Electronic Delivery of Scaffolded Visualization Tutorials and Assessment in Chemistry

虽然详细的分子可视化在化学和生物化学教学中无处不在，但主要研究者收集的初步证据表明，许多教师认为学生已经提取了适当的视觉信息，但没有评估该假设的准确性。 为了提高学生在日益重要的在线教学中的学习，特别是关于复杂分子结构的三维方面，该项目是化学和生物化学系统可视化的脚手架内容。 对于理解活动或反应很重要的概念是在渐进式学习方法中设置的，这些方法明确地解决了表征的视觉成分和化学内容的认知成分。 使用人机交互奖学金的设计原则，正在设计工具来增强学生与这些专注于大分子系统的可视化的互动。 学生如何与基于网络的材料进行交互，以更好地理解学生在脚手架学习环境中自主探索的本质。 该项目还在开发增强的可视化测试方法，并将其与美国化学学会考试研究所（ACS-EI）的电子测试相结合。 研究结果提供了深入了解学生学习的测量作为认知环境的功能的性质，从而定义可视化和测量的学生学习的分子系统的不同视觉和内容的复杂性之间的关系。 利用ACS-EI已建立的用户基础，可以在不同的学生群体中广泛反馈测试项目。

While detailed molecular visualization is ubiquitous within chemistry and biochemistry teaching and learning, preliminary evidence collected by the Principal Investigator suggests that many instructors assume students have extracted the appropriate visual information but do not assess the accuracy of that assumption. To enhance student learning in the increasingly important on-line delivery of instruction, and particularly with respect to three-dimensional aspects of complicated molecular structures, this project is scaffolding content for visualization of chemical and biochemical systems. Concepts that are important for understanding activity or reactions are set within progressive learning methods that explicitly address the visual components of the representation and the cognitive components of the chemistry content. Using design principles from scholarship in Human-Computer Interaction, tools are being designed to enhance student interaction with these visualizations that focus on large molecular systems. How the students interact with web-based materials is being captured and distilled in order to better understand the nature of student self-directed exploration within the scaffolded learning environment. The project is also developing enhanced visualization methods in testing and is incorporating them with electronically delivered tests from the Examinations Institute of the American Chemical Society (ACS-EI). Findings are providing insight into the nature of measurement of student learning as a function of cognitive environments and which thereby is defining the relationship between visualization and measured student learning in molecular systems of varying visual and content complexity. Utilizing the established user base of the ACS-EI is allowing for extensive feedback of test items among a diverse population of students.