MACTLAC 2009

The 2009 meeting of the Midwest Association for Chemistry Teachers at Liberal Arts Colleges (MACTLAC) was held at Hope College. The theme this year was “Integration of Research into Teaching: Improving Learning Through Research.” Plenary sessions were led by Lorna Jarvis (Hope), Nancy Kerner (U of MI), and Don Wink (UIC).  Of most interest to [...]

The Prelab: A Mechanism for Student Feedback

Grading lab reports this week I was disconcerted that so many of the students had problems with the calculations required of the lab (EDTA Titration of Zinc Chloride). The lab manual gave a detailed example of the calculations and the prelab was almost entirely composed of step-by-step calculations that were completely analogous to those required [...]