Course content. Fewer topics were introduced than previously in order that the students might attain a greater degree of understanding of the concepts studied. The major themes were the role of energy in chemical phenomena, and molecular bonding and structure. The latter was extended to all forms of isomerism, including chirality, and their ramifications. Selected sections of the case-study oriented Chemistry in Context coupled with materials and activities of my own served as the textual resources.

Course structure. A schedule of three 2-hour class meetings per week rather than the usual three 1-hour lectures and one 3-hour laboratory was adopted. This structure allowed for greater flexibility depending on the topic and the students' progress; sometimes the class would meet for several successive class periods in the laboratory, in the computer laboratory, or in the regular classroom.

Teaching methods. In keeping with constructivist principles and the goal of actively engaging the students in the study of chemistry, there were no lectures. Most class time was devoted to small-group cooperative activities that involved working with information sources, data, observations, manipulatives, computer-based activities, or laboratory experiments, interspersed with small-group and whole-class discussion.

Use of technology. Spreadsheets were introduced early in the course as an approach to complex multistep quantitative problem solving and graphical data display.

Organic chemistry nomenclature software and molecular modeling software were used to develop students' ability to visualize and work with bonding and 3-dimensional structures. Use of the World Wide Web was integrated into two of the experiments.

Assessment. Grades were based primarily on written assignments, experiments, and examinations. The examinations used an essay and word problem format rather than a multiple-choice format. In the last formal activity of the course, student groups were asked to list the most important concepts and skills developed in the course and to compose several test questions to assess mastery of those skills and concepts, including one "performance assessment", with the promise that the most suitable questions would be used on the final examination. Questions that are "too hard or too easy" and questions that test simple factual recall would not be considered suitable. The final examination included a performance assessment task involving the use of plastic molecular model kits that were distributed with the examination.

Instructor's Course Journal. For the first time, I kept a course journal that recorded my daily class activities, difficulties, students reactions, and things that worked and that didn't work. I discovered that I spent a great amount of time thinking about what were the really important concepts and topics, and developing activities to aid students in overcoming their misinterpretations of the course readings and the resultant misconceptions. The journal is valuable in undertaking course refinements and is expected to be useful to other departmental faculty who will teach the course in the future. Additionally, the journal was distributed via e-mail to all Collaborative members for scrutiny and comment. The feedback from others made me feel less alone in this enterprise and provided many helpful tips.

The instructional units and laboratory experiments for this course, including student handouts for all the activities, sample examinations and quizzes, and the instructors course journal, are on the Chemistry 121 Web page (go to http://www.wam.umd.edu/~toh and then click on Chemistry 121).

Acknowledgment

This work was partially supported by a grant (DUE 9255745) from the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education's Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation Program.

Editor's Note:

This is the first of a series of columns on chemistry courses primarily for prospective teachers that have been developed under the NSF Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation Program.

CTS