Problem-Based Approach to Teaching Advanced Chemistry Laboratories and Developing Students’ Critical Thinking Skills

A new method for teaching advanced laboratories at the undergraduate level is presented. The intent of this approach is to get students more engaged in the lab experience and apply critical thinking skills to solve problems. The structure of the lab is problem-based and provides students with a research-like experience. Students read the current literature, develop new experiments for the curriculum, and then present the work in both oral and poster format. From the instructor’s observations, it was found that students take ownership of their experiments and typically apply themselves more than in a traditional lab setting. Student feedback about this approach has been overwhelmingly positive.