Developing a Technology Enhanced Guided Inquiry Workbook for General Chemistry

该项目正在为化学计量学、酸和碱、热化学、动力学、气相平衡、酸碱平衡和电化学等主题创建新的主动学习课程材料，标记为主动学习包（ALPs）。创建阿尔卑斯山的动机是对学生学习的研究，该研究表明，仅利用讲座、背诵和实验室实验的教学只能对化学基本概念的理解产生微小的提高。ALPs正在整合一些技术，包括麦克德莫特的指导性探究框架、可视化和探究模拟，以及研究表明将改善概念学习的写作学习策略。主动学习材料的设计既能引出学生在学习主题方面的共同困难，又能引导学生通过一系列紧密集中和有策略顺序的探索活动、问题和练习来正面面对这些困难。对于每个主题，包括三到四个不同的事件，导致意想不到的结果和经常产生概念冲突的现象。一个与预期或预测结果完全相反的事件会引起学生的注意，并鼓励他们重新思考。所建议的学习活动练习的一个整体特征是要求学生用书面陈述解释他们的推理过程。在通过这些探究活动的过程中，引导学生解决他们的困难和困惑，并牢固地掌握目标概念。这些活动包括一系列紧密相连的内容：(1)以高度“互动”形式进行的简短文本阐述；(2)以概念为导向的问题，用于大班的课堂交流系统；(3)一系列结构化的问题，引导学生引出并解决概念上的困难；(4)探索性可视化和探究性模拟、动手活动和写作练习，以加强理解。这些活动强调定性的理解、推理和对基本概念的掌握。他们鼓励学生以图画、图解和图形形式发展概念的多种表征，并将这些表征与符号和宏观表征联系起来。通过持续的课堂使用和重新设计，结合对学生学习成果的评估，严格评估了ALPs的有效性。

This project is creating new active-learning curricular materials, labeled active learningpackets (ALPs), for the topics of stoichiometry, acids and bases, thermochemistry, kinetics, gas-phase equilibria, acid-base equilibria, and electrochemistry. The motivation for the creation of the ALPs is research on student learning that suggests instruction utilizing only lecture, recitation, and laboratory experiments produces only small increases in the understanding of fundamental concepts in chemistry. The ALPs are incorporating techniques, including McDermott's guided inquiry framework, visualization and inquiry simulations, and writing-to-learn strategies that research has shown will improve conceptual learning. The active learning materials are being designed to both elicit common student difficulties regarding the topics under study and to lead students to confront these difficulties head-on with a tightly focused and strategically sequenced series of exploratory activities, questions, and exercises. For each topic, three or four discrepant events, phenomena that lead to an unexpected outcome and often produce conceptual conflict, are included. A discrepant event sufficiently surprising or contrary to an expected or predicted outcome captures the attention of the student and encourages rethinking. An integral feature of the proposed learning activity exercises is the requirement that students explain their reasoning process with written statements. In the course of working through these inquiry activities, students are being guided to resolve their difficulties and confusion and to attain a firm grasp of the targeted concepts. The activities consist of a tightly linked set of (1) brief textual expositions in highly "interactive" format, (2) concept-oriented questions for use with classroom communication systems in large classes, (3) a structured series of questions that lead students to elicit and then resolve conceptual difficulties, and (4) exploratory visualization and inquiry simulations and hands-on activities and writing-to-learn exercises to strengthen understanding. The activities are emphasizing qualitative understanding, reasoning, and mastery of fundamental concepts. They are encouraging students to develop multiple representations of concepts in pictorial, diagrammatic, and graphical formats and to relate these representations to symbolic and macroscopic representations. The effectiveness of the ALPs is being rigorously assessed by continual in-class use and redesign, in conjunction with evaluation of student learning gains.