LUCID-A New Model for Computer-Assisted Instruction in Chemistry

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To be prepared for the rapid changes occurring in society, technology, and the world economy, students need to become quick learners, critical thinkers, and problem solvers. They need to become computer literate and skillful in communicating, teamwork, management, and assessment. An integrated knowledge of fundamental concepts beyond a single discipline is essential. To acquire these attributes, students need to actively engage in learning, thinking, problem solving, working with others, communicating their accomplishments, assessing the accomplishments of others, reflecting on their performance, developing strategies to improve, and documenting their growth. Traditional teaching methods and the software products supporting them are focused on presentation and evaluation and are not addressing these issues. We are developing a new model for computer-assisted instruction. This model is embodied in a set of activities and tools named LUCID, for Learning and Understanding through Computer-based Interactive Discovery.These issues are being addressed through the objectives of this project. 1. Develop innovative Web-based tools that can be used by educational software developers to support team-based learning, reporting, and peer and self-assessment activities. 2. Provide a series of Web-based activities encompassing representative topics across a full year of general chemistry to serve as a model for employing such tools in curriculum development and teaching. 3. Develop authoring tools to support the development of similar materials in other disciplines.To achieve these objectives we are porting our current PC LAN-based software to the Web, encapsulating our functionality in Java components, developing databases for curricular elements and student work, and improving and extending our current set of activities. Our audience includes secondary and post-secondary students, teachers, curriculum developers, and educational software developers. While the primary thrust of this project is to integrate technology into education, our activity design addresses issues of diversity, and our dissemination plan involves faculty development. Faculty from a number of other institutions are working with us to develop, implement, assess, and disseminate the materials that are being produced.