Introductory chemistry and other undergraduate first-year science courses involve some topics that need first to be mastered before students can address higher-order thinking problems. One could say that students need to first learn the language of that scientific discipline before they can express themselves in that language. In chemistry, for example, it is necessary to master low-order skills such as chemistry nomenclature, common oxidation states, memorizing the amino acids or identify the strength of common acids and bases before one can solve some higher-order problems. These kind of low-order skills are typically repetitive and students have a hard time being engaged and achieve the desired mastery level. A solution to this problem is imple gamification, that is, to design more engaging game-like activities to achieve the desired goal. We are presenting a set of web-based game-like activities developed by students themselves. Game-like activities can be thought as the perfect active learning activity since they show clear goals, give immediate feedback and, if designed well and aligned with the course learning objectives, are engaging and improve retention. Some of our students who had already taken the introductory chemistry course or who were taking it concurrently, took a semester to learn some basics of Javascript and web design to develop their own game-like activities. Having students designing the activities has resulted in a win-win situation for both instructors and students. The instructors have engaging game-like tools to be used in forthcoming courses and students learn some programming and find it rewarding to create from scratch their own games that other students may use. We will also report how we developed an open repository of chemistry data to be used both for low-order skills such as the online games mentioned above, but also for higher-order thinking and self-regulated learning. The same set of molecules and molecular properties are used for both purposes and it is open access to everyone available at http://chemdata.r.umn.edu.

1. Students designing online games for
active learning sessions in chemistry
courses
Brandon P. Eklund, Dylan Gilbertson, Joseph W.
Inhofer, Jason D. Greenwood, Omar Mohamed,
Peter L. Larsen, Xavier Prat-Resina
Center for Learning Innovation
University of Minnesota - Rochester
http://chemdata.r.umn.edu/edulearn14.pptx

2. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester
Laptop Program Active Learning Degree in Health Science

3. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester
Simple online activities
Low-level thinkingMemorize basic chemistry
Nomenclature
Acid/Base
Amino acids
1st year
Chem.
Students
High level thinking
Learn web programming
Create games
Teach chemistry
2nd year
Chem.
Students
Navigate + Display
http://chemdata.r.umn.edu
ChemEd X Data

4. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester
Objectives:
Implementing online game-like activities for non-game tasks to
increase engagement and retention
Our needs:
First-year students in chemistry need basic skills such as chemistry
nomenclature, identifying the acid/basic character of compounds or, in
biochemistry, memorize amino acids:
low-order thinking (boring, repetitive… necessary)
Challenges:
The best game engages: it is not boring
and it is not frustrating.

5. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester
Why should everyone learn web programing?
Programming promotes the development of higher mental functions
It makes students create, pay attention to detail and work on problem solving
Understand the web!
privacy + security
data ownership
Quiz yourself on “how the web works”:
Does Facebook know if…
I close the window?
Click on a picture?
Scroll down
 When I erase a picture from Facebook. Does it disappear forever?
 When I navigate as “incognito” who knows what sites I visit.

6. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester
How?
Weekly seminar of 2nd year students: A project-based course
Each students ends the semester with at least one
fully functional online activity
They take online tutorials at home. Bring questions to class
http://www.codecademy.com/
We only use basic action elements:
http://jqueryui.com/demos/
Click on buttons
Drag and drop

7. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester

8. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester

9. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester
Timed multiple choice
(Progress: scaffold difficulty)
Right choice and speed is rewarded
Achievement:
A leader
board

10. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester
Data aligned with topics and
compounds in undergraduate curriculum
Tagged with different levels of complexity
Scattered/Unstructured
open data
Chem Ed X Data
Unstructured but easy to represent, parse and sort data
To prove/disprove a chemical statement
http://chemdata.r.umn.edu/
ChemEd X Data: Exposing Students to Open Scientific Data for Higher-Order Thinking and Self-
Regulated Learning. B. Eklund and X. Prat-Resina. J. Chem. Educ. In press

11. Edulearn 2014
Static, “precooked”
data
1. Look at this graph
2. See what I want you to see
3. Explain how everything perfectly fits
4. Believe me
Unstructured data
Non-linear
Non-sequential
Open-ended
Remember  Understand  Apply  Analyze
Evaluate
1. Choose some data
2. Represent it
3. Analyze it
4. Interpret it
Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester
Where can Computer Based Learning Environments (CBLE) be most useful?
Skills required: Self-regulation
Self-evaluation
The web

12. Edulearn 2014
Graphical representation
Sorting, filtering tables
Selecting
molecular families
and
properties
Metadata for search
Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester

13. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester
Explanatory questions (pre-selected sets of data.
One right answer).
“Why do these molecules show this trend for
property X?”
Problem solving questions:(pre-selected sets of data.
One right answer)
“If the heavier the molecule the larger the heat
capacity. Why does the heat capacity decrease in the
following set of data?”
Prove it: (open-ended)
Choose a set of molecules that prove that hydrogen bonds are stronger than dipole-
dipole interaction but much weaker than ionic bonds.
Building knowledge: (open-ended)
Choose a set of data to describe what molecular properties have an influence in
heat of combustion.

14. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester
The good:
A win-win situation:
An opportunity to include programming in any undergraduate major
We obtain game-like activities targeting specific needs for our courses
The bad:
It is hard to have students learn web design and develop in one semester a
platform that meets the quality to be used in class.
The ugly
Still, a very small portion of students (all male!) are interested in programming

15. Edulearn 2014 Prat-Resina. Univ. Minnesota Rochester
Omar
Mohamed
Brandon Eklund Dylan Gilbertson Joe Inhofer Peter Larsen
Jason
Greenwood