Michael Karabinos

The ChemCollective—Virtual Labs for Introductory Chemistry Courses

A collection of online activities emphasizes the design and interpretation of experiments. Chemistry concepts are abstract and can be difficult to attach to real-world experiences. For this reason, high-school and college chemistry courses focus on a concrete set of problem types that have become canonized in textbooks and standard exams. These problem types emphasize development of the core notational and computational tools of chemistry. Even though these tools may form the underlying procedural knowledge base from which the “real stuff” can be approached, when taught out of contexts that show their utility or that draw connections to core ideas of science, they can appear as a disconnected bag of tricks (1).

The efficiency of worked examples compared to erroneous examples, tutored problem solving, and problem solving in computer-based learning environments

How much instructional assistance to provide to students as they learn, and what kind of assistance to provide, is a much-debated problem in research on learning and instruction. This study presents two multi-session classroom experiments in the domain of chemistry, comparing the effectiveness and efficiency of three high-assistance (worked examples, tutored problems, and erroneous examples) and one low-assistance (untutored problem solving) instructional approach, with error feedback consisting of either elaborate worked examples (Experiment 1) or basic correctness feedback (Experiment 2). Neither experiment showed differences in learning outcomes among conditions, but both showed clear efficiency benefits of worked example study: equal levels of test performance were achieved with significantly less investment of time and effort during learning. Interestingly for both theory and practice, the time efficiency benefit was substantial: worked example study required 46-68% less time in Experiment 1 and 48-69% in Experiment 2 than the other instructional approaches. We compared high and low assistance instructional materials, i.e., worked examples, erroneous examples, tutored problems, and problems.In two multi-session classroom experiments, worked examples proved to be the most efficient.Study time reductions with worked examples were between 46 and 69% compared to the other instructional approaches.

How Much Assistance Is Helpful to Students in Discovery Learning

How much help helps in discovery learning? This question is one instance of the assistance dilemma , an important issue in the learning sciences and educational technology research. To explore this question, we conducted a study involving 87 college students solving problems in a virtual chemistry laboratory (VLab), testing three points along an assistance continuum: (1) a minimal assistance, inquiry-learning approach, in which students used the VLab with no hints and minimal feedback; (2) a mid-level assistance, tutored approach, in which students received intelligent tutoring hints and feedback while using the VLab (i.e., help given on request and feedback on incorrect steps); and (3) a high assistance, direct-instruction approach, in which students were coaxed to follow a specific set of steps in the VLab. Although there was no difference in learning results between conditions on near transfer posttest questions, students in the tutored condition did significantly better on conceptual posttest questions than students in the other two conditions. Furthermore, the more advanced students in the tutored condition, those who performed better on a pretest, did significantly better on the conceptual posttest than their counterparts in the other two conditions. Thus, it appears that students in the tutored condition had just the right amount of assistance, and that the better students in that condition used their superior metacognitive skills and/or motivation to decide when to use the available assistance to their best advantage.

Exploring the assistance dilemma: Comparing instructional support in examples and problems

An important question for teachers and developers of instructional software is how much guidance or assistance should be provided to help students learn. This question has been framed within the field of educational technology as the ‘assistance dilemma’ and has been the subject of a variety of studies. In the study reported in this paper, we explore the learning benefits of four types of computer-based instructional materials, which span from highly assistive (worked examples) to no assistance (conventional problems to solve), with support levels in between these two extremes (tutored problems to solve, erroneous examples). In this never-before conducted comparison of the four instructional materials, we found that worked examples are the most efficient instructional material in terms of time and mental effort spent on the intervention problems, but we did not find that the materials differentially benefitted learners of high and low prior knowledge levels. We conjecture why this somewhat surprising result was found and propose a follow-up study to investigate this issue.

Worked Examples are More Efficient for Learning than High-Assistance Instructional Software

The ‘assistance dilemma’, an important issue in the Learning Sciences, is concerned with how much guidance or assistance should be provided to help students learn. A recent study comparing three high-assistance approaches (worked examples, tutored problems, and erroneous examples) and one low-assistance (conventional problems) approach, in a multi-session classroom experiment, showed equal learning outcomes, with worked examples being much more efficient. To rule out that the surprising lack of differences in learning outcomes was due to too much feedback across the conditions, the present follow-up experiment was conducted, in which feedback was curtailed. Yet the results in the new experiment were the same: there were no differences in learning outcomes, but worked examples were much more efficient. These two experiments suggest that there are efficiency benefits of worked example study. Yet, questions remain. For instance, why didn’t high instructional assistance benefit learning outcomes and would these results hold up in other domains?

Cross-disciplinary molecular science education in introductory science courses: an nsdl matdl collection

This paper discusses a digital library designed to help undergraduate students draw connections across disciplines, beginning with introductory discipline-specific science courses (including chemistry, materials science, and biophysics). The collection serves as the basis for a design experiment for interdisciplinary educational libraries and is discussed in terms of the three models proposed by Sumner and Marlino. As a cognitive tool, the library is organized around recurring patterns in molecular science, with one such pattern being developed for this initial design experiment. As a component repository, the library resources support learning of these patterns and how they appear in different disciplines. As a knowledge network, the library integrates design with use and assessment.

Learning Chemistry: What, When, and How?

This chapter is an overview and synthesis of three projects that address the goals and practices of chemical education. The impetus for these projects was the perception that chemical education has an entrenched approach that is out of touch with modern science (students are not given even a rudimentary sense of what modern chemistry is as a domain of intellectual pursuit) and modern society (students do not gain information that is of use to understanding chemistry’s role in society). The three projects span a range of issues: what chemistry is as a domain, when students can begin to engage in authentic chemistry activities, and how students can better learn the most difficult aspects of chemistry. The synthesis of these projects is done by examining the tension between rigor and authenticity, both in the research methodologies and in the instructional interventions. In the research methods, rigor demands that the methods be quantitative with tightly controlled experiments, whereas realism demands that the methods be relevant to authentic educational issues. The studies attempt to achieve a balance by posing questions that are both authentic and amenable to rigorous studies. In the instruction, pursuit of rigor has led to a narrow focus on specific tasks that can be made highly mathematical and so are easily assessed. The projects synthesized here attempt to achieve balance by coupling these rigorous tasks to authentic contexts that highlight what modern chemistry does as an intellectual pursuit

Using digital libraries to build educational communities: the ChemCollective

The ChemCollective is a new project in the targeted research track of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL). The project (http://www.chemcollective.org) was launched in spring 2004 at the National American Chemical Society (ACS) and National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) meetings. The research goal is to explore the degree to which digital library structures can attract and support a community of educators working towards a common vision of educational reform.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Worked Examples are more Efficient for Learning than High-Assistance Instructional Software

The above-mentioned article was published due to a clerical error. Consequently, the editorial team and the authors have decided to retract the article. The correct published article can be accessed at http://link.springer.com/chapter/10. 1007/978-3-319-19773-9_98. The online version of this article contains the full text of the retracted article as electronic supplementary material. Int J Artif Intell Educ DOI 10.1007/s40593-015-0046-z