Taxonomy terms

Appropriate for college freshmen (topics typical of a collegiate, general chemistry course), including second-year or advanced-placement (AP) high school chemistry.

Appropriate for anyone with an interest in chemistry or chemistry education.

Hands-on learning provides instruction through doing—helping students to acquire knowledge and skills as active participants in direct experiences. Traditional methods that allow students to draw meaning and understanding through hands-on opportunities include laboratory and field activities in which students conduct investigations, use instruments to make observations, and employ a variety of scientific equipment.

Inquiry-based discovery methods allow students to draw conclusions and construct meaning for open-ended questions by collecting and analyzing data with minimal guidance or instruction. In such activities, the process of investigating is valued as much as, if not more than, the results of those efforts. Skills associated with scientific inquiry include asking questions, planning and conducting investigations, using appropriate tools and techniques to gather data, thinking critically and logically about relationships between evidence and explanations, constructing and analyzing alternative explanations, and communicating scientific arguments.

There are many techniques for assessing the skills and understandings of students; testing is perhaps the most formal and common. Other methods include observation, group discussion, individual questions, interviews, portfolios, homework, projects, laboratory reports, research papers, oral presentations, and self-evaluation.

A curriculum consists of a description of the material covered in a course of study and the manner in which it is organized.

Appropriate for post-general chemistry students (introductory courses in analytical, organic, or inorganic chemistry).

Activities designed to develop communication skills help students to improve their ability to effectively convey information through the written and spoken word, often using tables, graphs, and other visual aids in a variety of media for diverse audiences.

Collaborative/cooperative learning is a teaching strategy in which small, heterogeneous groups of students use a variety of learning activities to collectively improve their understanding of a subject. Individuals are responsible for their own learning as well as that of others in the group.