“You Lose Some Accuracy When You’re Dumbing it Down”: Teaching and Learning Ideas of College Students Teaching Chemistry through Outreach

College students associated with the American Chemical Society and Alpha Chi Sigma student/collegiate chapters reach almost 1 million people every year through their informal chemistry education events (chemistry outreach). Previous work has characterized their goals for chemistry outreach, with the most prevalent goal being audience learning. With such large audiences being impacted every year and the goal of audience learning, investigating how these college students approach teaching in informal environments is needed to further understand chemistry outreach practices. This paper presents the results of inductive coding focused on teaching beliefs expressed by these college students as they discussed elephant toothpaste and making liquid nitrogen ice cream for second graders, eighth graders, and general chemistry students. Results indicate three broad categories of beliefs: (1) beliefs about the audience, (2) beliefs about the teaching process/pedagogy, and (3) beliefs about the scope and sequence of the content. While some beliefs are supported by literature on teaching and learning, some of the expressed beliefs are contrary to learning theories and these outreach practitioners’ goal of audience learning. Implications for outreach education are presented in light of these findings as well as potential future investigations of the teaching and learning in chemistry outreach.

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