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Chapter 14
Transforming Chemistry Class with Technology-Enhanced Active Inquiry Learning for the Digital Native Generation Niwat Srisawasdi* Faculty of Education, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand 40002 *E-mail:
[email protected].
In an era of global changes, advancements in digital technologies and instructional science call for an updated conceptualization for creating effective pedagogical approach of technology-enhanced learning environment. It aims to address current educational challenges for today’s digital native learners. In terms of chemistry education, the orchestration of digital technologies and inquiry-based pedagogy has become a challenge issue for facilitating the learning of chemical-related concepts. Currently, there is a little literature considering the development of technology-enhanced learning environment to support inquiry-based learning in chemistry. The chapter presents principle considerations in design and development of technology-enhanced active inquiry approach for chemistry learning. It also illustrates two case examples of using the transformed learning approach in enhancing chemistry learning of ionization energy and chemical equilibrium. In addition, it reveals benefits of the learning approach in improving students’ conceptual learning performance in chemistry. These could be a guideline for researchers, practitioners, or developers on how to transform chemistry class into an innovative technology-enhanced learning environment, where technological affordances of digital technologies are used to facilitate current generation learners’ inquiry-based learning process.
© 2018 American Chemical Society Cox and Schatzberg; International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
Introduction In our current societies, there has been a new population emerging from young people born since digital technologies were embedded in social life, sometime in the 1980s (1). Recently, digital technologies embedded in our society and today’s digital native learners have grown up with those technologies. The advancement of digital technological now shape the way they live and the way they learn. In particular, digital forms of information and communication are increasingly transforming what it means to work, live, and study. With digital technology advancements, it is not only transforming the everyday life of Thais and, particularly, the younger generation, but also influencing the learning preference of Thai today’s learners. However, in the past decades, the implementation and growth of digital technologies for learning remain uneven for kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) schools across the Thai nation. With benefits of the most up-to-date technology in the twenty-first century education, digital technologies and learning resources have increasingly played important roles in science-based education. Recent research has indicated that the digital technologies can effectively facilitate students’ learning in science lessons (2). In the past, technology in chemistry education has not always been well received, but it is, nowadays, accepted to be an integral part of chemistry teaching and learning (3). Digital technologies change the way students learn and the way teachers teach chemistry. The development of active, engaging, and aligned learning environment in chemistry class has been becoming a key trend in chemistry teachers and educators, and educational researchers and developers. In recent years, many chemistry-related digital instructional materials, such as probeware, interactive video, animation and simulation, digital game, mobile applications, augmented and virtual reality, and web-based environment, for instruction are emerging. These digital materials have been applied in many ways to assist students and teachers in the rhythm of learning and teaching process. However, such digital technologies call for partnerships in which pedagogies are involved in the instructional reform. The effectiveness of digital technologies for learning is closely connected to the pedagogy through which they are employed (4). It is important that the incorporation of digital technology does not detract from the pedagogy, instead it should strategically add to the teaching approach (5). As such, the innovative and pedagogic use of digital technologies in chemistry has been called worldwide and has gradually penetrated into the publicly funded school system in Thailand over the past ten years. The paradigm shift from teacher-centered approach toward the studentcentered approach occurred in the last two decades for Thailand (6). Accordingly, promoting the implementation of the student-centered approach integrated inquiry in chemistry classroom has been the central focus of Thailand basic education core curriculum. That is to say, inquiry-based learning approach plays important role for chemistry education in this nation. In context of Thailand, chemistry education is sometimes criticized for being too traditional in its approach to teaching. However, technology-infused innovative practice is becoming ever more embedded into chemistry teaching and learning activities. Regarding the student-centered approach, researchers mentioned that learning in chemistry 222 Cox and Schatzberg; International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
through scientific inquiry-based approach is a key instructional practice or learning process, which is concerned about the cognitive development of the learner and constructivist ideas of the nature of science (7, 8). Thus, the inquiry pedagogy has proven its efficacy at both primary and secondary levels by increasing the students’ interest and attainment level in chemistry (9, 10). To promote digital native students’ learning performance in chemistry, inquiry-based learning with the enhancement of digital technology offers new opportunities to facilitate the ability to store and manipulate large quantities of information, the ability to present and permit interaction with information in a variety of visual and audio formats, the ability to perform complex computations, the support for communication and expression, and the ability to respond rapidly and individually to them (11). Technology-enhanced active inquiry learning is a promising area for chemistry education in Thailand. It offers new and exciting opportunities for both teachers and learners. There are many challenges to the successful implementation of the technology-enhanced active inquiry learning in chemistry. In the following sections, the instructional design and development of technology-enhanced active inquiry learning modules in chemistry is described. Then, two case of renovated inquiry-based learning approach with the support of digital technologies (i.e. computer simulation and digital game) is presented to demonstrate how the chemistry learning modules are constructed for promoting favorable chemistry learning environment to the digital native students.
Instructional Design and Development Development of Technology-Enhanced Active Inquiry Learning Approach and Environment The principle considerations for transforming inquiry-based learning with the support of digital technology were divided into three features as follows:
The Approaches Are Situated on Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) In the digital age, mobile technologies have become embedded and ubiquitous in students’ lives. Nowadays, more and more learners bring their own mobile devices wherever they go for their learning and communication needs. In recent years, leveraging student learning engagement with the support of mobile technology through the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model is increasingly important in today’s education. BYOD refers to technology models where the students bring a personally owned device to school for the purpose of learning (12). Researchers reported that students, who used their own mobile devices to learn seamlessly, had good learning achievement and revealed positive attitude toward the BYOD learning (12, 13). In the light of this idea, the renovated inquiry-based learning in chemistry regarding BYOD has been developed particularly with technological affordances of digital game and interactive simulation. Such that the students can use their own mobile device to facilitate their own learning in places. In BYOD learning activities, in order to 223 Cox and Schatzberg; International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
improve the students’ domain knowledge gains and learning skills (i.e., inquiry), the pedagogical design of using their own mobile devices is very important for developing technology-enhanced active inquiry learning (13).
The Approaches Are an Inquiry-Oriented Learning Process Similar to many other countries around the world, achieving scientific literacy in precollege schooling is the central goal to the science education reform in Thailand. Moreover, inquiry-based teaching and learning has served as the benchmark for science education reforms in worldwide (6). As the abovementioned, the use of technology, e.g. BYOD, alone would be insufficient to foster learning without the adoption of appropriate pedagogies (13, 14). The pedagogy of inquiry-based learning is accepted worldwide. Using inquiry centered tasks in secondary chemistry has been widely demonstrated its efficacy on improvement of chemistry literacy (15). However, more and more evidences indicated that the highly structured inquiry practices providing questions, theory, experimental, and analytic procedures were not sufficient in developing scientific learning performance (16–19). According to the evidence, engaging learners into a more flexible, open-ended, and integrated way of inquiry-type investigations and practices has been emphasized in the proposed approach. Researchers reported that open-ended inquiry learning process targeted student-centered instructional techniques revealed better learning outcomes and more positive perceptions regarding the learning environment in science (17–19).
The Approaches Are Revised and Refined According to Empirical Studies To develop the effective approach for technology-enhanced learning environment, a design-based approach (20) was used to understand how the instructional innovations impact students’ learning ecology in terms of facilitating their learning preferences and styles, and changing of norms in teacher-student and student-content interactions and in the ways students deal with particular tasks in digital learning. Based on this perspective, the development of pedagogical approach regarding technology-enhanced inquiry learning environment was conducted by the two-phase study methods to evaluate and investigate the influence of the instructional approaches. The researcher used design experiments to improve the initial design of the learning materials and approaches by testing and analyzing the ongoing student learning status, such as perception, motivation, or attitude, as well as the learning environment. After eliciting of students’ learning status, the researcher identified set of pedagogical and technological features in which the instructional approach lack in order to re-design the technology-enhanced active inquiry learning environment. Then, a series of chemistry learning events has been defined and created effective learning activities to facilitate the learning of chemistry phenomena.
224 Cox and Schatzberg; International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
Rationale for Designing Digital Content in Chemistry Learning Modules The underlying rationale for designing content-specific chemistry learning modules was divided into three bases as follows:
The Modules Are Designed with Regards to Chemistry Learning Standard and Indicators in the National Curriculum Reform efforts in science education call for new instructional materials to improve science teaching and learning (21). To improve the quality of Thailand’s science education, the national science education goals, standards, and indicators have been established, and scientific inquiry performance and understanding of the nature of science are the emphasized learning outcomes for students (6). Regarding the Thailand compulsory education core curriculum in chemistry, the established national curriculum guidelines, which are kinds of chemistry content and scientific competency, should be taught and developed at a particular level. To develop curriculum materials, there were two aspects that the researchers and developers need to concentrated: (1) rigorous treatment of science-learning goals representing standards at the different levels; and (2) use of innovative pedagogical approaches to make science learning more meaningful and to support learners in authentic scientific practices (21). In chemistry, working with standards poses challenges for design of curriculum materials (i.e. digital contents and learning modules), and the researcher adopted the learning-goals-driven design model (21) to produce digital content, such as digital game and interactive simulation, in chemistry learning modules.
The Modules Are Designed To Focus on Chemical Knowledge Representations Chemical representations serve as a cornerstone to guide the teaching of chemistry concepts. To understand chemistry, students were required the ability to use multiple chemical representations as illustrated by Johnstone’s three levels of representing chemical knowledge: macroscopic, microscopic, and symbolic representation (22). Johnstone (23) proposed that a well-developed understanding of chemistry concepts requires multiple levels of thought. The macroscopic domain is described as those things that are tangible and visible. Submicroscopic, often synonymous with particulate, depicts atoms, molecules, ions, or chemical structures, while the symbolic level includes representations that use characters (letters, numbers, and symbols) to represent relationships among chemical phenomena (23). For the development of digital content in chemistry learning modules, the chemical representations play an important role to serve as a visualization tool for learning abstract concepts, provide a more complete picture of the chemical process, and lead to a deeper conceptual understanding in chemistry. The pedagogic implication from this model, which is visualization methods (i.e., digital game, animation, and simulations) should be explicitly 225 Cox and Schatzberg; International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
designed to support student development of a scientifically correct mental model through a comprehension of these three chemical representations (22).
The Modules Are Designed with Regards to Mental Model Construction Learning chemistry involves understanding and relating chemical phenomena at macroscopic, symbolic, and particulate levels. Students must acquire a comprehension of concepts by construction of mental models in their minds (22). The mental models allow them to go beyond a surface understanding of the presented information and to build deeper comprehension of concepts in a domain, e.g. chemistry (24). In the design and development of digital contents in chemistry, there is a call for effective sensory experiences, visualizations, and models of chemical systems to promote the internalization of abstract models that allow students to understand chemical processes and concepts. To facilitate the construction of mental model in chemistry from visualization technology, an integrated cognitive model of multimedia learning (22) has been used to design the integration of external visual representations, such as picture, image, diagram, and text, for activating students’ long-term memory when the verbal and pictorial representations are integrated together. In addition, the visual representations must be presented in a manner that is appropriate to the learning task and thematically relevant to the underlying conceptual framework of the multimedia visualizations for reducing cognitive overload in short-term memory (24, 25). In the following sections, two case examples of technology-enhanced active inquiry learning in the different digital technologies and content areas in chemistry will be presented to illustrate the transforming of chemistry learning modules and its effects on students’ learning. This chapter presents innovative instructional ideas about the teaching of chemistry using digital technology. The design and implementation of the technology-enhanced active inquiry learning are described in detail in the learning approach section by emphasizing being placed on the digital materials used in the study (i.e. digital game and simulation). Then, the results are presented at the end. The chapter ends with the main conclusions.
Example One: Student-Associated Game-Based Open Inquiry Learning in Chemistry of Ionization Energy Overview The topic of ionization energy (IE) is important as the concepts involved providing the foundation for the understanding of atomic structure, periodic trends and energetics of reactions. Chemistry knowledge of ionization energy is recognized as a difficult topic to learn regarded its abstraction and complication. Moreover, it involves formal explanations of invisible interactions between particles at a molecular level. Accordingly, this chemistry concept is a common topic area that students often hold alternative conceptions. The students also expressed that it is not an interesting and a boring topic area, which certainly demands more attention to raise its status. To transform conventional teaching 226 Cox and Schatzberg; International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
and learning about ionization energy, this study proposed a transformed inquiry learning method, called Student-associated Game-based Open Inquiry (SAGOI), to enhance students’ conceptual development of ionization energy in chemistry.
Learning Approach The intervention in this study was the IE Game, which is a digital game focusing on essential concepts of ionization energy. The digital game was specially developed to facilitate high school students’ learning on definition of ionization energy and factors related ionization energy by group and period of periodic table. In addition, the digital game was designed to require the students to consistently shift between increasingly complex rules of learning events about ionization energy. The game consists of three mini-games or courses: IE war; IE key trend; and IE matching. For the minigames, the aims of the IE war and IE key trend are to facilitate students’ understanding of definition and the trend of ionization energy regarding group of the periodic table caused by factors of nuclear charge, and the atomic size, respectively. Another, the IE matching, interactively provides the students to understand the trend of ionization energy by period of periodic table caused by factors of electron configuration. For all minigames, students can earn coins while taking the correct steps, in ten levels of difficulty for playing. As the game levels increased, the rules become increasingly more complex, involving more limited time to react. The quicker reaction times are required because the chemical elements fall at a faster rate. During playing the minigames, the students receive an increased score regarding performing the right action (e.g. selecting a correct bullet of energy to shoot chemical element) and procedures by means of information cards. When they perform an action incorrectly or does not apply the right order of procedures, a playing trial heart is lost in each time. The maximum number of trial is three for completing a mission. If they cannot complete the mission, they can try again until meeting the right action. At the end of every minigame, an overview of the earned scores is depicted. Figure 1 displays an example of the IE war minigame on a tablet personal computer.
Figure 1. An illustrative example of screen shot from the IE war game. 227 Cox and Schatzberg; International Perspectives on Chemistry Education Research and Practice ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2018.
To enhance students’ conceptual chemistry learning on ionization energy, a pedagogy of SAGOI was proposed in this study. SAGOI is a transformed approach of collaborative inquiry learning by integrating digital game in open-inquiry learning process. This approach begins with an open-ended driving question targeted to alternative conceptions commonly found in students. To assist the process of claim generation addressed the question, the students receive essential scientific backgrounds. Then, they are required to generate possible claim, design an exploration with digital game, analyze the data with the support of google spreadsheet, communicate results from game playing, and draw a conclusion based on evidence and test the claim in group working. Results A total of 70 student-respondents in the eleventh grade with age ranging from 15 to 16 years in a local public school located at the northeastern region of Thailand participated in this study. All of them were female. They came from two classes and they were assigned to an experimental group (N = 35) and a control group (N = 35). The students in the experimental group interacted with SAGOI approach, while those in the control group learned with conventional teaching approach. A two-tier multiple-choice test was used to collect data regarding students’ conceptual understanding on ionization energy. In the experiment of intervention, the students were examined conceptual understanding of ionization energy both before and after interacting with the SAGOI intervention (each 20 minutes). The learning activities with the same learning content were lasted 230 minutes for both groups of students. In this study, the same teacher instructed the students in both groups for avoiding the influence of the different experienced teachers on the experimental results. The results of nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test showed that there is a statistically significant difference, Z(n=70) = -2.070; p
