Many of today's chemistry students, particularly in community colleges, are nontraditional. They are older, economically disadvantaged, they work many hours off campus, and often come from under represented minorities. Unfortunately, they are also under prepared to succeed in college. The application of computer technologies can help us shape new strategies that promote learning, achievement and retention of these students and thus increase our educational productivity. The goal of this project is to improve the learning of chemical concepts through the increased use of computer visualization. A team, consisting mainly of undergraduate students from our college, will produce chemical visualization software in a highly modularized form and will disseminate it at very low cost through both the Internet and CD-ROMs. We will test the viability of this approach as a learning experience for students. These software products will also benefit students nationwide by supplementing traditional instruction with the power of visualization. They will help chemistry and biology teachers make the transition to instruction at a higher level of technology and could be useful in constructing course materials for distance education.
