Physical Chemistry Online: A Small-Scale Intercollegiate Interactive Learning Experience

Abstract

During the Fall 1995 semester, students from three geographically separated chemistry departments participated in a prototype two-week online learning experience in physical chemistry. The students obtained a paper entitled “How Hot is That Flame Anyway?” from a Web site at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), http://dirac.py.iup.edu/college/chemistry/chem-course/trialrun.html. A corrected copy of the case study (http://www.niagara.edu/~/dflame/flame1.html) along with other relevant files can be found at http://www.niagara.edu/~tjz/cases.html. The “Flame” paper (Flame1.htm 20 Kbytes) presented a scenario/case for students to use to discover the thermodynamic principles and assumptions involved when estimating flame temperatures for common fuels. The mechanism for this chemical education experiment was inter- and intra-collegiate interaction by e-mail. The entire online activity demonstrated that cooperative learning can be implemented intercollegially for a physical chemistry course. Here, in this paper, we (1) describe the background leading to the experiment, (2) list the goals and objectives of the project, (3) assess the learning process demonstrated by students during this online course segment, (4) speculate on the significance of the project, and (5) offer suggestions for other mini-online course segments based on student and faculty assessment of the process. The results from the physical chemistry online course segment are placed in the context of preparation for a full online course held during the Spring 1996 semester. URLs for various course materials are included in this paper.