Report On ‘Planning And Implementing Curriculum Change in Chemistry: A Case Study in Creating a Blended General/Organic Course Sequence’

A new curriculum involving a blended general and organic chemistry course is being introduced at San Jose State University this fall by Stephen Branz and Maureen Scharberg. They shared their experiences in creating this new curriculum and described how they overcame resistance to this change from the university community to the workshop participants. The participants of the workshop then had the opportunity to examine the new curriculum and consider how they would approach problems in both the planning and implementation phase of such a project. The workshop participants created a final list of ‘pros and cons’ for the planning stage (content, pedagogy, and transportability) and a list of possible strategies for the implementation stage (marketing, resources, and logistics).