Rethinking freshman chemistry (93.2)

Abstract

Too many students see freshman chemistry as just a hoop to jump through_a field disconnected from the exciting research today in medicine, energy, and the environment. Studies show that when students fail to see either the relevance of their course content or scientists who look like them, they are much less likely to persist in science‐related majors. At MIT, we are working to make small changes to 1) motivate all students, particularly female and underrepresented minority students, to learn chemistry and tackle important scientific problems in their future careers, and 2) expose all students to examples of high performing female and minority scientists. To impact students at and beyond MIT, my team produced, implemented, and assessed a series of two‐minute videos that feature research scientists, each discussing a general‐chemistry concept in the context of their own cutting‐edge work in medicine, cancer research, or the environment (http://chemvideos.mit.edu). Through an online learning‐experience survey (N=328) and in‐person interviews (N=15), we found that the students made statistically significant gains in their motivation to learn chemistry and their awareness of diversity among bench chemists. By re‐thinking freshman chemistry to highlight the WHY and the WHO, we can increase the number of students motivated to learn the WHAT of chemistry and help retain the scientists of tomorrow.