The Use of Linked Multiple Representations to Understand and Solve Problems in Chemistry

9353614 Kozma对大多数学生来说，化学是由记忆的、孤立的事实和定量计算组成的。他们通常对这些物质与它们所代表的化学现象之间的关系没有一个完整的或深刻的理解。在我们的第一个研究中，我们将看看化学教师是如何理解化学平衡的，特别是当它以各种定性和定量的方式表达时，并将其与大学生表达他们理解的方式进行比较。在我们的第二个研究中，我们将研究如何通过使用多个关联表征来提高学生的理解能力。我们已经开发了一个交互式多媒体环境的原型，叫做化学中的多媒体和心理模型。它允许用户操作化学系统，并在多个动态同步窗口中观察结果，其中包括在实验室工作台上发生反应的视频。，口头描述，分子级动画和动态图形。我们将利用这一点来了解如何通过促进化学现象的多种表示之间的联系来提高学生的理解。我们还将调查教授和学生如何在讲座和实验室教室中使用它。潜在地，我们的发现将有助于多媒体概念形成和使用的理论，并有助于改变大学化学课程、教学方法和评估。* * *

9353614 Kozma To most students, chemistry consists of memorized, isolated facts and quantitative calculations,; they typically do not have an integrated or deep understanding of how these relate to the chemical phenomena they represent. In our first study, we will look at how chemistry faculty members understand chemical equllibrium, particularly as it is expressed in various qualitative and quantitative representations, and compare this to the way of college students represent their understanding. In our second study we will look at how the understanding of students can be improved by using multiple linked representations. We have developed a prototype interactive multitmedia environment called MultiMedia and Mental Models in Chemistry ($M:Chem). It allows users to operate on chemical systems and observe the results in multiple, dynamic, synchronized windows which include a video of the reacton as it occurs on the lab bench., verbal descriptions, molecular-level animations, and dynamic graphs. We will use this to see how student understanding might be improved by promoting linkages among multiple representations of chemical phenomena. We will also investigate how professors and students use it in lecture and laboratory classrooms. Potentially, our findings will contribute to a theory of multimendia concept formation and use, and to changes in colloege chemistry curricula, pedagogy, and assessment. ***