INTERACTIVE TECHNOLOGY THROUGH GROUP LEARNING FOR EXPERIMENTAL CHEMICAL LEARNING

Group Learning Activities (GLAs) are fixed components of high level education programs. Their application is not only focused on share knowledge, they are also directed to develop some other skills related with students´ social life, such as collaborative and/or cooperative learning, useful for future works. Nonetheless, their application together with technology support is not an easy task, especially in the case of scientific learning.

There are several works that support the applicability of interactive technologies within group activities. There are studies focused on kindergarten, primary and grade students. Nonetheless, there are no clear conclusions about the effect of Interactive Technology in science learning, and even less in science experimentation learning.

The aim of this work is to assess the contribution of two interactive technologies offered within an experimental subject of the first course of the degree in chemistry: virtual tutorials and multiple-choice clickers.

Experimental subjects corresponding to the first degree courses are usually designed as easy recipes. All the steps that must be followed to perform the experiments are listed in the instruction sheets. In order to avoid this tendency, the proposed methodology is centred in the work carried out with the students before going into the laboratory. As it is reflected in Tables 1 and 2 the proposed methodology is focused in experimental practices that allow the study of the most important chemical equilibriums.

Table 1. Characteristics of the virtual tutorials.
-Objectives:
Scientific: Study in deep the principal chemical equilibriums: acid-base, precipitation, oxidation-reduction and complex ion
Computer Technology: promote the use of different computing tools for oral presentations (power point, prezi, camtasia…)
-Type of class: Face-to-face and virtual
-Groups: 3 - 4 people
-Concepts to study: The base of each equilibrium and their principal applications
-Mark: The 10% of the final mark
-Quantity of hours required
1 hour to define the groups and the role of each student on it
10 hours for preparing the video
1 hour for the tutorial presentation

Table 2. Characteristics of the simultaneous multiple-choice test.
-Objectives:
Choose the best methodology to determine each analytical parameter
Motivate students to study all the concepts explained in the virtual tutorials
-Type of class: Face-to-face or virtual
-Groups: All the class members
-Concepts to study: The base of all the equilibriums and their principal applications
-Mark: the 5% of the final mark
-Quantity of hours required: 1

With this aim the class is divided into groups of 3 students. Each group is in charge of the complete study of an analytical parameter used for the characterization of commercial drinks (such as carbonate, bicarbonate or chloride content of soft-drinks). After a bibliographic research (students look for usual and innovative methods for the determination of the parameter that must be studied), each group make the corresponding video tutorial. After the visualization of all the videos, the proposal finishes with a simultaneous Critical Thinking test using multiple-choice clickers. The objectives of the test are: to define by popular voting the best the methodology to carry out in the lab for the determination of each parameter and also to check the knowledge acquired by all students basing on the different tutorials.