NSF Award
9950809
Although many physical chemists may be interested in revitalizing and improving the physical chemistry curriculum, they often are either isolated in a small department or alone with no departmental or institutional support to implement such changes. In small physical chemistry classes, the number of students may not be large enough to take full advantage of dynamic student centered group activities. Collaboration with distant colleges through Internet technology can partially overcome such isolation problems, but a lack of appropriate instructional materials in this innovative approach presents a large barrier towards curriculum reform.<br/><br/>During the past two years, a group of physical chemistry faculty from several colleges and universities have been examining the feasibility of on-line collaborative modules by developing and testing the use of these student-centered, active-learning materials which are specifically designed for on-line activities. Using the Internet as a communication tool, students first respond to questions that bring out their prior knowledge of topics and guide them towards a laboratory investigation. They perform experiments in-groups at their local campus and then share their results with partner groups at other campuses. One faculty member serves as facilitator to provide guided inquiry directions. Pooling results and interpretations of data permits students to do more than is possible in a single three-week laboratory segment on each campus. Students share ideas and reach closure by writing papers that are peer reviewed by partner groups.<br/><br/>Ongoing formative assessment shows that students thrive when modern tools and progressive pedagogical techniques are implemented in this manner. Thus, it is proposed to expand this approach by creating, testing, and accessing the use of on-line modules to cover a range of physical chemistry topics. In order to share our experience with other physical chemistry faculty, the resulting peer reviewed on-line modules, assessment data and tools, and a faculty handbook describing the details of how to set up an online learning community will be placed on a commercially distributed CD.
