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Chemistry Education and the 21st Century Skills

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A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102). This special issue belongs to the section "Curriculum and Instruction".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2021) | Viewed by 31504

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Tiemann

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Guest Editor

Department of Chemistry, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10099 Berlin, Germany
Interests: mental models; decision making; critical thinking; problem solving; gamification; assessment methods

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

For nearly two decades, we have been discussing 21^st century skills, sometimes with small shifts of focus, though nowadays, concentrating on a core set of skills and abilities. Accordingly, 21^st century skills are the OECD’s scientific and economic community’s answer to a rapidly changing world and its fundamental challenges: socially, environmentally, and for us and our children, individually. Research in chemistry education has investigated, developed, and evaluated a lot of learning environments, training materials, and best-practice examples to understand how to support these skills in teaching and learning chemistry.

This Special Issue of Educational Sciences focuses on learning and innovation skills as part of the 21^st century skills framework. They consist of “Critical Thinking and Problem Solving”, “Creativity and Innovation”, and “Communication and Collaboration”. In each of these fields, research in chemistry education can provide concrete, evidence-based studies to illustrate our contribution to mastering the challenges of the future.

I would like to invite you to submit papers related to these skills. Original empirical research papers, reviews, and case studies are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Rüdiger Tiemann
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

critical thinking
problem solving
creativity
innovation
communication
collaboration

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

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26 pages, 817 KiB

Open AccessArticle

High School Students’ Performance Indicators in Distance Learning in Chemistry during the COVID-19 Pandemic

by Manal AlMahdawi, Salieu Senghore, Horia Ambrin and Shashidhar Belbase

Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(11), 672; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11110672 - 22 Oct 2021

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 9450

Abstract

All private and public schools in the UAE had to run online classes as they closed their face-to-face classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2021. In this context, the purpose of this study was to investigate the indicators of high school students’ performance in online chemistry classes in a private school in Al Ain, UAE. A quantitative study with an online survey questionnaire was carried out with 101 participants. The data were analyzed using One-Sample Wilcoxon Signed Ranked Test, Independent Sample Mann Whitney U, Independent Sample Kruskal Wallis H, and Spearman’s Rank Correlation in the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (IBM SPSS 26). The findings revealed that there was a statistically significant positive impact on critical thinking, collaborative skills, creativity and innovation, technology application, class participation, and overall achievement during online and distance learning of chemistry. There was a statistically significant difference in students’ critical thinking, collaborative skills, creativity and innovation, class participation, and achievement by gender and nationality. These skills were not statistically significantly different across students of grades 10, 11, and 12, except for creativity and innovation, which were significantly different between students of grades 11 and 12. All the six indicators of students’ performance had a significant correlation between each other, with the highest correlation between collaborative skills and participation level. These findings indicated that students’ performance in online chemistry classes during the COVID-19 pandemic provided opportunities to develop creativity and collaborative skills, together with better learning achievement as perceived by the students. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemistry Education and the 21st Century Skills)

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10 pages, 1434 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Molecular Orbital Theory—Teaching a Difficult Chemistry Topic Using a CSCL Approach in a First-Year University Course

by David Johannes Hauck, Insa Melle and Andreas Steffen

Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(9), 485; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11090485 - 31 Aug 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2958 | Correction

Abstract

Collaboration is regarded as one of the core competences of the 21st century when it comes to complex problem solving. In response to high dropout rates among STEM students, we developed a digital-collaborative intervention on a difficult topic, MO theory, for first-year chemistry students. First, students work independently in a Digital Learning Environment (DLE). Afterwards, they collaborate in small groups and create Concept Maps on MO theory. We evaluate this intervention through knowledge tests, tests of attractiveness, cognitive load, and usability during the DLE and concept mapping process, as well as audio and screen recordings during the collaborative group processes. This paper presents the detailed study design together with results from a first study in January 2021, focusing on the practicability of the intervention and students’ feedback. Overall, each small group succeeded in creating a Concept Map. Students rated all phases of the intervention as attractive, with high usability and low cognitive load, although the interactive videos scored better for attractiveness and usability than the concept mapping process. On that basis, first adjustments for a second cycle of the intervention, which will be conducted in January 2022, were derived. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemistry Education and the 21st Century Skills)

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17 pages, 1678 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Inquiry through Industrial Chemistry in Compulsory Secondary Education for the Achievement of the Development of the 21st Century Skills

by María Diez-Ojeda, Miguel Ángel Queiruga-Dios, Noelia Velasco-Pérez, Emilia López-Iñesta and José Benito Vázquez-Dorrío

Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(9), 475; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11090475 - 29 Aug 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3027

Abstract

At a key moment when education systems are moving towards the development of 21st-century skills at school, we propose to develop them with a series of enquiry activities connected to the real world on the subject of Chemistry in Compulsory Secondary Education. The four selected topics have practical aspects, as they are related to industrial chemistry, and are proposed in educational practice using the 5E model. The results obtained in a pilot test with 22 students show that the context created facilitates the development of 21st century competences. It is understood that this novel proposal can be successfully employed in other contexts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemistry Education and the 21st Century Skills)

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17 pages, 1493 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Project-Based Teaching in Organic Chemistry through Blended Learning Model to Develop Self-Study Capacity of High School Students in Vietnam

by Nguyen Van Dai, Vu Quoc Trung, Chu Van Tiem, Kieu Phuong Hao and Dao Thi Viet Anh

Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(7), 346; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11070346 - 13 Jul 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 5962

Abstract

Developing students’ self-study capacity is an urgent task of high schools in the current educational renovation period in Vietnam. This article presents research findings on developing self-study capacity for students through building and organizing teaching activities of 11th-grade organic chemistry project topics according to the blended learning model. The pedagogical experiment was conducted at three high schools in the north, central, and south regions of Vietnam with 125 students. The data obtained from the teacher’s assessment and the students’ self-assessment showed obvious development of students’ self-study capacity in experimental classes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemistry Education and the 21st Century Skills)

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25 pages, 33629 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Heuristics Hindering the Development of Understanding of Molecular Structures in University Level Chemistry Education: The Lewis Structure as an Example

by Maarit Karonen, Mari Murtonen, Ilona Södervik, Marianna Manninen and Mikko Salomäki

Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(6), 258; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/educsci11060258 - 26 May 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 6122

Abstract

Understanding chemical models can be challenging for many university students studying chemistry. This study analysed students’ understanding of molecular structures using the Lewis structure as a model, and examined what hinders their understanding. We conducted pre- and post-tests to analyse students’ conceptions and changes in them. The measures contained multiple-choice questions and drawing tasks testing their understanding of concepts, such as polarity, geometry, charge or formal charge and expanded octet. The pre-test revealed a lack of knowledge and several misconceptions in students’ prior knowledge. For example, the concept of polarity was well-known, but the combination of polarity and geometry appeared to be difficult. For some students, the representation of molecules was intuitive and lacking a systematic approach. Certain students used mnemonics and draw ball-and-stick models connected to surficial representations. After the chemistry courses, the conceptions and drawings had generally changed, and the level of the students’ knowledge increased markedly. Although, fewer ball-and-stick models were drawn in the post-test, some students still used them. The main result was that students who drew ball-and-stick models in the pre-test were less capable of drawing the correct Lewis structures with electrons in the post-test. In addition, heuristics seem to hinder learning and some concepts, such as resonance, remained difficult. This is probably due to the fact that understanding molecular structures requires systemic understanding, where several matters must be understood at the same time. Our study highlights that the understanding of molecular structures requires conceptual change related to several sub-concepts. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Chemistry Education and the 21st Century Skills)

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