Mathematics for Non-Science Majors Chemistry Course

A chemistry course developed for non-science majors has been taught at Virginia Commonwealth University for the past five years. CHEM 112 uses current event articles from science magazines to make use of a verbal channel of learning in non-science majors, but some mathematics is necessary. Examples are given of successful presentation of nuclear chemistry and data needed for a balanced discussion of global warming. Manipulation of symbols in balancing chemical and nuclear reactions, simple algebra, and logarithms for pH and unit analysis of simple stoichiometric conversions are fundamental to basic chemistry. The population of a voting democracy could benefit from basic education in the concepts of logarithms and algebra in one variable in order to function in a society of increasing dependence on technology

Motivation to learn Chemistry in massive open online courses

One of the key factors for any educational proposal to achieve success lies in the motivation of students. The disposition that the students have before the learning is fundamental to be able to obtain the objectives. MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) has emerged strongly in the context of university education. The use of MOOC offers time in the classroom that can be used to do active learning activities in which teachers' role is essential, and students can review learning materials at their own pace. The objective of this paper was to evaluate a course about concepts. The use of a MOOC named Introduction to Chemistry: Reactions. It is a course for students with limited background in chemistry; basic concepts involved in chemical reactions, stoichiometry, the periodic table, periodic trends, nomenclature. The evaluation of the proposal was made by students of Electrical Engineers at University of Malaga, with satisfactory results.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Identification of Chemistry Learning Problems Viewed From Conceptual Change Model

This study aimed at describing and explaining chemistry learning problems viewed from conceptual change model and misconceptions of students. The study was qualitative research of case study type conducted in one class of SMAN 1 Singaraja. Subjects of the study were a chemistry teacher and students. Data were obtained through classroom observation, interviews, and conception tests. The chemistry learning problems were grouped based on aspects of necessity, intelligibility, plausibility, and fruitfulness. Data were analyzed descriptively. The results of the study showed that the chemistry learning problems related to the aspect of necessity were that the teacher did not carry out the laboratory work and did not discuss the properties of the buffer solution. The problems related to aspects of intelligibility were the teacher asked successive questions, answered her own questions, gave wrong information, made unclear and wrong analogies, and did not ask student reasons. The problems related to the plausibility aspects were that the teacher had less emphasis on the importance of context and neglected the students\u27 alternative conceptions. The problems related to the fruitfulness aspects were that the teacher was less likely to provide complex problems especially with regard to the application of the buffer solution in everyday life. Students experienced misconceptions on some concepts of buffer solution

An Innovative Project to Strengthen and Improve the Knowledge Acquisition in the Degree in Chemistry Using e-Learning Tools

Comunicació presentada a EDULEARN2018, 10th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies (July 2-4, 2018, Palma, Mallorca, Spain).The subject "Chemistry II (QU910)" is taught at first academic year (second semester) of the Degree in Chemistry at the University Jaume I. Some of its specific and general competencies are selflearning and writing and oral communication, regarding the main chemical concepts: chemical reactions, elements of the periodic table and calculations of the concentrations of the formed products and the remaining reagents in acid/base, complex, precipitation and redox reactions. We have noticed that 65% of the students have not studied any chemistry subjects (or only one) in High School or Professional Training before undertaking the Degree in Chemistry. The present project aims firstly to help these students to overcome their lack of background, secondly to compare the academic results of the students with and without previous contact with chemistry and finally, to establish actions to solve this prejudicial situation. This objective was reached by the implementation of a zero course, a course including the basic content of chemistry taught in the last years of High School, the month before the beginning of the first academic year. After the first year, students having attended chemistry before university obtained only 0.75/10 points more than the others. The Virtual Classroom, the emails and tutorial played an important role in the achievement of this zero-course

“Education Network” a new way to teach Chemistry

The complexity of chemistry has implications for the teaching of chemistry. That chemistry is a very complex subject. The majority of the students at University think that chemistry is a difficult discipline and they have difficulty in understanding the concepts. Moreover, students' interest in chemistry decreases the first year at university. The reason for this decrease might be that the contents of chemistry laboratory classes are boring, out of date and lacking of dynamism that students experience through visual media tools. For these reasons, new programs and methodologies should be developed. Those are based on making chemistry relevant through problem solving and collaborative learning hold promise for reforming chemistry education. It is about an education according to circumstances, which is adapted to context and virtual behaviour of people. It's time to CRUSH boredom by transforming your classroom into an Escape Room adventure. School-based escape games are a great teaching tool. The students while playing, learn. The most important point is that they won’t realize they’re doing both at the same time. In this work, an educational gamification experience based on the escape room concept was developed. The first (Do It Yourself) DIY Escape Room was built the year before at Mechanical Engineer Degree started, that took more than three weeks of work. It was presented to other professors to the same subject at different degrees. That DIY Escape Room was modified and adapted to each group. Each professor changed the clues, problems and so on in order to orientate the topic as much as possible to their students.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

How to teach chemistry? Is Chemistry a new universal language

Chemistry has been developed greatly throughout the 20th century. Chemistry is included in the curriculum of elementary and secondary education. In general, students are not interested in science, and because of this ,students tend not to make an effort to learn and understand the meaning of concepts and the chemistry language that are being taught to them. If we consider that there is a little bit analogy between chemistry and foreign languages, we should learn the sym bols of the Periodic Table as symbols of an alphabet. The first knowledge that one needs to know when we are learning a second language is the new symbols of our new alphabet. It is necessary to learn more than 103 symbols, the chemical alphabet. After that, the students are ready to begin the formation of chemical words. In this case, learning the compounds names is easier when only two elements are involved, but when there are more than two, the chemical language is more complex. The proposal of this study is intended to design and implement a teaching strategy for teaching and learning the chemical language, first of all the chemical alphabet, the Periodic Table and then, the language which it is built the chemistry. For this proposal, we will use some m ultimedia application (Information and Communication Technologies (ITC)), which consists in an interactive periodic table. Students will be able to push one element and they will be able to see the properties of this element and which other element will be able to combine with it, and furthermore, if this element will be able to combine with itself. When they know properly the simple language, they will be able to continue studying more complex words, in this case, the reactions. With this multimedia application, the students will be able to watch how the atoms will change, one atom changes to a new atom during a whole reaction. And finally, they will be able to watch how these new atoms have new properties, and they combine each one. With this Periodic Table, the students learn chemical formulas and equations. 2. Experimental. This study was created as a descriptive study in which the survey technique was used. The study was carried out during the course 2013 /14. The sample consisted of 35 volunteer studen ts from two different classes, at the first course of Mechanical Engineer degree at University of Málaga. But the vast majority of them were there, they did not love chemistry. Each student made one questionnaire about the utility of our multimedia application. The scale of the test was a five point Likert type scale with a range of five options. The positive items range from 1= Certainly Agree to 5 = Certainly Disagree. 3. Results and Discussion. Mostly the average of these statements showed an overall positive response statements .The majority of the each student average of the response statements shown are positive, more than 2.5. After this study, we studied if there was some difference between the two groups studied and it can be seen that the mean an d the standard deviation for the different variables according to the two investigated groups demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the level of interest or utility that they give to the multimedia application. 4. Conclusions. The results of this study are based on a survey purpose after the use of an interactive application in order to improve the learning process of the chemistry language. This information is valuable since students could watch these animations on a computer. This is based on the cognitive theory of multimedia learning, which assumes that learners process information through a dual coding capability involving a auditory/verbal channel and a visual/pictorial channel. Nevertheless, the vast majority of students recognize that chemistry knowledge is useful to interpret aspect of their everyday life, but not many of them express their wish to continue chemistry studies.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech