Evaluation of Learning Material on MERLOT

I added material on mole conversions to MERLOT.  I wanted to see what is was available on MERLOT for this topic.  I found this resource.  


http://www.college-cram.com/study/chemistry/molarity-and-stoichiometry/mole-conversions/


Overall, I found the material to be quite useful.  Here is my evaluation.  


Quality of Content: 
1.  Does the software present valid (correct) concepts, models, and skills.  

• Yes, I found that this software presented a valid way to calculate grams from moles and moles from grams.  The best part about it is that the material is presented in a way that is different than the way I teach.  This could help students that are struggling with my format.  

2.  Does the software present educationally significant concepts, models, and skills for the discipline?  

• Yes, this software presents mole conversions.  This is an important concept and a building block for many other chemistry concepts to follow.  

Potential Effectiveness of a Teaching-Learning Tool: 
1.  What stage(s) in the learning process/cycle could the materials be used?

• This software could be used in the demonstration, practice, and/or applying stages of the learning process/cycle.  It provides information and walks you through an example problem for a demo.  It gives you opportunities to practice and lets you apply your new knowledge by doing multiple examples if you would like.     

2.  What is(are) the learning objective(s)? What should students be able to do after successfully learning with the materials?

• Convert moles of a given amount of a substance to grams. 
• Convert grams of a given amount of a substance to moles.  
• Calculate molar mass of a substance.  

3.  What are the characteristics of the target learner(s)?  

• High School chemistry students using the computer to enhance chemistry skills.    

4.  Does the interactive/media-rich presentation of material improve faculty and students' abilities to teach and learn the materials?  

• Yes, the media allows the students to work with examples of their choice in an interactive fashion.  The students can manipulate the substances to see the changes that result in molar mass.  It also improves the teacher's ability to teach the material by providing supplemental material for hands on or visual learners.  

5.  Can the use of the software be readily integrated into current curriculum and pedagogy within the discipline? 

• Yes, a teacher could provide a worksheet with a link and a few example substances that need to be found.  

6.  Can the software be used in a variety of ways to achieve teaching and learning goals?

• Yes, it could be used as supplemental material, practice, or to demonstrate (use on a projector).  

7.  Are the teaching-learning goals easy to identify?

• Yes, the site describes what the student will be learning.  However, I would like to see some objectives listed.  Also, it would be nice if there was a description on how to use the media device.  

8.  Can good learning assignments for using the software application be written easily?  

• Yes, a chemistry teacher could simple provide the link to the site and let students explore the concept.  Also, the teacher could provide the students with a few example substances to find the molar mass and mole conversions.   

Ease of Use: 

1.  Are the labels, buttons, menus, text, and general layout of the computer interface consistent and visually distinct? 

• The general layout is slightly confusing and doesn't have detailed instructions provided.  The periodic table should be larger.  It is pretty small and hard to see the elements.  

2.  Does the user get trapped in the material? 

• Yes, when you get the answer for grams and moles and hit next, you are prompted to fill in the moles or grams with a non-zero value.  However, even when they are filled and you click next, nothing happens.  

3.  Can the user get lost easily in the material? 

• I didn't find any problem navigating the material except for that stated above.   

4.  Does the module provide feedback about the system status and the user's responses? 

• No, not really, if you put in the incorrect answer it just flashes and gives you the same prompt.   

5.  Does the module provide appropriate flexibility in its use? 

• There is not much flexibility within the module except for the ability to plug in your own substances.  

6.  Does the learning material require a lot of documentation, technical support, and/or instruction for most students to successfully use the software? 

• Not really, its a pretty simple system.  Some instructions are provided but the teacher may have to provide some technical support.  

7.  Does the material present information in ways that are familiar for students? 

• I think the material would be presented in a way that is new to my students.  I use conversion factors and dimensional analysis to do mole conversions.  This is set up as a formula.  

8.  Does the material present information in ways that would be attractive to students?  

• I think the students would enjoy working with the interactive website.  Also, the students may like the fact that they could use whatever substances they can think of to do the conversions.