Structuring the Liberal (Arts) Education in Chemistry

Following the tenets of a re-integrative philosophical framework for curriculum design and educational objectives, we provide strategies that describe our effort to change the educational experience of beginning college students in introductory chemistry. We focus on the explicit connection between instructional goals and practices. For instructors and students, whom we view as collaborators in learning, we address how mental models for instruction and information can affect the classroom environment. We also describe a series of classroom, laboratory, and outside-of-class tasks that are intended to promote meaningful engagement by individual students within the context of these recommendations.