In this article, we examine the role of visuospatial cognition in chemistry learning. We review three related kinds of literature: correlational studies of spatial abilities and chemistry learning, students' conceptual errors and difficulties understanding visual representations, and visualization tools that have been designed to help overcome these limitations. On the basis of our review, we conclude that visuospatial abilities and more general reasoning skills are relevant to chemistry learning, some of students' conceptual errors in chemistry are due to difficulties in operating on the internal and external visuospatial representations, and some visualization tools have been effective in helping students overcome the kinds of conceptual errors that may arise through difficulties in using visuospatial representations. To help students understand chemistry concepts and develop representational skills through supporting their visuospatial thinking, we suggest five principles for designing chemistry visualization tools: (1) providing multiple representations and descriptions, (2) making linked referential connections visible, (3) presenting the dynamic and interactive nature of chemistry, (4) promoting the transformation between 2D and 3D, and (5) reducing cognitive load by making information explicit and integrating information for students. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed88:465–492, 2004; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/.sce10126

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/sce.10126

Exploring visuospatial thinking in chemistry learning

Chemistry is often regarded as a difficult subject, an observation which sometimes repels learners from continuing with studies in chemistry. This paper seeks to bring together the general findings obtained from research over the past few decades for both school pupils and university students in an attempt to suggest the key reasons for this difficulty. Suggestions are made on ways to minimise the problems based on understandings of attitudes and motivation as well as the psychological understandings of how learning takes place.

https://www.tused.org/index.php/tused/article/download/664/569

Learning Difficulties in Chemistry: An Overview

This study assessed the influence of a 3-year professional development program on elementary teachers' views of nature of science (NOS), instructional practice to promote students' appropriate NOS views, and the influence of participants' instruction on elementary student NOS views. Using the VNOS-B and associated interviews the researchers tracked the changes in NOS views of teacher participants throughout the professional development program. The teachers participated in explicit–reflective activities, embedded in a program that emphasized scientific inquiry and inquiry-based instruction, to help them improve their own elementary students' views of NOS. Elementary students were interviewed using the VNOS-D to track changes in their NOS views, using classroom observations to note teacher influences on student ideas. Analysis of the VNOS-B and VNOS-D showed that teachers and most grades of elementary students showed positive changes in their views of NOS. The teachers also improved in their science pedagogy, as evidenced by analysis of their teaching. Implications for teacher professional development programs are made. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 653–680, 2007

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/tea.20159

Teaching nature of science through inquiry: Results of a 3-year professional development program

Analogies have long been tools of discovery in science and are often used as explanatory devices in the classroom. However, research has shown that analogies can engender alternative conceptions because some students visualize the analog in a different manner than the teacher and/or invalid analog-target transfers are left unchallenged. This case study describes one teacher’s implementation of a modified version of Clynn’s Teaching-With-Analogies (TWA) model with a Grade-10 optics class on refraction of light. The analogy likened a ray of light as it passes from air into glass to a pair of wheels that changed direction as they rolled obliquely from a hard onto a soft surface. The study indicates that a competent teacher can integrate this systematic approach into a teaching repertoire resulting in student conceptual understanding of the phenomena as expected at this level of science education. For analogies to be effective, it appears essential that the analogy be familiar to as many students as possible, that shared attributes be precisely identified by the teacher and/or students, and that the unshared attributes should be explicitly identified. The discussion concludes with recommendations for teaching and future research and discusses some limitations of this approach to analogical instruction. Since the beginning of recorded history, analogies have been used as concept-building tools for children and for adults. Metaphors, similes, analogies, and parables plus mental and physical models are common devices in spoken, acted, and written communication. Metaphors and analogies are woven into children’s stories, for example, with people represented by animals. Both fiction and nonfiction authors use analogies as descriptive tools, and they are especially ubiquitous in religious writings. Each of these literary devices are collectively considered to be analogies (Duit, 1991) because of their potential to compare one object or situation to another, and in the process, transfer either details, relational information, or both. Analogies are used because they have the power to evoke rich, almost instantaneous, mental pictures that serve to challenge the hearer to transfer knowledge from a familiar to an unfamiliar domain. Furthermore, analogies ensure that a person’s mental imagery is concrete, as in, for example, the analog of hard balls in a container representing gas molecules in a closed container. Analogies can also be tools of discovery. Johannes Kepler developed his concept of planetary motion from the workings of a clock (Bronowski, 1973) and Huygens used water wave motion to understand light phenomena (Duit, 1991). Perhaps the best described use of analogies in scientific discovery is Maxwell’s mathematical description of Faraday’s electric lines of force (Gee, 1978).

Teaching with analogies: A case study in grade-10 optics

This study examined and supported the efforts of Tina, an experienced elementary teacher, in helping her fourth graders internalize informed views of the inferential, tentative, and creative nature of science (NOS). Tina held informed views of, and was motivated to teach about, NOS. The study aimed to answer the following question: What specific supports were needed to enable Tina to make the target NOS elements explicit in her teaching? The lead researcher visited Tina's classroom every week and interacted with her on a continuous basis. Data sources included classroom observations and videotapes, teacher NOS questionnaires and associated interviews, teacher–researcher communications, and teacher and researcher logs. Although Tina's understandings and intentions were necessary to enable her to teach about NOS, they were not sufficient. Tina needed support to translate her NOS views and intentions into pedagogically appropriate instructional activities that would make the target NOS aspects accessible to her students. Socially mediated support was needed at the personal level in terms of helping Tina activate her tacit NOS understandings, and at the professional level in terms of modeling explicit NOS instruction in Tina's own classroom by the lead researcher. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 40: 1025–1049, 2003

Teaching elements of nature of science: A yearlong case study of a fourth‐grade teacher

Using Analogs for Chemistry Problem Solving: Does it Increase Understanding?

This study examined differences among three elementary school science preservice teacher preparation course sequences with respect to three variables: understanding of the nature of science; attitudes toward science; and attitudes toward science teaching. Also, this study sought to ascertain whether correlations were present among these variables within each of the three course sequences: (1) Science-Process-Content/Methods-Field Sequence; (2) Science Process-Methods Sequence; and (3) Methods Sequence. Significant differences were found among the groups of preservice teachers in the three course sequences in terms of an understanding of the nature of science. Teachers completing the Science Process-Methods Sequence and Methods Sequence groups possessed a significantly greater understanding of the nature of science than teachers in the Science Process-Content/Methods-Field Sequence group. No significant differences were found among the three groups with respect to either attitudes toward science or attitudes toward science teaching. No significant correlations were found between understanding the nature of science and attitudes toward science or between attitudes toward science teaching within each of the two groups. Significant correlations were found between attitudes toward science and attitudes toward science teaching for all three groups. Suggestions for future research and implications for science content/process integration and preservice teacher preparation programs have also been discussed.

Understanding the nature of science and attitudes toward science and science teaching of preservice elementary teachers in three preparation sequences

Supercomputers were once regarded as being of very limited use - of interest to a very few national centers and used by a small fraction of researchers at any given university. As scientific research becomes more and more dependent upon management and analysis of massive amounts of data, advances in human knowledge will become increasingly dependent upon use of high performance computers and parallel programming techniques. Indiana University has undergone a transformation over the past four years, during which the capacity, use, and number of users of High Performance Computing (HPC) systems has dramatically increased. HPC systems are widely viewed as valuable to the scholarly community of Indiana University - even by those researchers who do not use parallel programming techniques. Economies of scale and vendor partnerships have enabled Indiana University to amass significant HPC systems. Carefully implemented strategies in delivery of consulting support have expanded the use of parallel programming techniques. Such techniques are of critical value to advancement of human knowledge in many disciplines, and it is now possible for any institution of higher education to provide some sort of parallel computing resource for education and research.

High performance computing: delivering valuable and valued services at colleges and universities

Rapid changes in the IT field have placed a burden on educational institutions, which must decide how best to provide computing support for instruction and research. Institutions must determine the ideal balance of IT support with other educational needs in the academic community.Access to information technology is no longer a privilege held by a select few groups; instead, it has become a necessity in the academic environment. Since the late 1980's, computing support strategies at Indiana University have changed drastically to accommodate the changes in users' needs. In order to keep up with these changes, the University solicits input directly from users, allowing it to apply its scant and valuable computing support resources to where they are most needed. The annual IT survey conducted by the information technology organization has proven an invaluable tool in helping the University maintain one of the best academic computing support environments in the nation. Giving the end users an opportunity to provide input on what changes are needed in the University's IT environment has played a key role in the success of the support mechanisms. In addition, responses to the survey give an accurate picture of current needs and allow better projection of future needs of users. This allows the University to better serve its academic computing community without over-allocating resources that would be more useful elsewhere in the academic environment.

Gauging IT support strategies: user needs then and now

The facilities described in this document were made possible in part through funding from Indiana University, the Indiana University Office of the Vice President for
Information Technology, the State of Indiana, Shared University Research Grants from IBM, Inc., and from the Lilly Endowment through their support o f the Indiana Genomics Initiative. The Indiana Genomics Initiative (INGEN) of Indiana University is supported in part by Lilly Endowment Inc.

/pdf/ingen-s-advanced-it-facilities-the-least-you-need-to-know-1qcwphw12u.pdf

INGEN's advanced IT facilities: The least you need to know

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