Also, I will purchase commercially available software and laser discs that show chemistry-related animations ranging from the dissolution of ions to phase changes to kinetic molecular theory. In addition to enhancing classroom lectures, I plan to use the interactive instructional technology to address three particular challenges of teaching chemistry to a large lecture class. First, general chemistry is a prerequisite course for all other courses in the Department of Chemistry, so it is imperative that a fixed number of topics be covered within the semester. Second, the students taking general chemistry have a wide range of abilities and preparation. I propose to develop a set of detailed on-line, interactive lecture notes for subjects not covered in class.
Students can get prompt feedback after completing their quiz.
The notes will include links to supporting material on the web as well as links to other related topics in this set of general chemistry notes. I also propose to make one recitation section for general chemistry an online section. Currently, students in recitation classes meet in a classroom, ask questions about homework covered in the previous week, and take a 20-minute quiz. These study groups will meet as a group to take an online interactive quiz preparing them for the next week's material. These plans may require some development of software in order to handle the on-line quizzes and study groups, so the staff support from the Instructional Development Center is critical.