Chem21 Overview

"Perfect Practice Makes Perfect" is the foundational theme of the Chem21 approach. The Perfect Practice of Chemistry (or anything else) must include activities that are assigned, monitored and evaluated for improvement (and mastery) to occur. Bloom's Taxonomy describes 6 areas of cognitive thought through which a learner must progress to achieve fluency in an area of learning.

  1. Knowledge
  2. Comprehension
  3. Application
  4. Analysis
  5. Synthesis
  6. Evaluation

Chem21 has developed online, interactive, computer-graded activities that engage the learner at all levels of cognitive thought.

  1. *Knowledge and Comprehension of Essential Chemical Facts are achieved using Timed / Repetitive Quizzes.
  2. Application of Chemical Knowledge is assessed with typical chemistry problems and problem types (multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, numeric answers, balancing equations, etc).
  3. *Application is also assessed during the online submission of the laboratory report where the calculations, balanced equations and laboratory results are automatically graded by the computer when entered by the student.
  4. *Analysis and Synthesis skills are also developed and assessed using "Learning Pathways". Learning Pathways are Flash-based activities that teach students how to solve complex problems and then evaluates their use of the Pathway. General Chemistry examples include a Dimensional Analysis Pathway, a Phase Diagram and Heating Curve Pathway, an Interconverting Concentrations Pathway and a Determining pH Pathway. Organic Chemistry examples include a Stereochemistry Pathway and many Synthesis Pathways.
  5. Analysis and Synthesis skills are assessed in the Organic Chemistry curriculum through the use of ChemSketch to draw structures as answers to organic chemistry questions. In addition, a special problem type has been developed where a set of answers* is required to accurately answer a problem (draw all the resonance structures / isomers of . . . ). Several unique features of ChemSketch is that

    • it is a free download
    • it generates the name of the organic compound
    • it has the ability to show and rotate molecules in 3D

*Unique to Chem21Labs

The decision to incorporate Perfect Practice excercises into a curriculum must be accompanied by a changed educational paradigm where the instructor gives herself permission to assign an online workload that requires the student to engage in active learning activities for part of the "expected" hours of study. If 10 hours per week is "expected" for proficiency in an Organic Chemistry course, Perfect Practice excercises should be assigned that require 2 - 5 hours of active engagement. You will discover that most students will complete an assignment by the due date, but very few students will complete a suggestion by the due date (I suggest you memorize this list of cation / anions by the next class period as we will use this information to write formulas for ionic compounds . . . OR, I suggest you "become familiar" with these organic reactions as we will discuss their mechanisms at the next lecture . . .).

Perfect Practice assignments have been used at Lee University for 4 years and the results are outstanding. Each spring (and this past summer), the ACS Organic Chemistry Exam is given as the Final Exam. For the past four years, the average class percentile on this exam was 50th, 56th, 67th and 65th percentile. Two additional facts that make this stoy truly remarkable are that 25% of the students scored above the 90th percentile during the last two years and NO ONE has dropped the second semester course during the last four years. This demonstrates that Perfect Practice assignments creates a knowledge base in ALL students that leads to academic success.

 

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