Although attending departmental seminars is a common requirement in graduate education, the goals of this requirement are seldom explicitly stated, and its success at achieving these goals has not been studied. We developed a model for a graded colloquium course that encourages students to reflect on the effectiveness of the presentations, since the faculty in our department stated that one of their main goals for the students was to help them learn to give high quality presentations. An informal survey of students finds that this goal was partially achieved and also suggests improvements to the assignments and topics for future study.
References
1.
M.
Kilpatrick
, “Building a chemistry department. II. The graduate curriculum
,” J. Chem. Educ.
31
(6
), 313
–316
(1954
).2.
Committee on Professional Training
, Survey of Ph.D. Programs in Chemistry
(American Chemical Society
, Washington, DC
, 2008
).3.
M.
Jacobs
, “Education doctoral chemists
,” Chem. Eng. News
74
(42
), 40
–42
(1996
).4.
J.
Harshman
, “A review of the challenges that face doctoral education in chemistry
,” J. Chem. Educ.
98
, 259
(2020
).5.
National Academies of Sciences
, Engineering, and Medicine
, Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century
(National Academies Press
, 2018
).6.
J.
Harshman
and B.
Busby
, “Chemistry doctoral students' perspectives of the efficacy of their programs
,” JACS
(under review).© 2022 Author(s). Published under an exclusive license by American Association of Physics Teachers.
2022
Author(s)
AAPT members receive access to the American Journal of Physics and The Physics Teacher as a member benefit. To learn more about this member benefit and becoming an AAPT member, visit the Joining AAPT page.