On-line interactive problems to enhance the domain of General Chemistry concepts of stoichiometry and molecular geometry

CHED 404

Carlos M. Torres, cmtorres@uprrp.edu, Katiuska M. Matos, katyuskapr@gmail.com, Maria A. Fuentes, angiepr15@yahoo.com, and Katherine Banhard. Department of Chemistry, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus, PO BOX 23346, San Juan, PR 00931
The impact on the educational experience in the area of general chemistry with combining information technologies (computer database) to deliver concepts tests for students with the use of the WebCT platform is presented. This program let to construct an interactive environment by which the students may resolve problems of the different objectives of the course. The results show that these instructional innovations maximize their domain of the course objectives because of the flexibility of the assessments questions prepared. These innovations include on-line questions, immediate corrections of the questions and feedback of the most common mistakes for each question. In the multiple choice questions the wrong answers were develop considering these mistakes, helping to improve the student achievement in the course exams. Since most of our students native language is Spanish, these assessment are constructed in this language. Two examples of the first semester topics, stoichiometry and molecular geometry are presented. Stoichiometry focuses in the concept of limiting reagents and determining a molecular formula experimentally. The molecular geometry questions help the students to learn about the theories of the spatial orientation of the molecules. The results of the student's performance using this approach will be presented.