Experiences

Chromatography- analythical chemistry

Laura Capella

Italy

Vocational School

Chemistry

Teaching in class

Direct

This experience has been performed in a four year High School Course (17-18 years old students).
In an Analytical Instrumentation Chemistry Course there is a lot of
information to remember, especially for huge subjects as Chromatography:
several different techniques, chemical laws and principles, a big amount of
information about stationary and mobile phases (different sets of it for
normal and reverse phase chromatography), other information such as
different types of injection and/or detection devices, and so on. This
kind of information is not easy to handle and difficult to remember. So I
started to think to a way to make easier this task.
The better way I found was to make students work in groups (3-4 membered
groups) and I selected different techniques to work with, than I assigned them to each group. To make work harder and more stimulating I made two groups work on the same subject at the same time. They had to select information from the book and from the Net, and, in a second time, built up a computer presentation with slides. The work was done in three different steps:
1. In class, working in group and selecting materials and plan the project work;
2. In the computer room, doing the first part of computer work;
3. At home, doing the final part and afterwards sending the work by
e-mail or giving the presentation to teacher at school. There is another important step: presenting the work to the teacher and to classmates.
The final evaluation involved a group evaluation of: a) group work organisation, b) evaluation of the digital product, c) evaluation of oral presentation.
At the end of work a test exam has done to assess the individual comprehension of the subject, giving sufficient to good results.

A very important thing for the group work is to assign a precise job to everybody. The most important job to assign is that somebody has to draw everyone attention to work and remember to the others to be quiet; another key task is to pay attention to the watch, making sure there will be results in the assigned time.