Challenging concepts in chemistry

A common concern for university lecturers is that undergraduates do not seem to understand or remember key concepts from A-level chemistry such as atomic structure, the mole and enthalpy. Some fundamental concepts are more difficult to learn than others and some concepts, once learnt, can enable students to understand further concepts. If there was a way to engage students with learning the more difficult concepts, perhaps the problem could be alleviated.

At a sixth form college in England, teachers embarked on a research project that attempted to do just that. In collaboration with an educational researcher, they developed tasks that combined identifying threshold concepts – the more difficult chemistry ideas – with a mastery approach. Biology, chemistry, physics and maths teachers developed threshold concept mastery (TCM) tasks that focused on this approach. This article focuses on some outcomes from this project, with specific examples taken from chemistry.

Andy Chandler-Grevatt introduces threshold concept mastery tasks for A-level.

With an attached Threshold Concept Mastery Task (with resources to support its teaching: learning ladder and feedback, suggested equations and a word bank).