Abrams Research Group

One of the most challenging aspects of introductory chemistry for students is their ability to conceptualize physical phenomena that cannot be directly observed; topics including energy, atoms, electron structure, and bonding can be difficult to learn because of their abstract nature. This, combined with the need to learn and integrate difficult concepts in the physical sciences and mathematics, can lead many students to struggle in general chemistry. For some students, the time in class is not enough to get a strong enough handle on the class content. For others, lecture-oriented courses does not give them the time to work through conceptual problems, necessary to develop depth of understanding.

By partially flipping the classroom, in-class time can be oriented at pulling out student preconceptions and addressing them directly with the support of group work and professor leadership. At home, students are given guided activities and interactive applets that are aimed at bridging the content learned between classes. Previous class information is further extended to help introduce the next section prior to class time. In all, the goal is to help students discover fundamental concepts in chemistry, through a modern and thoughtful presentation of the material. Overall, students will learn the material in a way that leads to better retention and translation of knowledge of the chemistry.

The pedagogical thought behind these activities follows four logics: just-in-time learning; one activity, one concept; show, try, ask; and spiraling to revisit and reinforce. goal of these activities is four-fold. First, the information is presented ‘just-in-time,’ making sure that students are exposed to problems and activities only when they are ready, not before. Second, each activity taken home focuses on one topic at a time to maximize the focus and understanding on each component. Third, the activities are set up such that students are shown a concept, given the opportunity to try for themselves, and then asked thought provoking questions to help increase the depth of understanding. Finally, the fourth aspect of these activities is to revisit previous concepts to reinforce the information, allowing for a spiral approach to presented concepts. A progress report of this project is located here.

Many of the activities use online applications written using Wolfram Mathematical Computable Document Format (CDF) Technology. These CDF applications require the free CDF player plugin, available for all browsers at http://www.wolfram.com/cdf-player/

J.U.S.T. Activities

Activities