Help students to learn better
Organic Chemistry with
ChemSense
Chan Kam Yuen (199122298)
Learning Organic Chemistry
 Furniss and Parsonage (1977)
3 most difficult areas: functional groups, isomerism and
nomenclature
 Bojczuk (1982)
Organic chemistry was ranked as the most difficult area
for students to learn
 W.Brook (1988)
– About 40% of sixth form and college students thought
that organic chemistry was the most difficult section of
the syllabus in Kenya
AL Organic Chemistry in H.K.
Before 1999,
Can be done better by
drill & practice
Difficult for students
with poor
memorization
After 1999,
Require students to
analyze the questions
Apply their knowledge
into
unfamiliar
situations
Require
conceptual
changes in this area
Cognitive Conflict
Peer Collaboration
Conceptual Change
Computer or Technology
Computer-supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL)
ChemSense
Computer-based chemistry learning environment
Representational tool
A significant improvement in students’ understanding
of solubility-related concepts
But not a significant effect based on students’ test
scores.
Collaborative tool
A positive correlation between the use of ChemSense
and developing deeper chemical understanding
My research Question
Would students learn better in Organic
Chemistry if they learn collaboratively with
the help of ChemSense?
Methodological Framework
ChemSense will be integrated into a 13week AL organic chemistry course in my
school in Kwai Chung.
Students work collaboratively in dyads on
the ChemSense program carrying out
discussion & exercises.
Provide cognitive conflicts
conceptual change.
that
facilitate
The Class (Sample)
17 F.6 students of chemistry stream (8 F, 9 M)
are divided into 3 groups
2 experimental groups & 1 non-experimental
group
Divided with similar abilities per group
Instruction
All the content will be taught by me in normal
way
Experimental groups will continue their discussion
in ChemSense after lessons in home.
Exercise will be done after every 2 topics had
been taught (Totally 4 assignments)
Non-experimental group will do individually
Experimental groups do collaboratively in ChemSense
Roles of ChemSense in My Project
Work collaboratively
Take active role in learning
Set-up a Knowledge Data Base
Continue their studies or discussion outside
school
Assessments
A pretest & pro-test (quantitatively)
Compare whether there is significant increases
in test scores when compared with nonexperimental group students (t-test)
Analysis their messages posted by
Content Analysis (Herni, 1992)
Interaction Analysis (Anderson, 1997)
Assessments
Measure their conceptual changes by
Interview 3-4 students in experimental groups
The rest will do a questionnaire
Sample of students’ work
Results and Analysis
Full Marks
Control
Group
Mean (N=9)
Pre-test
30
Assignment 1
Experimental Groups
14.5
Girls’ mean
(N=4)
14.6
Boys’ mean
(N=4)
16.3
19
8.9
4.5
8.5
Assignment 2
22
12.1
14
15
Assignment 3
23
11.6
16
14.5
Assignment 4
20
10.6
16
16
Post-test
16
10.9
11
12
Findings (1)
Experimental groups perform poorer than
the control group in Assignment 1
Students worked in a co-working mode (there
was little discussion among the members)
The means scores attained by the
experimental groups are higher than those
of the control group in Assignments 2-4.
Findings (2)
Pre-test
t -value for
girls group
t -value for
boys group
Assignment 1 Assignment 2 Assignment 3 Assignment 4
Post-test
0.04
-1.3
0.31
0.73
1.42
0.03
0.63
-0.12
0.47
0.49
1.42
0.33
The t-value (N=9) that reflects the performance difference between the
experimental groups and the control group in the pre-test, assignments and
post-test.
No significant difference in the
performance of students from different
groups is detected in all tests and
assignments
the sample size is small (N=9)
students participating in the experiment may
not be able to ‘internalize’ the knowledge that
they constructed collaboratively within the
research period
Evidence of knowledge building in
collaborative learning – Content Analysis
The number of messages posted for
discussion by the experimental groups for
each assignment tends to increase gradually
 22 in Assignment 1 to 60 in Assignment 4
The percentage of purely social (agreement)
messages dropped significantly too
Girls: 85%  75%  21%  18%
Boys: 36%  16%  25%  16%
The level of interactivity of a message
the number of interrelated messages
Level of
Interactivity = 3
Both groups started with a very low level of interactivity
For the girls group, the level of interactivity was 1 in the
first assignment but increased to 5 in the last assignment.
For the boys group, the level of interactivity started from 2
initially to 7 at last.
The average message length (no. of words):
the girls group’s figure increased from 14.3 in
the first assignment to 36.3 in the last
assignment.
As to the boys group, the average message
length was roughly 35.0 in all assignments.
Analyzing Discussion – Interaction
Analysis Model
Phase I: Sharing/comparing of information
Phase II: Discovery of dissonance and
inconsistency
Phase III: Negotiation of meaning/coconstruction of knowledge
Phase V: Agreement/application of newly
constructed meaning
Number of postings of each phase in their discussion
Girls (46) Boys (51)
Phase I
33
30
Phase II
7
11
Phase III
3
6
Phase V
3
4
Their discussion is mainly sharing information
Boys’ group has more collaborative work than girls’.
Example of Discussion
Suggest synthetic sequences for the
following conversions (not more than 4
steps)
CH3CH2CH2COCl  CH3CH2CH2CH2OCOCH3
Boy’s group discussed for better solution.
(Phase II discussion)
Yan provide answer to this question first:
I think in the first step, it need add H2 (Pd
/BaSO4 / S) in order to reduce the acyl
chloride to aldehyde. Then we need (1.
LiAlH4/ ether 2. H2O) to reduce the
aldehyde to alcohol.
Fu provided a clear answer:
1.CH3CH2CH2COCl
-H2/Pd/BaSO4/S
CH3CH2CH2CHO (reduction of acyl
chloride)
2.CH3CH2CH2CHO
-LiAlH4/ether
H2O CH3CH2CH2CH2OH (reduction of
aldehyde)
3.CH3CH2CH2CH2OH + -CH3COOH
CH3COOCH2CH2CH2CH3 (esterification)
Tetsu
provided a better condition in doing the
step 3 for Fu's answer:
3. CH3CH2CH2CH2OH + CH3COOH(c.H2SO4)
 CH3COOCH2CH2CH2CH3
Fu said thanks to Tetsu: 唔該你提醒我,我成
日都唔記得.
Tetsu's reply to his thanks: You are welcome.
Actually your answer is very reasonable ka. But if
you can add the complete condition to it, it will
become perfect ~!
Students’ attitude towards collaborative
learning
Most students showed positive attitudes
towards collaborative learning.
Students encountered less difficulty when
learning organic chemistry collaboratively.
Prefer face-to-face communication than
learning through computers
High ability students preferred to work
individually.
Attitude towards ChemSense
supporting collaborative learning
in
Students were positive regarding using
ChemSense to support collaborative learning.
Students were dissatisfied with the drawing tools
of ChemSense.
Students did not see the support of asynchronous
communication in ChemSense as a means to help
overcome the problems of time and space.
References
Bojczuk, M., Topic difficulties in O-and A-level
chemistry, S.S.R., 1982, 224, 63, 545-51
Brook, W., The teaching of organic chemistry in
schools – can we learn from the Kenyan
experience? S.S.R., 1988, 69, 575-578
Furniss, B.S. and J.R. Parsonage, Organic
chemistry as an A-level topic, S.S.R.,1977, 206, 59,
132-77
Schank, P., & Kozma, R. (in press). Learning
Chemistry
Through
the
Use
of
a
Representation-Based Knowledge Building
Environment.
Journal
of
Educational
References
Gunawardena, C. N., Lowe, C. A., & Anderson, T.
(1997). "Analysis of a global online debate and the
development of an Interaction Analysis Model for
examining social construction of knowledge in
computer conferencing". Journal of Educational
Computing Research, 17(4), 397-431.
Henri, F. (1992). "Computer conferencing and
content
analysis".
In
A.R.
Kaye(Eds.),
Collaborative
learning
through
computer
conferencing: The Najaden papers (pp. 115-136).
New York: Springer.