Design of Electronic Learning Tools to Supplement General Chemistry Experiments

化学(12)这个项目正在为圣何塞州立大学第一学期的普通化学课程中的一系列化学实验创造一系列电子学习工具(ELT)。ELTS的设计将使它们变得特别强大。正在使用一种系统的开发方法来研究专家化学教师如何解释概念，以揭示其解释的关键特征，并将序列分解为一系列自然的部分。还对化学学生的解释进行了审查，以确定和针对他们的学习需求和常见的误解。一个由图形艺术专业的学生组成的团队正在与研究人员合作，根据研究结果开发英语教学。这一项目的智力价值在于，ELTS被设计成包含亚微观层面的化学反应的动画，嵌入到一个框架中，该框架利用静止图像，并与宏观概念和符号层面的思维联系起来。这种学习工具提供了一个脚手架，以提高学生在理解反应性质的道路上推理化学三个层面(亚微观、宏观和符号)之间的联系的能力。这个项目的更广泛的影响是，ELTS可能会提高学生对化学反应的理解，这是普通化学课程中的一个中心主题，经常在与化学相关的课程和媒体中提到。具体地说，ELTS将通过针对研究中揭示的特定误解来帮助学生为实验做准备。

Chemistry (12) This project is creating a series of electronic learning tools (ELTs) for a set of chemistry experiments currently taught in a first semester, General Chemistry course at San Jose State University. The design of the ELTs will make them particularly powerful. A systematic development approach is being used to study how expert chemistry instructors explain concepts to uncover key features central to their explanations and to break the sequence into a series of natural segments. Chemistry students' explanations are also being examined to identify and target their learning needs and common misconceptions. A team of graphic arts students are working with the researchers to develop the ELTs based on the research findings. The intellectual merit of this project is that the ELTs are being designed to contain animations of submicrosopic level chemical reactions embedded in a framework that makes use of still images and makes connections to macroscopic concepts and to symbolic levels of thinking. This type of learning tool provides a scaffold to enhance students' abilities to reason about the connections between the three levels of chemistry (submicroscopic, macroscopic and symbolic) on their path to understanding the nature of reactions. The broader impacts of this project is that the ELTs may improve students' understanding of chemical reactions, a central topic in general chemistry courses and often referred to in courses and media that interface with chemistry. Specifically, the ELTs will help prepare students for experiments by targeting specific misconceptions revealed through research.