This is a pitch to be emailed to the University of South Carolina’s chemistry professors. The results of a research project I’ve participated in at USC Lancaster have been in-class activities for general chemistry students. In this pitch I introduce professors to our research, make a case for the usefulness of our games, and invite them to participate and trial them in their own classes. We will provide the professors who agree to implement our games with the necessary materials, including an instructor’s manual, in-class PowerPoints, laminated periodic tables, dry erase markers, and premade Kahoot quizzes. Additionally, we will send them end-of-semester student surveys to gather data about how well the games worked, whether they were enjoyed, and whether participants think the games increased their understanding of the concepts in general chemistry. Finally we wish for professors to share the average grades of classes who used the games and classes who didn’t (such as previous years’ classes) to determine whether or not the games have any overall effect on student’s grades.

General chemistry is hard—or at least, that’s what most of my peers in CHEM 111 would have told you. Despite students’ difficulties with it, general chemistry is one of the most important science courses colleges offer. General chemistry is typically a required course for most science and medical majors and serves as many students’ introduction to college level science.¹ However, I was surprised to observe how many students struggled with it, earning low marks despite performing highly in other classes.

Both from academic research and my own observations, it’s become apparent to me that some of students’ greatest struggles are the result of focusing on memorization rather than problem solving. Students who are used to being able to memorize information and then merely regurgitate it for the exam often lack experience in thinking of creative solutions and solving novel problems. USA Today reports that high schools in the U.S. “often focus on formulas and procedures rather than teaching students to think creatively about solving complex problems involving all sorts of mathematics.” ² This leaves students unprepared for college classes like general chemistry where creative thinking and problem solving skills are a prerequisite. Dr. Bodner, a researcher in chemistry education, wrote that students “expressed the belief that examples are valid only when they are numerical; non-numerical examples were viewed as more ‘theory.’” ³ In short, students often end up learning only the examples of a concept or skill rather than truly understanding it so that they can apply it to new problems.

Over the past academic year, Dr. Bettie Obi-Johnson (my research mentor and supervisor), Professor Jill Castiglia, and I have worked to develop in-class games designed to increase student engagement and understanding in general chemistry classes. One of our goals has been to create games that isolate individual skills used in solving chemistry problems in order to allow students to practice and see for themselves which skills they have mastered and which ones need work. Often, students understand much of the process necessary to solve a problem, but are tripped up on the one step they’re weak on. Students who have mastered each of these individual skills will be able to recognize that they now have all the tools they need to solve various chemistry problems they might encounter. The processes necessary in solving chemistry problems can be intimidating at first, but they’re much more approachable when viewed as a collection of simple steps. Furthermore, helping students to apply skills used in chemistry independently will help them view the skills taught in class as a series of tools in their tool boxes rather than templates that all problems must be made fit into. This approach is intended to promote problem-solving mindsets that will enable students to succeed not only in general chemistry, but also future science and math classes.

The Dr. Johnson and Prof. Castiglia have already begun trialing many of the games we’ve developed in general chemistry classes over the past two semesters, and we’ve gathered some initial survey data from students to help evaluate their effectiveness in promoting learning, engagement, and understanding. Although the results so far have been very positive, we don’t yet have enough data to draw reliable conclusions. For this reason we’d like to invite members of the other USC campuses’ chemistry departments to participate with us and trial our games in their own classrooms. By including more classes in our trials, we hope to collect additional student survey data to better evaluate and understand the effect our games produce. We are also interested in observing whether average class grades are higher in response to the games when compared to previous years. Ideally, each campus will be able to implement the games in as similar a manner as possible so as to minimize confounding factors in our study, however we look forward to feedback or suggestions in regards to ways we might further improve the games.

Our desire is for the games we have developed to increase students’ confidence in and understanding of the concepts taught in general chemistry classes. Helping students learn to love and have fun with chemistry can remove a major stumbling block from the path to many majors and fields of study. If evaluations and the results of our surveys show our games as having a significant effect, we would like to publish them and encourage their implementation in classrooms outside the USC system as well. And most importantly, we simply want faculty and students to have fun with the games. We believe that chemistry is a fun and fascinating field, and we want our games to help students realize that science and problem-solving can be both fun and intuitive, and that it really doesn’t have to so hard after all.

References

1. Helmenstine, A.M.; What Is the Hardest Chemistry Class?. ThoughtCo, June 20, 2019, Retrieved from “https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-hardest-chemistry-class-606440“
2. Richards, Erin. Math scores stink in America. Other countries teach it differently – and see higher achievement. USA Today, February 28, 2020, Retrieved from “https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/02/28/math-scores-high-school-lessons-freakonomics-pisa-algebra-geometry/4835742002/“
3. Bodner, George M. Chemistry Education [online]; Wiley-VCH: Weinheim, 2015; p 193. https://doi.org/10.1002/9783527679300.ch8 (accessed March 22, 2023)