Catalyst Projects provide support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities to work towards establishing research capacity of faculty to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics undergraduate education and research. It is expected that the award will further the faculty member's research capability, improve research and teaching at the institution. and involve undergraduate students in research experiences. This project at Hampton University will use active learning and peer led learning to increase success rates in the Organic Chemistry sequence. Increased success rates in Organic Chemistry is expected to increase the number of students earning STEM degrees.
Organic Chemistry classes CHE 301 and CHE 302 (General Organic Chemistry) at Hampton University are entry-level Chemistry courses which influence every STEM student at Hampton. Students’ performance in Organic chemistry is unsatisfactory with low passing rates. This low performance is in part due to the teaching methodology which is heavily based on traditional methods and settings involving amphitheater classrooms that permit little interaction amongst the students and between the students and the instructor. An active learning approach is hereby suggested as a remedy to this situation. The goal of this project is to: amend the teaching method and educational involvement in Organic Chemistry by consolidating, adapting and implementing technology and Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies (SCALE-UP) method; improve students commitment and learning through peer to peer and student to instructor discussion. Base on the success of this approach in other institutions, it is expected that the SCALE-UP method will boost students’ performance in organic chemistry, cutdown failure rates, improve students’ understanding of basic chemical principles which will lead to an increase in the retention rate of chemistry and STEM majors as a whole. This project will serve as a pilot for future implementation in other Chemistry and STEM courses.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
