New Perspectives in Science Education

General and Inorganic Chemistry is one of the first year, first semester subjects for many academic degree courses. In addition to the basilar concepts and numerical calculation skills that students must learn, since early time they have to adopt and to take confidence with the chemistry own language which is based on the macro/micro relationships as well as on the symbolic.[1] The translation and the cross correlation of the general chemistry concepts in all the three languages is expensive in terms of time and commitment on the study, also because often needing of a refinement of the expressive skills of the entrance students. In this context, nine customizable on line tutorial modules on different topics were prepared and implemented in the UNICAM e-learning Moodle platform to guide students to approach a key concept such as the chemical reactions.[2] Each module is structured, using interactive tools of the e-learning environment, with the following resources: an assignment related to the topic, the background knowledge needed, video of the experiment related to the assignment, submicroscopic view, overview of the exercise’s resolution steps, video tutorial on how to solve the assignment, self-evaluation multiple choice exercises and other materials, such as virtual labs, to support learning process. The materials are in English with the additional aim to upgrade students coming with different high school formation and from different countries. The results of the research are based on the analysis of the “learning analytics” derived by the Moodle platform (total time spent on the platform, students’ preference for the materials, number of attempts in the tests, etc.) and of the questionnaires on the students’ perception and satisfaction about the use of the resources, in order to understand the efficacy of the online tutorial actions.

Keywords: General chemistry, Moodle, video tutorial, e-learning;

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