Organic chemistry seminar. Ginger Shultz – University of Michigan

Student Reasoning about Molecular Structure and Behavior in Organic Chemistry

Reasoning about structure, reactivity, and chemical processes is a critical competency for organic chemistry students. Yet many students cannot fully interpret or explain the underlying chemical reasoning behind the many representations we use to depict chemical phenomena. We need to know more about how to scaffold students reasoning as they learn to translate and make meaning of the symbols and language of organic chemistry. In this talk, I will describe studies on how complex reasoning is supported through scaffolded activities and classroom writing, as well as how large language models can be used to make classroom writing tractable. Finally, I will share our investigations on how graduate students instructors facilitate reasoning, which we characterized by identifying patterns in what these instructors notice and attend to while teaching.