Laboratory work is at the core of any chemistry curriculum. But how do we teach laboratory skills? And how do we assess them?
In current practice, laboratory skills are currently taught on the fly–a postgraduate demonstrator might talk a student through how to pipette, or a teacher might demonstrate the titration technique.
This project aims to formalise the teaching of core chemistry laboratory skills by using a model of exemplar-demonstration-review. We plan that in a dedicated laboratory session students will:
- Watch exemplar videos on the techniques they will demonstrate in advance of the lab.
- Demonstrate the technique to a peer in the lab while the peer videos them on a mobile phone.
- Review their peer’s lab video using a detailed peer assessment sheet to make sure the technique is carried out appropriately.
Our work in this area has been published, exploring the implementation of this model at university level (free to access) and at school level (ACS Editors' Choice artice, free to access).
We are currently exploring the use of badges for assessing competency with instrumentation.
Much more information, resources, and links are available at the project website. This work was supported by PTAS.