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.
