EUReCA! Student Assistant in Metacognition in Chemistry Education at University

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The EURēCA! Student Assistants Program provides introductory opportunities forCU Denver undergraduates to engage in research and creative activities.

StudentsMUSTcomplete the self-paced EURēCA! Presentation and Quizzes in Canvas (30min) or meet with a EURēCA! advisor before applying for all EURēCA! positions.

Employer/Dept:University of Colorado Denver Office of Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities

Job Title: EURēCA! Student Assistant in Metacognition in Chemistry Education

Job Location: CU Denver Chemistry Department/ This position can be flexible with some remote and some on-campus components.

Purpose: Students entering General Chemistry often struggle not only with course content, but with how to study effectively, monitor their understanding, and persist through challenge. To address this need, a new Stretch General Chemistry pathway (CHEM 2025/2026) is being designed to enhance student success and confidence building. A companion textbook is currently under development and includes short, embedded metacognitive activities; brief prompts that guide students to plan their learning, check their understanding, analyze errors, and reflect on which strategies work best for them.

Position

Description:

The student will help evaluate and improve the metacognitive activities in the textbook. First, the student will learn foundational concepts related to metacognition and become familiar with the structure and goals of the textbook. The student will help create a detailed inventory of the book’s metacognitive activities and categorize them by learning skills i.e. planning, monitoring understanding, and reflection).

During the Fall pilot of the book, the student will help track student engagement with each activity using course surveys and reflections.

The student will help organize and summarize engagement data, generate basic statistics and assist with analysis of student reflections using guided coding frameworks.

The student will collaborate with the mentor to propose revisions to metacognitive activities and help design new activities where needed. The student will help summarize results and craft a poster for RACAS.

This position provides direct experience in education research, data handling, and collaborative instructional design, with the student contributing meaningfully to scholarly work that supports student learning and success in chemistry.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Duties associated with this position include learning research based frameworks for metacognition;
• creating and maintaining a categorized inventory of textbook activities;
• collecting and organizing de- identified student engagement data;
• assisting with survey-based and reflection-based analysis;
• collaborating on interpretation of results;
• proposing evidence based revisions to instructional materials;
• and contributing to creation of a research poster.

Skills and Knowledge Gained:

• The student will gain hands‑on experience in chemistry education research. The student will learn about metacognition, they will strengthen critical thinking skills and practice interpreting evidence.
• The student will develop practical research skills, including organizing and managing datasets, generating basic descriptive statistics, and assisting with qualitative analysis.
• The student will gain professional communication and collaboration skills and will practice sharing findings with a wide audience, and experience how educational research directly informs course design and student success initiatives.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Completion of General Chemistry One

Preferred Qualifications:

• Comple…