Abstract:

During the health contingency, a recognized need in the educational field was the establishment of virtual laboratories to ensure the continuity of student learning in subjects requiring experimental activities, particularly in Chemistry, a discipline where experimentation is crucial for knowledge construction. This situation posed the challenge of proposing to the General Directorate of Computing and Information and Communication Technologies (DGTIC) at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) the development of a virtual laboratory for teaching Chemistry. The main purpose of the laboratory was to provide a tool for experimentation, allowing educators to propose problems while students seek solutions without following predetermined steps.

This presentation outlines the didactic foundations that guided the technological development of the laboratory. Specifically, it advocates for a constructivist approach to learning, materialized in a didactic proposal for teaching chemistry. In this proposal, the laboratory plays a central role in learning as a space for exploration and experimentation.

To achieve meaningful learning, higher-order cognitive processes (analysis, synthesis, creation) should be promoted, not just lower-order processes (memory, identification, reproduction). Problems should place students in situations where they observe, describe, analyze, explain, argue, and propose solutions. In this context, the laboratory should not be separate from theoretical classes but form a unified space for work, reflection, and argumentation on the results obtained to create "more opportunities for students to argue about the purpose of the activity, the meaning of the data they are collecting, and the explanations they are constructing" (Reyes-Cárdenas, Cafaggi Lemus, and Llano Lomas, 2021: p. 80).

For the laboratory's development, a multidisciplinary team was formed, including a programmer, a graphic designer, an educational specialist, and a Chemistry educator, Dr. Aurora Ramos Mejía from the Faculty of Chemistry at UNAM. We analyzed various virtual laboratories available online, with the ChemCollective project from Carnegie Mellon University serving as a reference due to its provision of experimental opportunities. Using this example, we developed the initial functional prototype.

The experience of developing this virtual Chemistry laboratory leads me to assert that technological developments must be theoretically grounded in understanding how learning occurs. This ensures the provision of tools that support teaching efforts in knowledge construction.

Keywords:

Didactics, virtual laboratory, Teaching of Chemistry.