Physical Chemistry On-line, Establishment of Multi-Institutional Learning Environment for Physical Chemistry Students

尽管许多物理化学家可能对振兴和改进物理化学课程感兴趣，但他们往往要么被孤立在一个小部门里，要么独自一人，没有部门或机构的支持来实施这种变化。在物理化学小班中，学生人数可能不够多，无法充分利用以学生为中心的动态小组活动。通过互联网技术与远程大学合作可以部分克服这种孤立的问题，但这种创新方法缺乏适当的教学材料是课程改革的一大障碍。在过去的两年里，来自几所高校的物理化学教师小组一直在通过开发和测试这些以学生为中心的、专门为在线活动设计的主动学习材料的使用，来研究在线合作模块的可行性。利用互联网作为一种交流工具，学生首先回答那些能带出他们对主题的先验知识的问题，并引导他们进行实验室调查。他们在当地校园进行小组实验，然后与其他校园的伙伴小组分享他们的结果。一名教员担任引导者，提供指导性的探究指导。汇集结果和对数据的解释使学生能够在每个校园的一个为期三周的实验室部分做更多的事情。学生通过撰写由伙伴小组同行评审的论文来分享想法并达成结论。正在进行的形成性评估表明，当以这种方式实施现代工具和进步的教学技术时，学生们会茁壮成长。因此，建议通过创建、测试和访问在线模块的使用来扩展这种方法，以涵盖一系列物理化学主题。为了与其他物理化学教员分享我们的经验，产生的同行评议的在线模块、评估数据和工具，以及描述如何建立在线学习社区的细节的教员手册将被放在商业分发的CD上。

Although many physical chemists may be interested in revitalizing and improving the physical chemistry curriculum, they often are either isolated in a small department or alone with no departmental or institutional support to implement such changes. In small physical chemistry classes, the number of students may not be large enough to take full advantage of dynamic student centered group activities. Collaboration with distant colleges through Internet technology can partially overcome such isolation problems, but a lack of appropriate instructional materials in this innovative approach presents a large barrier towards curriculum reform.During the past two years, a group of physical chemistry faculty from several colleges and universities have been examining the feasibility of on-line collaborative modules by developing and testing the use of these student-centered, active-learning materials which are specifically designed for on-line activities. Using the Internet as a communication tool, students first respond to questions that bring out their prior knowledge of topics and guide them towards a laboratory investigation. They perform experiments in-groups at their local campus and then share their results with partner groups at other campuses. One faculty member serves as facilitator to provide guided inquiry directions. Pooling results and interpretations of data permits students to do more than is possible in a single three-week laboratory segment on each campus. Students share ideas and reach closure by writing papers that are peer reviewed by partner groups.Ongoing formative assessment shows that students thrive when modern tools and progressive pedagogical techniques are implemented in this manner. Thus, it is proposed to expand this approach by creating, testing, and accessing the use of on-line modules to cover a range of physical chemistry topics. In order to share our experience with other physical chemistry faculty, the resulting peer reviewed on-line modules, assessment data and tools, and a faculty handbook describing the details of how to set up an online learning community will be placed on a commercially distributed CD.