last two semesters. This capstone course will incorporate current literature to explore issues at the forefront of chemistry research. These students will engage in scientific practices of “analyzing and interpreting data”, “constructing explanations”, and “obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information” at a more advanced level than in previous courses.14 Figure 3 shows the progression of coursework for the new Chemistry Unbound curriculum from left to right, highlighting some of the proposed course options at the indepth level.
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IMPLEMENTATION
We are in the process of systematically designing, piloting, and implementing Chemistry Unbound and are following a stepwise rollout of classes for the first cohort of students that will progress through the new curriculum, starting with the 2017 first-year class. This ensures a transition to Chemistry Unbound that allows students who began at Emory in the traditional curriculum to graduate with the necessary coursework, while our first class of Chemistry Unbound students will have new courses available as the cohort progresses. This process involves, where possible, a design−pilot−implementation cycle. For example, the first two classes have been piloted with two sections of general chemistry students by a faculty member and two postdoctoral coinstructors. These two courses were fully implemented for the larger student population in the 2017−2018 academic year. By the end of the 2018−2019 academic year, all 5 foundation courses will have been developed and implemented at least one time, and the development of the first round of in-depth courses will be complete. We have designed a cohesive and comprehensive chemistry curriculum in the pilot round of courses; however, changes in the learning objectives and course content are anticipated and will evolve over several years as the department fine-tunes this curriculum. These changes will be guided by the evidence gleaned from contemporaneous assessment activities. This iterative process will involve continual discussions between instructors and designers of individual courses (horizontal communication) as well as between instructors and designers of sequential courses (vertical communication).
Other Considerations
We also considered the ACS guidelines, specific student populations, and other departments throughout the reform process. The coursework in Chemistry Unbound aligns with the language and requirements in the ACS guidelines. The most recent publication of the guidelines de-emphasizes the need for specific courses.70 Schaller has concisely stated the merits of this change, opening the door for larger-scale reforms.21 Additionally, the foundation courses serve as corequisites for several other majors on campus, including Physics and Biology. These departments were consulted several times throughout the design process to receive feedback and suggestions on the proposed curricular model. Each of these departments officially endorsed the changes in Chemistry Unbound. These conversations have led to wider faculty collaboration and discussions about reform efforts spanning multiple departments. To accommodate the large, preprofessional student population working toward various healthcare careers, we carefully examined the revisions from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) to the new 2015 MCAT emphasizing scientific competencies over traditional science courses:10,72 “The committee suggested that focusing on competencies, rather than traditional course requirements, would allow baccalaureate faculty to develop innovative interdisciplinary and integrative courses to help students build strong foundations in the natural sciences.”73 The content has been mapped for the first four foundation courses onto the competencies outlined by the AAMC for the 2015 MCAT to confirm that curriculum
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ASSESSMENT Given the substantial change in curriculum content and pedagogy, careful assessment of Chemistry Unbound has been considered throughout the reform. This assessment presents a unique set of challenges, as we must evaluate a curriculum that spans the entire undergraduate program. Traditionally, most small-scale reforms attempt to replicate the “gold standard” of research studies: the use of a carefully matched treatment and control groups.9 For a large-scale reform of the entire undergraduate curriculum, the logistics of course design and G
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1. Student Attitudes
implementation can make a well-curated control−treatment study difficult to achieve. As Emory rolls out Chemistry Unbound, new classes are introduced each year and are taken by the entire cohort of students in that year. As a result, there is no longer a cohort of students to serve as a conventional, concurrent control group. The arrangement of the new curriculum also makes most standardized, nationally normed exams difficult to implement. While there are numerous ways to assess students’ conceptual understanding, many universities across the United States opt to use the American Chemical Society (ACS) Examinations Institute’s subdiscipline specific exams to determine students understanding of course specific content. These exams are organized to align with how chemistry is traditionally taught: along subdivisional lines. As the content in Chemistry Unbound is now integrated across multiple classes and levels, there is no single, appropriate place to administer these domain-specific exams. Nationally normed data can, however, be obtained at the end of a student’s career by using cumulative exams designed to provide a comprehensive picture of a major’s understanding of chemistry content upon graduation. Perhaps even more problematic than the two issues listed above is the question of how to assess outcomes related to students’ broader content knowledge; proficiency with scientific practices; and other ideas that are multidimensional, interrelated, and do not neatly fall under any currently available assessments. The National Research Council’s report A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas has highlighted the need to move beyond teaching and assessing individual facts to creating a more integrated and coherent framework of knowledge that merges disciplinary core ideas, cross-cutting concepts, and scientific practices.17 As Landis stated in Undergraduate Chemistry Education: A Workshop Summary, “We think value is added by the reformed classes, but we just are not capturing that value in our standardized assessments.”63 The value of assessing students’ knowledge of individual facts and concepts cannot be dismissed; this is still an essential component of determining what students understand and is a necessary piece of the larger assessment picture. However, we cannot rely solely on these types of standardized assessments and assume that they are providing an accurate depiction of students’ understanding of larger themes and connections.60,74 Steps must be taken to ensure that assessments are designed to measure the integration and complexity of students’ understanding alongside traditional standardized assessments where appropriate.68 Regarding assessment of innovation, Holme has stated “that it is unlikely to ever have enough evidence to prove an educational innovation is effective, but that it should be possible to have enough evidence to take wise action as to where to go with an innovation.”63 That is, despite these drawbacks, we should still be able to gather evidence through a variety of validated means to guide the reform and determine its impact on our students in well-specified areas. Given the challenges outlined, Emory has adopted a variety of strategies to evaluate the effects of the new curriculum. Emory will use the following assessments and strategies to build a larger, comprehensive picture of the impact of Chemistry Unbound.
Emory will use a two-pronged approach to determine the impact of Chemistry Unbound on students’ attitudes about chemistry, research, and the nature of science. • Emory has been administering an in-house survey with items adapted from the SURE survey75 and the Public Attitudes Toward Chemistry survey76 since the beginning of the 2014−2015 academic year to students enrolled in general and organic chemistry. This includes an administration before students have participated in a college-level chemistry course and administrations at the end of their first and second years of foundation-level chemistry. This survey will continue to be given to students in Chemistry Unbound so that data from the new and old curricula can be compared to determine any attitudinal effects. Statistical analyses along with reliability and validity data for this survey will be presented in a future publication. • We are in the process of interviewing students with a variety of backgrounds (ranging from freshmen to seniors of different majors) about their experiences in the new curriculum along with their understanding of chemistry connections to both larger themes and societal impacts. Coding of these interviews will give us a more nuanced understanding of student experiences as they progress through Chemistry Unbound. 2. Learning Outcomes
Emory will use a variety of in-house and standardized assessments to measure student understanding of chemistry content and scientific practices. • The nationally normed ACS Diagnostic of Undergraduate Chemistry Knowledge (DUCK) exam is being used to assess graduating seniors’ comprehensive understanding of chemistry. Emory began using the DUCK exam in the 2018 spring semester with students still enrolled under the old curriculum. We will collect the DUCK from two more cohorts of students in the old curriculum for comparison with the results from students in Chemistry Unbound. The first cohort of Chemistry Unbound students will not take the DUCK exam until the 2021 spring semester. With several years of DUCK-exam data, we will be able to make comparisons between new- and oldcurriculum students and comparisons from year to year for students within the new curriculum, as well as compare students to published composite norms.77 • We have designed an in-house assessment to measure students’ conceptual understanding of representative foundation themes. Distractors were designed from students’ open-ended responses and common misconceptions reported in the literature. Several experts within the field have reviewed the survey for content validity. Student populations will be assessed at multiple time points (initial entry to Emory, end of the foundation courses, and final semester as seniors) to look at longitudinal effects of the curriculum. Currently, our inhouse assessment has been given to two cohorts of second-semester organic chemistry students from the old curriculum. We will be collecting the first set of responses from students in Chemistry Unbound starting in the 2019 spring semester. This will provide sufficient data to compare changes in students’ understanding from the old H
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time when students have the appropriate foundation and are prepared to use those concepts to make predictions and construct explanations about structure, energy, and reactivity. Some concepts were obvious and fell into place easily, whereas others presented a greater challenge. A good example of this is molecular orbital theory. In a traditional general chemistry textbook sequence, students are introduced to this topic in General Chemistry I. At Emory, faculty have not historically introduced the topic this early because there was no expectation to use this model at the time of introduction in a predictive way beyond the illustration of molecular oxygen’s paramagnetism. After much debate, this topic will be introduced in CHEM 203: Advanced Reactivity. Upon completing two full semesters of indepth application of the more limited models of Lewis structures, VSEPR, valence bond theory, and hybrid orbitals, we hypothesize that students will be better prepared for tackling this robust and comprehensive bonding model and will be able to use it as a framework for an in-depth study of chemical reactivity.
to the new curriculum. Continual collection of responses from year to year will also provide data to track the impact of changes to the curriculum as it evolves over time. • To begin characterizing how our students engage in scientific practices, we will use the Three-Dimensional Learning Assessment Protocol (3D-LAP) designed by Melanie Cooper and colleagues.68 We have collected blank copies of exams from introductory courses within the old curriculum since 2010 for characterization, along with exams from each of the first four foundation courses in the new curriculum. Analysis of these exams will determine if the assessments in Chemistry Unbound effectively require students to engage in both chemistry content and practices in a meaningful way compared with the assessments in the old curriculum. For future iterations of Chemistry Unbound, the 3D-LAP can also serve as a tool for new and continuing instructors to revise and improve their exam items. 3. Student Retention and Success
Student Resources
The department is working closely with Emory’s Office of Institutional Research to collect and analyze years of institutional data for the students that enroll in our chemistry courses. • We are interested in exploring changes in student success and retention as we transition from the old curriculum to Chemistry Unbound. We have collected institutional data on D−withdraw−fail rates (DWF) and grades for all courses in both the new and old curricula since the 2010− 2011 academic year. We will use baseline data from the old curriculum along with data from Chemistry Unbound for comparison. Special attention will be paid to underrepresented minority groups to see if the new curriculum results in improvements or undesired achievement gaps. The new curriculum data will also allow us to track changes from year to year as the iterative design and refinement of the new curriculum continues. • Institutional data is being collected for student choice of major and postgraduation plans. As with student success and retention, these will also be compared with previous curriculum baseline data and will be tracked from year to year as the curriculum evolves. Although increasing the number of chemistry majors is not a listed goal of the new curriculum, anecdotal responses from instructors teaching the Chemistry Unbound curriculum have indicated that we may see a shift in the number of chemistry majors that declare early in their first year. Different aspects of this assessment plan will be spread out over the four years that an undergraduate student spends in the department. We are continuing to explore additional assessment tools to better understand the new curriculum’s impact for students and faculty. All data that has been collected thus far has been done with IRB approval and student consent.
There is no single, obvious textbook option for any of the five foundation courses.78 Because of the integrative nature of the new curriculum, any traditional introductory textbook will not provide the necessary resources for students. For the pilot and first full-scale offerings of these foundation courses, we have carefully designed a Learning Management System (LMS) for each course, which has served as an effective student resource. Each LMS for each course centers around specific course goals and well-defined, daily learning objectives. Faculty teaching any of the foundation courses have agreed to work together to assign readings and practice problems from multiple sources, create short videos, assign publicly available videos or interactive simulations, and link any other resources through the LMS to help students explore the learning objectives for a given day. The same shortcomings found with available textbooks also apply to online homework systems. As a compromise, we have adopted a combination of assigned problems from multiple sources along with the ALEKS online learning system for the first two courses.79,80 Despite the challenge of student resources, carefully selecting and providing material through a variety of means has liberated us to curate the chemistry content and core ideas rather than aligning instruction with traditional textbook sequences. Dual Campuses
CHALLENGES Designing a curriculum that is built around larger chemistry core ideas rather than subdisciplines has led to several challenges, some of which were predicted along with a host of others that unexpectedly emerged. Some of these challenges are below.
Although there are minor differences in the curricula offered at each college, Oxford College chemistry students receive the same level of preparation as ECAS students in their first two years to ensure that Oxford College students are equally prepared for advanced coursework when they move to the Atlanta campus at the beginning of their third year. Coordination between the two campuses has been essential. Although virtually all of the curriculum reform meetings have been held on the Atlanta campus, most meetings have been joined by an Oxford College chemistry faculty member, either in person or by teleconference. The curriculum reform process has led to a stronger relationship between the two colleges and to a coordinated roll-out of the curriculum and assessment efforts on both campuses.
Content Placement
Transfer students
Building from the bottom up without the constraints of subdisciplines has opened new dialogues about when to introduce particular topics. We seek to introduce concepts at a
Because of the removal of sub-disciplinary silos within the new curriculum coursework, a small group of faculty have created guidelines for students who transfer into the Chemistry Unbound
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progress highlighted by the many collaborative and constructive conversations that have taken place among faculty from different disciplines contributing to incremental and positive change.
curriculum from a university with a more traditional curriculum. The Emory chemistry department receives 2−4 chemistry major transfer students each year from other universities. Given the small number of students, the department is currently handling transfers on a case-by-case basis by providing appropriate advising as needed. However, as a general principle, students transferring to Emory having completed General Chemistry I and II at another institution will start the Chemistry Unbound curriculum with CHEM 202: Principles of Reactivity. The department has also devised a series of supplemental resources and materials for transfer students to help fill gaps they may have missed in their previous coursework. These include videos, readings, worksheets, and practice problems organized by topic.
Fidelity of Implementation
Because of the slow cultural shift occurring within our department, fidelity of implementation with the Chemistry Unbound curriculum continues to be a challenge. As has been noted by Talanquer and Pollard with their own reform efforts, it is difficult to ensure that faculty implement the same curriculum content in the same manner. As valuable as the discussions among faculty have been, the lack of consistent implementation will undoubtedly affect the curriculum alignment and assessment efforts.18 Incorporating a robust faculty reward system will encourage faculty to embrace the considerable pedagogical and curricular changes proposed by the new curriculum.82
Process
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Transformative reform builds from the bottom up, incorporates evidence-based models from educational research, and brings together passionate faculty with differing pedagogical and curricular ideals. However, this process has been laborious and controversial. The Chemistry Unbound curriculum is the fourth reform proposal to emerge within the department over a 10 year period. Ultimately, Chemistry Unbound was brought to the entire faculty for a vote in the fall of 2016. The motion to adopt the new curriculum passed by a large margin. However, the approval was not unanimous, with some faculty registering concerns with the major changes inherent in adopting Chemistry Unbound. The evidence gained from assessment will be vital in supporting this change in the curriculum and in further improving Chemistry Unbound in the coming years.
CONCLUDING REMARKS The goal of this publication is to offer transparency about the design, process, and challenges faced in building a nontraditional curriculum, and our hope is to add to the ongoing conversation around curriculum reform. We encourage others contemplating reform to consider both pedagogical and curriculum change within the culture of their own unique institution. Within Chemistry Unbound, assessment and adaption will be an ongoing process as the first cohort, beginning in the 2017−2018 academic year, progresses through their coursework. We will report more details about individual courses and assessment results as they become available.
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Departmental and Institutional Strengths
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
S Supporting Information *
The department’s research within the areas of organic, biochemical, and physical subdisciplines with less emphasis in the areas of analytical and inorganic chemistry is, not surprisingly, reflected in the Chemistry Unbound curriculum. As a result, many of the proposed in-depth courses highlight faculty research strengths within the context of interdisciplinary research topics such as medicinal chemistry, materials chemistry, or theoretical chemistry. We recognize that the proposed indepth courses cannot be limited to the existing research strengths of the faculty and will need to design courses that address all areas and provide students with a well-rounded degree.
The Supporting Information is available on the ACS Publications website at DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.8b00585. Course goals and learning objectives for CHEM 150: Structure and Properties (PDF, DOCX) Course goals and learning objectives for CHEM 202: Principles of Reactivity (PDF, DOCX) Degree requirements for Emory’s traditional curriculum and Chemistry Unbound (PDF, DOCX) Core ideas (PDF)
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Cultural Shift
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
Implementing a new four-year curriculum has initiated a dramatic change within the chemistry department; however, the cultural evolution necessitated by this change is inherently slow. As the cultural shift has gained momentum, a relatively small number of individuals have spearheaded the curriculum development process and worked with a larger majority of faculty on individual course committees and facilitated discussions at faculty meetings. These conversations have successfully persuaded a substantial number of faculty to experiment with pedagogical and minor curricular changes in their own courses before the full implementation of Chemistry Unbound. However, a smaller subset of faculty has been reluctant to embrace change in their classrooms, sticking to long-held, traditional teaching methods and content. As Cooper has pointed out, “When it comes to education, personal experience seems to be an acceptable substitute for evidence. Unfortunately, most scientists’ beliefs about education are rarely based on objective evidence, but rather on what they imagine to be true.”81 Despite this, there has been an encouraging amount of
*E-mail:
[email protected]. ORCID
Tracy L. McGill: 0000-0002-4186-8960 Leah C. Williams: 0000-0001-7401-5262 Douglas R. Mulford: 0000-0002-7118-2951 Simon B. Blakey: 0000-0002-4100-8610 James T. Kindt: 0000-0002-9050-8144 David G. Lynn: 0000-0003-2200-059X Frank E. McDonald: 0000-0002-6612-7106 Notes
The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was generously supported by a grant to Emory University from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute through the science education program (Grant 52008096). Any J
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opinions, findings, or recommendations written here are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The authors thank Dr. Filipp Frank (Emory University, Department of Biochemistry), one of the postdoctoral fellows funded by HHMI, for helpful input about biomolecular content in the foundation courses. We also thank Liesl Wuest (Emory University, Department of Chemistry) for her guidance on curricular alignment and implementation and the current chair of the department, Professor Stefan Lutz, for his leadership. We are also grateful for the faculty and staff in the Department of Chemistry at both the Atlanta and Oxford campuses for their thoughtful, collegial contributions throughout this process of curriculum reform. Finally, we would like to thank the students and undergraduate mentors who have participated in pilot courses and played an integral role in informing the content and design of this curriculum.
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DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.8b00585 J. Chem. Educ. XXXX, XXX, XXX−XXX
