2015 Spring ConfChem: Interactive Visualizations for Chemistry Teaching and Learning

Understanding how students, particularly struggling students, engage with interactive chemistry visualizations is key to designing effective interventions using these tools. A multimodal approach for understanding how students tackle visual stoichiometry problems can offer an insight into the misconceptions and the difficulties students have. This mixed methods study combines eye-tracking, oral responses, drawings, algorithmic, and multiple choice questions to investigate how a group of college General Chemistry students solve stoichiometry problems in the PhET simulation “Reactants, Products and Leftovers”. Building from a combined quantitative methods of cluster analysis and principal component analysis of viewing patterns of a larger sample population, this deeper, focused investigation into the multimodal artifacts of two struggling students revealed a richer, more complex portrait of the students’ processes. The triangulation of student problem solving may help to identify key misconceptions, provide opportunities to target support, and ultimately increase performance and decrease student frustration.

Most student misconceptions in chemistry stem from incorrect mental models of structures and processes at the molecular level. These mental models are often formed by misinterpreting the meaning of chemical formulas and equations.

The VisChem project (http://www.vischem.com.au ) was established to produce a set of molecular-level animations, portraying common substances and reactions, to target specific misconceptions in the chemed literature. With careful attention to detail in the chemistry, they need an experienced chemistry educator to point out the key features in the structures and processes represented.

However, we cannot simply show complex visualizations, which portray our expert mental models of this world, and expect novices to accept and apply them to understand chemistry symbolism and concepts. The challenge is to develop sequences of learning activities (called ‘learning designs’ – see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Hrj0hiWS8 for example), to prepare the minds of the learners, motivate them to care, show the animation with minimum cognitive load, and provide opportunities to apply what has been learned. Molecular-level visualization needs to be a sustained teaching strategy, not just an unconnected series of eye-candy experiences.

Too often students with visual impairments are marginalized in the science laboratory classroom thus limiting opportunities to fully access these experiential learning events. This is further illustrated in the total number of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) professionals with visual impairments. As virtual experiences, with their high reliance on visual interfaces, become more mainstream in the science classroom both at the secondary and post-secondary levels, access is limited even further.  Multi-sensory outputs are necessary in order for these virtual interfaces to have higher cognitive and pedagogical value.  It is hypothesized that multi-sensory presentation can enhance learning for all students. Students with visual impairments frequently use what are referred to as text-to-speech and/or large print interfaces. Innovation lies in the challenges in the non-visual access provided by text-to-speech interfaces. Properly text tagged buttons and other qualitative tone outputs can drastically enhance the quality of the experience for the visually impaired user. In these times of educational budget cuts, having accessible virtual learning experiences for students with visual impairments are beneficial to all learners and provide a cost-effective approach to fostering continued interest in STEM education.