CHEMmunicate: an ice breaking game to boost communication and community

Dr Cristina Navarro Reguero, Lecturer in Chemistry, (SNES) and Dr Matthew Hopkinson, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry (SNES)

Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering

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What did you do?

This case study involved the introduction of new sessions termed Senior Tutor Check-ins where all new Stage 1 chemistry undergraduate students were scheduled to meet with ourselves, the Senior Tutors in Chemistry, in groups of around 16 across the first semester of their degree programme. In addition to providing a forum for the new cohort to meet with us as sources of pastoral support, the centre point of these sessions was a new game we developed called CHEMmunicate where teams of students compete to draw a chemical structure by asking yes/no questions.

Over the course of two years we have played CHEMmunicate with more than 200 students and honed the game’s rules and structures into a fun, interactive activity which also has distinct benefits for students’ communications skills and fundamental knowledge of organic chemistry content.

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Who is involved?

Dr Matthew Hopkinson, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry (SNES)
Dr Cristina Navarro Reguero, Lecturer in Chemistry (SNES)

We are both Senior Tutors in Chemistry.

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How did you do it?

Having decided to introduce Senior Tutor Check-in Sessions, we considered which activities would best achieve our aims in building a sense of community amongst our Stage 1 Chemistry students. We felt a key feature should be informality with a lot of interaction so that students could build connections with each other and with us as Senior Tutors. Gamification is a well-established strategy for enhancing the intrinsic motivation of students and engendering a fun learning environment. With this in mind we considered whether playing a Chemistry based interactive game would represent a suitable activity for our new sessions. While many chemistry games have been developed in recent years, many of these either require the use of technology or else are designed for students in higher stages and rely on knowledge not yet encountered by incoming stage 1 students.

We therefore decided to develop our own game that would be simple and easy to implement, and emphasise interactivity while also helping to reinforce some fundamental chemistry concepts central to the Stage 1 curriculum. In particular, we opted for a low tech approach without computers or other devices and emphasised team work where students would work together in small groups. We also felt it important to have a competitive element to maintain students interest and tap into their competitive instincts. Logistically, the Senior Tutor Check-in Sessions were scheduled as part of a Stage 1 module titled “Chemical Skills and Professionalism” which focusses on building students’ ability to communicate chemistry concepts. The game therefore should tie into this learning objective and involve students building communication skills.

With all these considerations in mind, we came up with the game, CHEMmunicate. Similar in format to the popular children’s game “Guess who”, the goal of each round is to correctly draw the structure of a mystery compound using only yes/no questions. Students work in teams with one being given the structure and answering the questions (Responder), another drawing the structure on a whiteboard (Scribe) and the rest asking questions to work out the structural features (Questioners). The winning team is the one that draws the correct structure the fastest with one session typically allowing for three to four rounds. The general format of the game is shown in the figure below and further information can be found in our recent paper published in the Journal of Chemical Education (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jchemed.4c00845).

At the end of each round there is a post-game discussion where we can give hints and tips for the next round, improving students communications skills in describing chemical structures. Moreover, we have found that this also provides an excellent opportunity for revising key concepts from other modules of the course, including acidity, stereochemistry and functional groups.

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Why did you do it?

As Senior Tutors for Chemistry, we oversee the pastoral support networks for our undergraduate students and are interested in developing new approaches for building a sense of community where students can best fulfil their potential. The experience of the Covid19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of social and supportive connections between students as well as between students and staff in ensuring the wellbeing and overall university experience of undergraduates.

Our motivation in setting up the Senior Tutor Check-in sessions was twofold. Firstly, we wanted to meet all the new Stage 1 cohort in an informal setting in the first semester of their studies so that they could get to know us and feel more comfortable approaching us should they need to throughout their time at Newcastle. Secondly, we sought to develop an interactive activity where students could get to know each other and meet peers who they may not have had the chance to connect with previously. Ideally, the activity should also have an educational benefit that reinforces material taught in other modules and builds new skills.

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Does it work?

At the end of each session, we asked for feedback from students in the form of an anonymous questionnaire. As shown in the figure below, students overall responded very positively with the vast majority (over 90%) “somewhat” or “strongly” agreeing with four statements:

1. “I enjoyed the session”
2. “I would feel comfortable approaching the Senior Tutors and I know how to contact them”
3. “After the session I feel more confident describing chemical structures”
4. “Through playing the game I have learnt some new things that will be useful for other modules in my course (eg. Organic Chemistry)”