Conference poster
Improving understanding by using analogy in posters to connect chemistry to other disciplines
Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia Incorporated (HERDSA) Conference, 2012 (Hobart, Australia, 02-Jul-2012–05-Jul-2012)
Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA)
2012
Abstract
When first year students from different disciplines are required to study common introductory subjects (service units), they often find it difficult to see the relevance between these units and the others in the degree they had chosen. Chemistry for Life Sciences is an introductory chemistry service unit for Health Science, Education and Aquaculture degrees, as well as being an elective for others, such as Economics and Arts. Since 2010, students are required to design a poster that communicates fundamental chemistry concepts using an analogy from another unit. For example, using the water cycle to explain social structures; relating the categories of chemical bonding to those in business management. Through tutorials, students share their poster ideas, co-construct criteria and standards, and peer-assess their mock and final posters. These are also graded and moderated by the coordinator. To evaluate whether the task affected understanding of chemistry concepts, three years of final results (2009, 2010, and 2011) were compared for cohorts of 139, 103 and 87 students respectively. The percentage of fail grades awarded dropped from 13% to 6% while the percentage of passing grades improved from 87% to 94%. In 2011, detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of student data from open survey questions as well as university surveys was done. Results were overwhelmingly positive: 75% made positive comments especially about the chance to be creative. This innovative approach not only successfully helped students connect different chemistry concepts to their other units, but also fostered student creativity in communicating concepts to others.
Details
- Title
- Improving understanding by using analogy in posters to connect chemistry to other disciplines
- Authors
- Moira Cordiner (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and EngineeringS Turland (Author) - University of Tasmania
- Conference details
- Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia Incorporated (HERDSA) Conference, 2012 (Hobart, Australia, 02-Jul-2012–05-Jul-2012)
- Publisher
- Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA)
- Date published
- 2012
- Copyright note
- Copyright © 2012 HERDSA. Reproduced here with permission of the copyright holder.
- Organisation Unit
- University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99450390702621
- Output Type
- Conference poster
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