Grasp C hemistry with Your Hands: Development of Perceptual- motor and C onceptual Understanding with the ELI- C hem (Embodied Learning Interactive C hemistry) Environment

Asnat Zohar & Sharona T. Levy [email protected]

[email protected]

Faculty of Education University of Haifa

Zohar, A., & Levy, S.T. (2016). Grasp Chemistry with Your Hands: Development of Perceptual-motor and Conceptual Understanding with the ELI-Chem (Embodied Learning Interactive Chemistry) Environment. Accepted to the Tenth International Conference on Conceptual Change (June 9-12, 2016), Earli.

Abstract This work seeks to develop and explore perceptual-motor schemes, intuitions and conceptual understanding related to chemical bonding at the highschool level through an embodied learning approach. ELI-Chem was designed as an Embodied Learning Interactive simulation that enables interaction

with

atoms

while

observing

the

resulting

electrostatic

attraction/repulsion forces. Our theoretical framework relates conceptual change to intuition development through bodily experience based on embodied cognition theory. The study uses qualitative methods with 12 high-school students framed as a pretest-intervention-posttest design. Students' gestures and articulations were studied with pre-post activity individual interviews. Our findings indicate a shift from a naïve perception of chemical bonds as static "magnetic attraction" between two solid spheres, to a more scientific understanding that involves dynamic equilibrium of attraction/repulsion forces between atoms that include multiple entities. This shift occurs for both perceptual-motor and conceptual understanding.

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Background This study explores the claim drawn from embodied learning (Abrahamson & Lindgren, 2014): when a learner interacts with a phenomenon through direct physical interactions, the process of conceptual learning can be sparked through the development of perceptual-motor schemes. Going through the route of developing intuitions based upon perceptual-motor experiences is an innovation of the current project. The present research addresses difficulties in learning about chemical bonding, a fundamental yet abstract concept in high-school chemistry (Dhindsa & Treagust, 2014; Nahum-Levy et al, 2007; Othman et al. 2008; Taber & Coll, 2002; Teichert & Stacy, 2002). As a result, students construct models such as two atoms as solid spheres stuck together, contrary to the scientific model of oscillating repulsions and attractions (Zohar & Levy, 2016). Traditional teaching often misleads by: presenting chemical bonds as categories; ignoring the principles underlying all bonds (Nahum-Levy et al., 2007); explaining stability using the "octet rule" rather than electrostatic attractions/repulsions (Taber, 2014); neglecting or ignoring atomic repulsion forces. The ELI-Chem environment (Zohar & Levy, 2015) seeks to develop intuitions relating chemical bonds. Grounding basic concepts in intuition could help students comprehend and later compound scientific explanations (Clement, Brown, & Zietsman 1989; diSessa, 1993; Núñez, Edwards, & Matos, 1999; Sherin, 2006). Fischbein (1987) suggests doing this by creating didactical situations

with

personal

and

experiential

involvement.

We

narrow

involvement to physical experiences based on embodied cognition theory (Abrahamson & Lindgren, 2014; Barsalou, 1999; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). This theory maintains that everyday bodily experience, which underlies intuition, is mapped onto more abstract domains and thus supports conceptual learning (Anderson, 2003; Barsalou, 1999; Johnson, 1987; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). ELI-Chem was created with NetLogo (Wilensky, 1999) and it enables students’ perceptual-motor interactions with atoms as they come closer and further away. Overlaid are the sum attraction and repulsion forces. The Lennard-Jones potential between two atoms is modeled, approximating their

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electrostatic forces. Student can select an atom, drag it across the screen and observe the resulting forces.

Research Questions The present research is our initial step in research with the ELI-Chem environment, studying the development of students’ intuitions and conceptual learning. In future iterations, intuitive understanding will be studied. RQ1: How can we mobilize the development of perceptual-motor understanding of chemical bonding? RQ2: How can we characterize the related conceptual learning?

Methods The study uses qualitative methods with 12 high-school students in the north of Israel (12 pre-interview, 8 pre-activity-post-interview) who are majoring in chemistry, framed as a pretest-intervention-posttest design. Participants were sampled opportunistically. Individual interviews were conducted: 10 minutes pre-interview, 30 minutes activity, 10 minutes post-interview. Data sources are the video-captured semi-structured interviews. Students’ gestures while talking

about

chemical

bonding

were

coded

as

perceptual-motor

understanding and their articulations as conceptual understanding.

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Findings Gestures. In general, students used their fists to describe atoms. Dynamic versus Static fists. Pre-activity (8/12) students’ fists approached until they touched and were then set firmly in place. Post-activity all students (8/8) shifted from static to dynamic fists, moving repeatedly inwards and outwards, reflecting a dynamic equilibrium between repulsion and attraction. One versus Many. Only in the post-activity, 4/8 students opened their fists slightly, creating spaces between their fingers, reflecting multiplicity or a diffuse object. Multiple Representations. Post-activity, 2/8 used their fists as atoms, simultaneously using their pointing finger for the forces. Summarizing these findings, students’ enacted perceptual-motor schemes reflect a shift from a static to a dynamic model of bonding that includes repulsion, half of them including a sense of many objects and some superimposed two representations. Pre- activity Articulations. The chemical bond involves only attraction between atoms (8/12). "It is a matter of attraction. The electrons are attracted to the nuclei because the nuclei are positive and the electrons are negative." Repulsive forces are mentioned (4/12), without describing a balance of forces. "They [the atoms] will approach until both nuclei will simply shove each other because both of them are positive. Then, there will be a situation of… I don't know… that they simply will be not disconnected and not linked, they will be in a certain distance, in a constant distance." The chemical bond is like magnetic attraction (6/12). "Maybe like a magnet? That its positive charge is attracted to the negative charge" Bonds form to fulfill the 'octet rule' (8/12). "The bond is formed because they [the atoms] wish to reach a full last energy level. That each of them will have eight; the hydrogen wish to have two but usually it is eight. This is the most stable state."

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Post- activity Articulations. Both attraction and repulsion forces are considered; the chemical bond is stable when attractions balance repulsions (8/8). We distinguish from the preactivity noticing of repulsion, as in the post-activity they include balance. "There is an entity that pulls and an entity that pushes. So the chemical bond is when they are equal. It is the distance of which they are equal. This is the case of chemical bond." A magnet isn’t a good analogy for chemical bonding (8/8). "In a magnet you approach two sides that are plus and minus. Maybe when you try to approach minus and minus it show the repulsion between the two nuclei, but it doesn't show what happens when there is an attraction and also repulsion." By the time of the conference, findings will include additional participants, a comparison between gestures and articulations, changes within each student and a case study.

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C onclusions Our findings show that learning about chemical bonding with the ELI-Chem simulation helps students shift from a naïve perception of bonding to a more scientific understanding. This shift occurs for both perceptual-motor and conceptual understanding. From an explanation based on the 'octet rule' depicting the atoms as static "touching" balls, students turn to consider the dynamic balance between attraction and repulsion forces between two sets of entities, sometimes with added representations of forces. Theoretically, this study is a first step towards enhancing our understanding of the processes by which forming perceptual-motor schemas may transform into intuitions and/or conceptual learning.

References Abrahamson, D., & Lindgren, R. (2014). Embodiment and embodied design. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (2nd ed.) (pp. 358-376). Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press Anderson, M. L. (2003). Embodied cognition: A field guide. Artificial Intelligence, 149(1), 91–130. Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptions of perceptual symbols. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22(04), 637–660. Clement, J., Brown, D. E., & Zietsman, A. (1989). Not all preconceptions are misconceptions: Finding “anchoring conceptions” for grounding instruction on students’ intuitions. International Journal of Science Education, 11(5), 554–565. Dhindsa, H. S., & Treagust, D. F. (2014). Prospective pedagogy for teaching chemical bonding for smart and sustainable learning. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 15(4), 435-446. diSessa, A. A. (1993). Toward an epistemology of physics. Cognition and Instruction, 10(2/3), 105–225. Fischbein, E. (1987). Intuition in Science and Mathematics: An Educational Approach (Vol. 5). Dordrecht: Springer. Johnson, M. (1987). The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Nahum-Levy, T., Mamlok-Naaman, R., Hofstein, A., & Krajcik, J. (2007). Developing a new teaching approach for the chemical bonding concept aligned with current scientific and pedagogical knowledge. Science Education, 91(4), 579-603. Núñez, R. E., Edwards, L. D., & Filipe Matos, J. (1999). Embodied cognition as grounding for situatedness and context in mathematics education. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 39(1), 45–65. Othman, J., Treagust, D. F., & Chandrasegaran, A. L. (2008). An Investigation into the Relationship between Students’ Conceptions of the Particulate Nature of Matter and their Understanding of Chemical Bonding. International Journal of Science Education, 30(11), 1531–1550. Sherin, B. (2006). Common sense clarified: The role of intuitive knowledge in physics problem solving. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 43(6), 535–555. Taber, K. S. (2014). The Octet Rule… OK? Education in Chemistry, Chemical Bonding.

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reader/eic/?utm_source=houselist&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EiCbondingsup#!edition/org. rsc.eic.01082015/article/org.rsc.eic.page-452 Taber, K., & Coll, R. K. (2002). Bonding. In J. K. Gilbert, O. De Jong, R. Justi, D. F. Treagust, & J. H. Van Driel (eds.). Chemical Education: Towards Research-based Practice (pp. 213-234). Kluwer Academic Publishers. Taber, K. S., & García-Franco, A. (2010). Learning processes in chemistry: Drawing upon cognitive resources to learn about the particulate structure of matter. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 19(1), 99–142. Teichert, M. A., & Stacy, A. M. (2002). Promoting understanding of chemical bonding and spontaneity through student explanation and integration of ideas. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 39(6), 464-496. Wilensky, U. (1999). NetLogo. http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/. Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. Zohar, A., & Levy, S.T. (2015). ELI-Chem: Learning through interacting with atoms. SLDL (Systems Learning and Development Lab), University of Haifa. Zohar, A., & Levy, S.T. (2016, February). Developing Intuitive, Sensory-motor and Conceptual Knowledge regarding Chemical Bonding through an Embodied Learning Environment. Poster session to be presented at: 8

Budding Israeli Community and Conference for Learning Sciences Scholars; Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.

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