A Computational Chemistry Course for Teachers: From Research Laboratories to High-School Chemistry Teaching

• Published in: Journal of chemical education Vol. 100; no. 11; pp. 4360 - 4368
• Main Authors: Traube, Tamar, Blonder, Ron
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Easton American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc 14.11.2023; American Chemical Society
• Subjects: Chemistry; Computational chemistry; Engineering education; Laboratories; Motivation; Organic Chemistry; Professional development; Science Education; Science Instruction; Science teachers; Secondary education; Secondary School Science; Student Interests; Student Motivation; Students; Teacher education; Teachers; Teaching; Workshops; High School/Introductory Chemistry; Curriculum; Internet/Web-Based Learning; Computer-Based Learning; Computational Chemistry
• ISSN: 0021-9584; 1938-1328
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.3c00645

Computational chemistry (CC) is an important and essential area within chemical sciences. Over the years, CC has developed rapidly and played a significant role in chemistry research. In addition to the centrality of CC in the chemical sciences, teachers and students should be exposed to contemporary research for many reasons. These reasons include elevating student motivation to study science and engineering and increasing student interest in scientifically oriented careers. For teachers, contemporary research can trigger their professional development and keep them up to date with current research in their teaching field. However, the integration of CC tools within chemistry education can be challenging for both teachers and students. Here we describe a course on CC for high-school teachers. The goal was to introduce the teachers to contemporary CC contents and tools and motivate them to utilize their knowledge in the teaching of chemistry. We describe the course structure and contents that included lectures, hands-on workshop exercises, and assignments. The rationale behind each part of the course is detailed and the workshop instructions that were conducted using the free Avogadro software are completely presented in the Supporting Information. The course evaluation indicated that teachers improved their contemporary CC content knowledge and were satisfied with how the course contributed to their chemistry teaching.