Issue 4, 2020

Chemistry outreach as a community of practice: investigating the relationship between student-facilitators’ experiences and boundary processes in a student-run organization

Abstract

Previous work on chemistry outreach has mainly focused on designing and implementing demonstrations for outreach. Recent studies indicate student organizations are at the forefront of chemistry outreach and described their outreach practices and conceptual understanding of demonstrations. However, more research is needed regarding the experiences of facilitators leading outreach events to understand their motivation, what they are gaining from participating, how they are contributing to the community, etc. By providing this information, we can give more structure to outreach initiatives as an informal learning environment. This work is part of a larger study that explores the relationship between leadership in student organizations and chemistry outreach events. Here, we present how diversity plays a role in chemistry outreach, as informed by interviews involving nine graduate students who actively participated in outreach. Communities of practice (CoP) has been used as a framework to describe learning environments and student organizations participating in outreach can be thought of as a CoP. The findings suggest diversity and inclusion influence boundary processes of the student organization as a CoP. Specifically, students’ prior experiences related to gender, race/ethnicity, education and other outreach events play a role in their purpose for doing chemistry outreach, how they contribute to planning of events and how they interact with the audience of outreach events.

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
02 Apr 2020
Accepted
29 May 2020
First published
08 Jun 2020

Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2020,21, 1095-1109

Author version available

Chemistry outreach as a community of practice: investigating the relationship between student-facilitators’ experiences and boundary processes in a student-run organization

S. Santos-Díaz and M. H. Towns, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2020, 21, 1095 DOI: 10.1039/D0RP00106F

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