My Notes
Categories
I read about these new biology examples for intro chem in a recent Association for Women in Science (AWIS) Washington Wire (December 2009, Issue II). Professor Catherine Drennan from MIT and her colleagues introduced "examples of biological and medical topics that demonstrate chemistry principles into her introductory chemistry lectures to highlight the connection between the fields of biology and medicine, that students often love, and chemistry." Their assessment showed that the examples increased student satisfaction with the course.
The examples they used can be found on the MIT OpenCourseWare site at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Chemistry/5-111Fall-2008/BiologyTopics/index.htm.
There are several great bioinorganic examples.
To increase student satisfaction with intro chem and increase student interest in chemistry by using examples from biology and medicine.
Evaluation
End-of-year student survey (no other information on the survey available at this time)
According to the AWIS Washington Wire, "Survey results showed that from 2006 to 2008 [the time period when these examples were introduced] there were statistically significant increases in student satisfaction with the course, reports that the course inspired interest in chemistry, and the total number of students who said the course used good examples."