New Perspectives in Science Education

Teaching chemistry as a minor subject at universities is often cumbersome as the student’s engagement is generally low due to low acceptance of the discipline combined with high barriers such as a formalized language.[1] Here we present an approach to improve medical student’s engagement and participation in chemistry classes, which uses digital strategies based on the ILIAS open source e-Learning platform to improve teaching and learning within lectures, seminars and lab courses. It specifically addresses problems in lectures arising from the the heterogeneity of preknowledge within a cohort. [2]
Before each lecture students are given an electronic test to check on prior knowledge regarding the lecture topics and specific misconceptions about these topics. The results of these tests are evaluated, and each lecture is designed specifically to address these misconceptions and even out differences in prior knowledge among all students. Within the lecture several concept checks using clicker systems are included to test if the misconceptions where resolved during the lecture. These clicker-system based tests allow for breaks of the frontal teaching phase within the lecture and encourages students to discuss the topics with each other and the lecturer. Afterwards, the test prior to the following lecture is designed to check again for the already identified misconceptions as well as new misconceptions about the upcoming topics.
After each test, the student’s gain access to a short instructional unit which includes very fundamental content of the upcoming lecture. By independently studying the instructional unit in ILIAS familiarity with the “language of chemistry” is generated leading to a lower barrier and it compensates for the large heterogeneity in preknowledge. Within these units’ text, images and especially animations are used to visualize e.g. the lewis concept and the connection of different chemical notations.
In addition to the test for misconceptions, exercises for the self-assessment of the students are provided for each topic, including best practice examples and tutorial videos for several rather complicated exercises.

Keywords: digitalisation, just in time teaching, concept checks, animations.

References:
[1] R. Hoffmann and P. Laszlo, ‘Representation in Chemistry’, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl., vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 1–16, 1991.
[2] M. W. Liberatore, R. M. Morrish, and C. R. Vestal, ‘Effectiveness of Just In Time Teaching on Student Achievement in an Introductory Thermodynamics Course’, Advances in Engineering Education, vol. 6, no. 1., pp 1-15, 2017