Developing a Technology Enhanced Guided Inquiry Workbook for General Chemistry

Iowa State University, Ames IA

Investigators

Abstract

This project is creating new active-learning curricular materials, labeled active learning packets (ALPs), for the topics of stoichiometry, acids and bases, thermochemistry, kinetics, gas-phase equilibria, acid-base equilibria, and electrochemistry. The motivation for the creation of the ALPs is research on student learning that suggests instruction utilizing only lecture, recitation, and laboratory experiments produces only small increases in the understanding of fundamental concepts in chemistry. The ALPs are incorporating techniques, including McDermott's guided inquiry framework, visualization and inquiry simulations, and writing-to-learn strategies that research has shown will improve conceptual learning. The active learning materials are being designed to both elicit common student difficulties regarding the topics under study and to lead students to confront these difficulties head-on with a tightly focused and strategically sequenced series of exploratory activities, questions, and exercises. For each topic, three or four discrepant events, phenomena that lead to an unexpected outcome and often produce conceptual conflict, are included. A discrepant event sufficiently surprising or contrary to an expected or predicted outcome captures the attention of the student and encourages rethinking. An integral feature of the proposed learning activity exercises is the requirement that students explain their reasoning process with written statements. In the course of working through these inquiry activities, students are being guided to resolve their difficulties and confusion and to attain a firm grasp of the targeted concepts. The activities consist of a tightly linked set of (1) brief textual expositions in highly "interactive" format, (2) concept-oriented questions for use with classroom communication systems in large classes, (3) a structured series of questions that lead students to elicit and then resolve conceptual difficulties, and (4) exploratory visualization and inquiry simulations and hands-on activities and writing-to-learn exercises to strengthen understanding. The activities are emphasizing qualitative understanding, reasoning, and mastery of fundamental concepts. They are encouraging students to develop multiple representations of concepts in pictorial, diagrammatic, and graphical formats and to relate these representations to symbolic and macroscopic representations. The effectiveness of the ALPs is being rigorously assessed by continual in-class use and redesign, in conjunction with evaluation of student learning gains.