Web-based Interactive Organic Chemistry Homework

化学(12)基于网络的课程有可能改变教授科学的方式，但对于教师来说，要投入所需的时间和资源来采用这些课程，这样的课程必须比传统方法具有更大的教学价值。基于网络的交互式有机化学计划，ACE有机(以前的EPOCH)，在几个方面都是独特的有用的。ACE通常要求学生画出化学结构或化学结构的序列，如果学生的回答不正确，ACE会提供反馈，解释为什么回答不正确，并提出建议，指导学生找到正确的答案。在过去的两年半里，ACE增加了许多新的问题类型，并于2007年初将这些问题合并到了ACE的商业版本中。问题类型包括机制问题，学生现在可以像在纸上一样画出一系列化学结构和代表电子流的弯曲箭头；构象问题，学生现在可以用三维信息绘制或修改化学结构；刘易斯结构问题，标准绘图工具MarvinSketch(商标)自动添加未共享的电子和隐含的H原子，并提醒学生价态错误，同时开发了一种新的、化学意识较差的绘图工具，允许学生绘制(正确和不正确的)Lewis结构；标记原子的问题，学生现在可以在最酸性、最亲核的结构中标记原子，或者他们可以标记每个立体产生的原子，或者他们可以根据原子的杂化或立体立体性来标记每个原子；以及多项选择、填空(带有下拉菜单)和排序问题。在该项目下，在ACE中增加了多步骤综合问题。给学生一个目标，一个允许的起始材料的描述，和一套允许的试剂，他们设计并绘制一个多步骤的合成方案。此外，正在进行一项扩展评估，以确定问题类型在提高学生在课程中的表现方面的有效性。第三方对ACE的初步评估表明，ACE确实对学生在有机化学方面的理解和能力产生了可衡量的积极影响。智力优势：该项目继续开发和评估一个为有机化学设计的基于Web的作业程序，该程序的能力已经远远超过此前开发的任何程序。更广泛的影响：ACE计划是一种独特的有价值的教和学工具，适用于一门难度很大的课程，该课程由跨不同学科的大量学生参加。该项目将ACE的范围扩大到有机化学课程材料的关键部分。与皮尔逊教育的Prentice Hall司的伙伴关系将使未来版本的ACE得以广泛传播，该司为ACE的初步开发提供了大部分资金，并继续投资于其支持和评估。

Chemistry (12)Web-based programs have the potential to change the way science is taught, but for instructors to invest the time and resources required to adopt them, such programs must have greater pedagogical value than traditional methods. The Web-based interactive organic chemistry program, ACE Organic (formerly EPOCH), is uniquely useful in several ways. ACE generally requires a student to draw a chemical structure or a sequence of chemical structures, and, if a student's response is incorrect, ACE provides feedback that explains why the response is incorrect and makes suggestions to guide the student to the correct answer. Over the last 2.5 years, a number of new question types were added to ACE, and these were incorporated into the commercial version of ACE in early 2007. Question types included mechanism questions for which students can now draw a sequence of chemical structures and curved arrows representing electron flow, just as they do on paper; conformation questions for which students can now draw or modify a chemical structure with three-dimensional information; Lewis structure questions for which the standard drawing tool, MarvinSketch (trademarked), adds unshared electrons and implicit H atoms automatically and alerts students to valence errors, while a new, much less chemically aware drawing tool has been developed that permits students to draw (correct and incorrect) Lewis structures; label-the-atom questions for which students can now mark the atom in a structure that is most acidic, most nucleophilic, etc., or they can mark every stereogenic atom, or they can label every atom according to its hybridization or stereotopicity; and multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank (with pulldown menus), and rank-in-order questions. Under this project multistep synthesis questions are being added to ACE. Students are given a target, a description of permissible starting materials, and a set of permissible reagents, and they design and draw a multistep synthetic scheme. In addition, an extended evaluation is being carried out to determine the effectiveness of the question types in improving students' performances in courses. Preliminary evaluations of ACE by third parties have suggested that ACE does have a measurable and positive effect on students' understanding of and ability in organic chemistry.Intellectual merit: This project continues the development and evaluation of a Web-based homework program designed for organic chemistry that already has far greater capabilities than any program heretofore developed. Broader impacts: The ACE program is a uniquely valuable teaching and learning tool for a difficult course that is taken by large numbers of students across a wide variety of disciplines. This project expands the scope of ACE to a critical portion of the organic chemistry course material. The partnership with the Prentice Hall division of Pearson Education, which funded much of the initial development of ACE and continues to invest in its support and evaluation, will permit wide dissemination of future versions of ACE.