Abstract
Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, all teachers’ training courses scheduled for summer 2020 had to transition to online formats. For the arts-integrating course “Teaching Chemistry by a Creative Approach”, this shift jeopardized the course’s essence, since learning by this approach is based on creative, hands-on, and active learning. Here we describe how the course format and contents evolved from a planned face-to-face format to an adapted, successful online learning experience. Two main goals were considered during the adaptation process: (1) making available to teachers the theoretical and practical backgrounds necessary to internalize the arts-integrating approach through creative, active learning strategies, and (2) providing teachers with actual tools through which they can rethink and develop their own teaching materials to suit remote teaching by incorporating supporting neuropedagogical aspects. Evaluating the immediate and follow-up questionnaires, as well as the assessment of teachers’ course assignments, suggests that the online course successfully preserved the essence and the main objectives of the original course, that the course was useful for remote teaching, and that it seems to have had an impact on teachers’ practices. We attribute this impact to the well-thought-out process of adapting the course to promote creative, active online teaching and learning. In addition to modifying the course’s format, this process expanded the arts-integrating approach to acknowledge the inherent difficulties in learning chemistry, existing also while learning online. We propose this process as a model to be used by educators to rethink and adapt their own practices to improve distance chemistry teaching and learning.
Highlights
Being creative as a chemistry teacher is the focus of the “Teaching Chemistry by a Creative Approach” professional development (PD) course, which was taught during the summer of 2020 in the Department of Science Teaching at the Weizmann Institute of Science
We examined the original course by inspecting its components, searching for possible remote learning (RL) adaptation opportunities
We presented the modified format and content of an online teachers’ training course originally developed to convey an artsintegrating (AI) approach to teaching chemistry creatively and actively, taking into consideration the supporting neuropedagogical aspects
Summary
Being creative as a chemistry teacher is the focus of the “Teaching Chemistry by a Creative Approach” professional development (PD) course, which was taught during the summer of 2020 in the Department of Science Teaching at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The original course was based on an arts-integration (AI) approach for teaching chemistry, which represents the fruit of three years of development[1] and validation.[2] This method builds on creative opportunities for content elaboration, interpersonal interactions, building shared knowledge, and both social and individual active learning. Inservice high school chemistry teachers from all over the country applied to participate and experience by themselves learning content through this unusual approach that merges chemistry with arts and crafts. Owing to lockdown restrictions in Israel, all planned academic courses had to undergo pedagogical changes needed to match suitable remote learning (RL) formats. This was also the case for this arts-integrating course. Many questions were raised pertaining not only to the operative issues of the transition to remote teaching (RT) but also to more essential aspects such as the following: How can we impart creative teaching practices and hands-on learning through a digital medium? How do we make the most of an intensive 4-day online course that is supposed to be dynamic? Can we use this opportunity to help teachers adapt their own practices to establish creative RL with their chemistry students? We will discuss how the course evolved from its original format to a successfully adapted online learning experience. Figure 1 presents a short chronological outline of this process, which finally emerged as the didaktik model[3] that we used with the participating teachers. We start by elaborating on the rationale behind the AI approach to teaching chemistry, which is the essence of the course’s pedagogical content. We then introduce the goals and format of the original course. Next, we Received: November 2, 2020 Revised: July 8, 2021 Published: August 6, 2021 describe the process of modifying the course for RL, while attempting to maintain the essence of the content. We provide suggestions for adapting the AI activities, which were originally developed for teaching in class. These suggestions are a consequence of the course’s adaptation process, which resulted in an expanded creative approach to teaching chemistry online. Last, we evaluate the online course. Teachers’ answers to both a feedback and a follow-up questionnaire, as well as their final assignments, were analyzed. In the last section, we discuss the effectiveness of the adaptation process and the impact that the ■online course might have had on the teachers. AI APPROACH TO TEACHING CHEMISTRY The task of learning chemistry at the macroscopic, microscopic, and symbolic levels by the chemistry triplet[4] requires the student to make use of subject-specific as well as highly abstract verbal and nonverbal thinking skills. To succeed in this task, students should combine the mastering of visuospatial thinking[5] with the interpretation of linguistic expressions.[6] The cognitive process of integrating verbal and nonverbal input is part of the learning process in general,[7] and it is especially relevant in any of the STEM8 disciplines. In chemistry, it constitutes the core of the metacognitive processes needed to understand a concept and to apply it to any form of problem solving.[9] Thus, it affects the learning and teaching of both theoretical and experimental chemistry.[10−12] In a “regular” classroom setup, teachers try to transform abstract chemical content into a teachable form, mainly through verbal explanations accompanied by parallel symbolic representations of content on the board.[13] Students must simultaneously pay attention to both the verbal expressions and visual input and, through their integration,[14] make sense of them. Although teachers plan lessons so that the content makes sense, in practice, they might presuppose the students’ linguistic and visual thinking abilities as well as the way each student connects them through visualization. Visual understanding is a conceptual competence based on verbally mediated sensemaking processes. However, for some students, a gap may exist between verbal and nonverbal competences.[8] These representational competences are essential for assigning the correct meaning to abstract chemical content through visualization, generating correct mental models, and they cannot be overlooked. Arts-integrating (AI) approaches offer creative pathways to endow students with visual thinking strategies (VTS);[15] they encourage inquiry processes that support the verbalization of images that can be either abstract or concrete in nature. An additional advantage of AI strategies is the meaning-making opportunities they offer, since it was found that long-term memories necessarily comprise sense and meaning components.[16] In a broader sense, AI approaches are being implemented in humanistic and science disciplines at all levels, from K−12 to higher education.[17,18] These approaches contribute to and enhance the learning process through a combination of emotional, social, and constructivist active learning mechanisms. In the presented AI approach, VTS methodologies (such as “Observe, Describe, Interpret, Prove”, ODIP, and “See, Think, Wonder”, STW19) were adapted so that they could function as pedagogical instruments for dealing with abstract chemistry concepts and skills. Activities developed by this approach are based on in-depth observational techniques that were initially created for image analysis in art appreciation; here, these techniques are applied to images related to chemical content as well as artwork that could be linked to it. In some cases, we also combined these techniques with crafting tasks or research inquiry. The main goal of the AI approach to teaching chemistry is to address the above-mentioned gap between the verbal and nonverbal aspects of learning chemistry and to make the abstract features of chemistry easier to understand and master. Furthermore, all activities developed by this AI approach introduce fundamental neuropedagogical aspects, which, according to the literature, are expected to make learning more efficient[16,20] by encouraging students to engage in both sense-making and meaning-making in relation to content, during learning. These aspects include a wide sensory distribution of input in the process of learning, unusualness of input, emotional involvement, varied pathways to foster retrieval and rehearsal of content,[20−22] as well as a reduction of working memory load.[23,24] Content learned in this way would have an increased probability of being retained, and more retrieval cues are expected to be created. An in-depth description of the multidisciplinary (chemistry, neuropedagogy, and art), conceptual scaffold that led to the development of this approach is beyond the scope of this article and can be found elsewhere.[1] In traditional teaching practices, there is a basic underlying assumption that knowledge acquired in the past by humanity must be conveyed to learners as is.[25] Thus, traditionally, lecturing has been the main means to attain this goal, and students have consequently adopted a passive attitude, both physically and cognitively. Regarding this aspect, the AI approach presented here can be characterized as nontraditional and active learning in nature.[26] Arts or crafts are merged as part of the learning process to facilitate understanding by encouraging students to think more deeply about chemical content and to take an active part in the process of constructing and developing chemical knowledge. In chemistry, art has been included in the curriculum mostly, although not exclusively,[27,28] as an extension of traditional teaching strategies, such as inquiry laboratories that deal with color-related phenomena or restoration tasks,[29−31] but seldom[19] https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c01341 J. Chem. Educ. 2021, 98, 2809−2819 Creating visual representations of content (macroscopic/microscopic), based on input processed through Generating sound representations of the states of matter;b creating as allowed by the Gaining visual literacy from abstract artwork and transferring these skills to chemical content at the microscopic/symbol levelsa Verbally mediated observation of abstract images (artwork/chemical content), followed by drawing sketches of related chemical concepts (from art to chemistry) In the AI approach presented here, the learning experience that each activity offers is centered around either fine art observational techniques[32] or crafting endeavors. These activities are always conducted to foster internalization, rehearsal, and/or retrieval of chemical content creatively. This leads to two AI practical methodologies for teaching chemistry: (1) from art to chemistry, and (2) from chemistry to craft. In both cases, students are encouraged to think inquisitively about chemistry and to utilize content creatively. Both methodologies could specifically tackle difficulties in encoding and decoding information related to complex symbolic representations such as interpreting and generating drawings, depicting the microscopic structure of matter, reading and constructing graphs, or explaining the chemical principles behind certain macroscopic phenomena. For a more detailed explanation of both methodologies and how they address the verbal/visual thinking gap, as well as specific examples of implementation through activities for teaching chemistry, see the SI. This course emphasizes these practical AI methodologies for teaching chemistry rather than the chemical content itself. The reason for this is that the course conveys a pedagogical approach that was developed specifically to address inherent difficulties that many students have while learning abstract chemical content. Thus, although there is naturally a strong connection to chemical content, the course focuses mainly on the pedagogical aspects of teaching chemistry, on methodologies and strategies to make chemistry content available through specific representations, and/or by asking students to engage in specific tasks. When the arts-integrated activities are combined with traditional teaching practices, they are expected to help the learner gain a deeper understanding of the content in a variety of ways.[2,18,33−35] Table 1 presents possible pedagogical strategies to facilitate this process by using AI approaches that are rooted in neuropedagogical knowledge, such as visual thinking strategies,[15,19] creative elaboration and unusualness of input,[36,37] emotional triggers,[38] social learning,[39] and modular, nonroutine teaching.[40] The implementation of these strategies for use with the chemical content developed using the AI approach, as well as examples of the activities included in this course, is presented in Table 1. Examples of applications of AI strategies to teach chemical content explicitly, developed by the AI approach, are presented in the last column of Table 1. These are examples of activities performed by teachers during the course. For a detailed description of them, please see the SI. Effective implementation of the AI approach for teaching chemistry requires a sensitive teacher who grasps its rationale and is aware of the mental processes needed to translate nonverbal input into textual meaning and vice versa. This involves new knowledge components that should be integrated into the course, as well as opportunities for the teachers to plan how they can consolidate these new components in the context of their own chemistry teaching, thus including them as part of their own pedagogical content knowledge. We relied on models that were developed for chemistry teachers’ PD (e.g., for integrating simulations and contemporary research in chemistry teaching41) for integrating pertinent new knowledge related to the AI approach. Creative elaboration that encourages multisensorial information processing various pathways, followed by argumentation, and exposition of crafts (from chemistry to craft) material properties (“Chemists’ Museum” activity); Crafting varied representations of molecular geometriesc/ionic lattices Using artwork as entry points for related chemical inquiries, encouraging peer knowledge negotiation, Partaking in art appreciation exercises based on naturalistic/surrealistic art to encourage creating cognitive conflicts, encouraging content-related stimulating conversations, and promoting out- the process of asking general questions, chemistry-related questions, and research of-context rehearsal of research skills (from art to chemistry) questions, and designing matching experimentsd Unusualness of input (instruction and/or rehearsal) that stimulates thinking in atypical ways Teaching and rehearsing practical inquiry thinking in out-of-the-lab environments, putting content to use Solving lab mystery boxes/riddles and then asking students to create their own lab in creative ways, and engaging in metacognitive processes (from chemistry to craft) mystery boxes/riddlese Nonroutine, modular teaching that stimulates general motivation and elevates the attention levels Introducing AI lessons sporadically without notifying students in advance and introducing elements of surprise within the AI activities; combining AI activities with lectures and inquiry laboratories aSee the verbalization activity description in the Supporting Information. bSee the Supporting Information. cSee ref 2. dSee the “5, 3, 1” activity in the Supporting Information. eSee the “mystery box” activity in the Supporting Information. Article https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c01341 J. Chem. Educ. 2021, 98, 2809−2819 At the beginning of the course, we present to teachers the rationale of the AI approach for teaching chemistry and provide the neurobiological basic knowledge so that they will understand the neuropedagogical aspects at the core of the approach. In addition to learning the theory, the teachers participate in all AI activities, in the same way their students would in class.[42,43] We encourage teachers to examine their own learning experience before they are asked to apply what they have experienced and learned throughout the training. Afterward, during the course, we ask teachers to apply this knowledge in two ways: (1) to examine the AI activities and tasks they’ve performed by analyzing the supporting neuropedagogical principles that constitute their basis[44] and (2) to design or adapt AI activities for their own class by integrating the newly attained knowledge to fit their actual educational settings.[45−48] In addition, throughout the course the teachers are asked to reflect on their regular teaching practice and to think about the practical implications of the insights gained from the course. Since we intend to offer content through an active learning experience, the original face-to-face program of the course includes working in pairs or small groups based on works of art, crafting plastic representations of chemical content (i.e., matter states, molecular, and ionic models), and preparing a chemistry museum with objects created by the course participants from different assigned chemical materials, followed by oral presentations of chemistry-related content associated with those creations, whole-class discussions, and sharing of the AI learning outcomes. Conventional lectures alone would not be able to incorporate the principles of the AI approach. Teachers must undergo the learning experiences that each activity offers, ask their own questions, and relate them to their own teaching practices.[49,50] Moreover, to properly participate in the AI activities and perform all the related tasks, we gradually introduce printed games, color posters of artwork, and crafting materials to teachers as the course progresses (but not all at once on the first day). One of the important aspects of this AI approach is the sense of surprise each activity brings about, which induces students’ interest and acts as an emotional trigger. Emotional triggers are expected to support learning and aid long-term memory.[38] Given the strong active learning nature of the AI approach in relation to traditional modes of learning chemistry, we realized that modifying the course to match online learning should result from a carefully thought-out process that would provide active online teaching. In the next section, we present the adaptation process we used for this course. We started by asking ourselves didaktik guiding questions pertaining to content, timing, relevance, and teaching practice.[3] The term didaktik is used here with “k” (and not with “c”) to refer to a reflective process that is applied to teaching. Moreover, “What”, “How”, “Why”, and “When” questions are generally considered didaktik questions that educators can ask in relation to lesson planning, instruction, and assessment of learning using a specific methodology. We examined the original course by inspecting its components, searching for possible remote learning (RL) adaptation opportunities. We proceeded to compare these components: the form they take in the original course and the form they would take in the modified format. During this first stage of the adaptation process, we chose several possible answers to our didaktik questions by visualizing possible scenarios and considering the technical limitations. Some of the questions we asked are presented in the “visualize” step included in Figure 1. Figure 2 shows the differences between the Figure 2. Comparison of the main components of the course for the face-to-face and the RL formats. The RL components arose as the answers to our didaktik guiding questions. The overlapping issues are the ones that were preserved to maintain the pedagogical essence of the AI approach. two formats (face-to-face and RL) in terms of the most important components that we considered. The overlap between the formats includes fundamental points that we thought should be preserved, in order not to lose the essence of the AI method. During the second stage of the course’s adaptation process, we revised our objectives to determine how moving to an online platform would affect them, and accordingly, we set new suitable goals (Figure 1). The last stage in the adaptation was to plan the practical details to smoothly execute the modified scheme of the online course. One such detail was, for example, the delivery of the crafting and learning materials across the country. Once replanning was complete, we began to execute all parts of the online course. We started by preparing a kit containing all the materials needed to participate in the different hands-on AI activities (Figure 3). To deliver these materials to each enrolled teacher in advance, we invited them to pick up their personal kit from four different collection points across the country, about a week before the beginning of the course. Teachers were asked not to open the kits, thus maintaining the desired surprise effect. Figure 3 summarizes the content of each of the activities in the kit. The online course maintained the original course’s hands-on strategy and modular dynamics from the beginning. We started the first day with an icebreaker exercise that had two functions: (1) demonstrating first-hand the verbalization process of abstract symbols and its related cognitive challenges and (2) illustrating how students could work in pairs through telephonic interaction. For this telephonic exercise, the group of 50 teachers was divided into two subgroups: Half of the teachers were assigned to the “describers” group and the other half to the “drawers” group. We organized beforehand a list of telephone numbers for each group, without specifying names. Thus, without knowing each other, one of the teachers in the first group had to call a teacher in the other group. In each pair formed, the teacher from the “describers” group had to call and describe a piece of abstract art by Joan Miró in as much detail as possible to the assigned teacher from the “drawers” group, who had to make a drawing from what was understood from the first https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c01341 J. Chem. Educ. 2021, 98, 2809−2819 teacher’s description. For this activity, we did not have to split the Zoom class into breakrooms. Teachers in the “drawers” group left the room where their computer was located and returned only after the task was completed. We showed the artwork using “shared screen” after all the phone calls were successfully engaged. Figure 4 presents some of the finished drawings. Once the exercise was over, all teachers answered the question of “how, in their opinion, was this exercise related to the process of learning chemistry”, through a Google Form. After the AI icebreaker, we proceeded to introduce the rationale of the AI approach through a lecture in which we used some of the teachers’ answers to the Google Form to connect the newly exposed content to the experience and insights they had gained during the observing−verbalizing/listening−drawing exercise. Relating to the teachers’ insights derived from the performed task as part of the lecture increased its relevance. During this lecture, we made the explicit connection between the art-based assignment of the verbalization of artwork and the process of gaining chemical content knowledge by analyzing the visual representations of chemical concepts and principles. We discussed how this activity allows gaining visual literacy by conscious image appreciation mechanisms. Then, we proceeded to participate in a similar exercise, as is done with students, working on an image with encoded chemical meaning to help students decode chemical information from it. Here, teachers worked with a drawing of an ionic lattice model. We also presented an exemplary assessment task that chemistry students are asked to perform after this kind of exercise in which they use newly gained, verbally mediated representational competences for solving problems in chemistry, which require these competences (for more details, see the verbalization activity example in the SI). Similarly, a second lecture on the neuropedagogical aspects of the AI approach was given only after a second hands-on AI activity had also been performed by the teachers. We tried to apply the order of hands-on activities followed by lectures as much as possible while planning the timing for different modules throughout the course. Another aspect to which we paid close attention during adaptation was how teachers would share their AI learning outcomes with their peers. Thus, a total of 2 h each day was dedicated to peer sharing of newly generated knowledge and to conducting debates. In addition, teachers were encouraged to raise questions and share links, ideas, digital tools, and comments through the chat freely at any time. We thought that this allocation of time was the minimal acceptable amount that would enable teachers to speak freely and express any concerns about implementing the new approach in their classrooms. Using a free app (https://www.photocollage.com/), we generated, on the spot, collages from snapshots that teachers sent us of items that they produced from engaging in AI tasks, such as the “Chemists’ Museum” activity (Figure 5). Teachers were asked to use a black background, which was delivered in the kit, while taking their picture (item number 3 in Figure 3). In this activity, learners choose a chemical material (e.g., molecular, metallic, ionic, or covalent network) and are asked to create any object using the chosen material while paying attention to its properties, since they must deal with these material properties while crafting with the given material. Each creation represents the chosen material at the macroscopic level and is related to its properties. When this is done with students, they must prepare an accompanying written essay in which they explain in detail (according to the matriculation exam standards, connecting the macroscopic, microscopic, and symbol levels) how the properhttps://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c01341 J. Chem. Educ. 2021, 98, 2809−2819 ties of the material result from its microscopic structure. They must also discuss how these properties influenced the way in which they crafted, and what is the personal meaning they assign to their creation. Finally, an exhibition of the creations is organized, and students must defend their essays. Modifying AI Activities to Match RL As seen in the previous section, the adaptation of the course affected the way in which the AI activities were brought to and performed by teachers. During adaptation, we thought deeply about how the activities could be modified for RL while maintaining their pedagogical utility and value. As mentioned, the strategies presented here are a direct result of how the AI approach can support learning in chemistry, while considering the verbal/nonverbal thinking gap which may hinder the process of understanding and engaging in multilevel thinking. These difficulties are inherent in learning chemistry[10] and are therefore expected to prevail during RL. Thus, we scrutinized all activities to come up with ways of modifying them appropriately. The result was an expanded AI approach to teaching chemistry that allows the teacher to bring creative, active chemistry learning also online. During the course, we shared our insights with teachers to provide them with ideas about how activities can be performed online with students, and how to overcome the obstacles we encountered. Table 2 summarizes simple modification suggestions for different kinds of learning instruments. Prepare them as digital forms, such as Google assessment forms or something similar Convert to PowerPoint files, including small, numbered tiles: Students can match the cards by numbers and write their answers to the task in a separate document Use digital “annotate” tools to let students show their results or answers on shared screens Encourage students to prepare their own digital cards according to the instructions Mystery boxes/ Transform to PowerPoint presentations (the file includes all riddles parts of the mystery box/riddle) or Google forms (including pictures or short films and puzzles) When students are asked to design their own mystery boxes, they can also prepare them through a digital format and then their peers can solve them as well It was important for us to assess the experience that teachers had from participating in the course in its online format, as well as its perceived usefulness. Thus, immediately at the end of the course, the teachers completed a feedback questionnaire that consisted of 4 closed scaling questions and 10 open questions. In the scaling questions, scoring values ranged between 0 and 10, with 10 being the highest positive ranking. These questions were aimed at assessing, respectively: (1) the level of teachers’ interest in the course, (2) the extent to which the teachers learned new things during the course, (3) the extent to which the course was relevant to their chemistry teaching, and (4) the extent to which they thought they would implement the presented AI activities in their class. In order to gain a deeper understanding, we asked the teachers to explain why they gave a particular rank to each item with a corresponding open question. Out of 50 teachers, 48 completed the questionnaire. The average scores for these closed questions are presented in Figure 6. We also performed a general analysis of the answers to the open questions. Regarding topics or activities that they liked the most, the answers greatly varied, and we could not pinpoint a certain activity over others. All teachers (48) wrote that they would recommend participation in this course to other chemistry teachers. Teachers also reported their satisfaction with the course, indirectly, through various spontaneous testimonials that they wrote, sometimes not in relation to the issue that was being addressed by the question: “To be honest, I related to all the arts-integrating activities! [...] The topics in the f ield of neuropedagogy were very interesting too! They are very relevant to us. It is interesting to learn in this way about the magical human mind, and there is much more to learn about it. I really enjoyed the lectures and professionalism. Thanks so much to both of you!” Some teachers also expressed less positive opinions regarding certain aspects of the course. Some of the teachers who gave relatively lower scores to a possible implementation in class https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c01341 J. Chem. Educ. 2021, 98, 2809−2819 Article whether they incorporated social and/or active learning. Table 3 summarizes the assessment; the numerical figures correspond to the number of assignments that fully comply with the row category. Total wrote about time constraints and teaching crowded classes. Other teachers mentioned the lectures’ sections being long (in general, about 1 h). Others wrote that the course was too intense and that they expected to have more than three breaks throughout the day. Some mentioned that they would have liked to have had more time to “create” during the course. A few specifically reported difficulty in assimilating certain activities: “The picture of Dali (with the “horse”)... I had a hard time connecting to it. But the chemistry research aspect that can be done with this methodology is really varied. One may want to choose pictures that are easier for a logical person.” First, we analyzed the outcomes of two developing tasks that teachers were asked to hand in after the course, searching for internalization of the AI approach and for measuring the extent to which teachers applied it to RL while developing their own AI activities (although suitability for RL was not required). Out of the 50 participating teachers, 47 handed in both assignments. In the first developing task, teachers were asked to design a mystery box for their own students to solve and gain inquiry skills in the process. After solving the mystery box, students will be asked to design their own mystery box. During the course, the teachers experienced solving 4 different mystery boxes based on a hypothetical experiment on the adsorbing properties of activated charcoal pertaining to van der Waals interactions (see the mystery box activity in the SI). One of these boxes was physically included in the kit, whereas the other 3 were included as printouts (items number 4 and 1 in Figure 3); the boxes were also sent as a link to the PowerPoint files. In their developing task, teachers could choose any experiment that they had conducted with their students, on any curricular subject, to be the focus of their box (for the RL version of the “mystery box” activity as well as a full listing of the chemistry topics addressed by teachers in the submitted mystery boxes, see the SI). The second developing task was the teachers’ final assessment task; teachers had total freedom and could develop any kind of AI activity that also pertained to any subject in the chemistry curriculum. This developing task was accompanied by an essay discussing the supporting AI rationale and the neuropedagogical principles behind the activity and included a reflective paragraph. A full listing and a short description of each of the submitted final assignments is included in the SI. We assessed all handed-in assignments to determine whether they were suitable for online learning, whether they implemented either of the methodologies of the AI approach (“from art to chemistry” or “from chemistry to craft”), and Understanding the Course’s Impact on Teachers Five months after the end of the course, we asked the participating teachers to complete a short follow-up questionnaire, to which 23 teachers voluntarily replied. Out these 23, 16 had already implemented at least one AI activity with their classes when they completed the questionnaire, all through online platforms. Of the 7 teachers who reported not yet having implemented AI activities, 6 mentioned that they intended to implement them during this school year. Some mentioned that what had hindered them so far were cuts in teaching hours, inefficient division of students in capsules due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, or the work overload. The 16 teachers that had implemented the AI activities with their students reported, in total, that they brought a wide variety of activities: verbalization of images (6/16), “Research questions with Salvador Dali” (3/16), “Chemists’ Museum” (4/16), crafting 3D models (5/16), and self-developed AI task/mystery box (6/16). Some of them brought more than one activity, and many of them modified the activities to suit their needs: “I opened the chapter on ionic materials with the artwork description task; it was excellent! For molecular materials, we began by creating a shared f ile of a photograph collection of objects composed of molecular materials. The lesson was f un, and it beautif ully connected students to [the concept of ] variety. I didn’t make the very artistic board of objects that you suggested, but the shared f ile was great, in my opinion”. When asked about their students’ reaction to the AI activities, 14 teachers responded that their students collaborated, enjoyed themselves, and were engaged: “The students responded enthusiastically. I saw that they attempted to think outside the box. They tried to impress us with their creations. You could see they were thinking about designing the models. I think they were also excited about the fact that it’s an easier activity to get a high score...”. Two teachers reported that some students initially did not understand what the teacher had requested them to do but that they cooperated. When asked “To what extent did the course help you with remote teaching (RT)?”, the average score was 7, with a deviation of 2.4 (N = 23, the scale ranged from 0 to 10, 0 being “didn’t help at all” and 10 being “helped me greatly”). This scaled question was followed by an open question to elaborate on the score they gave. In their responses, teachers explained that the course was helpful regarding RT because it provided them with new ideas, perspectives, and diversity in implementation, because the AI activities were suitable and useful for RT, and because they got to be the “remote learner” during the course. Six out of 23 teachers gave a score of 5 or less on the RT Connecting chemistry to other subject areas “I dare now connect more between worlds. After the training it became more legitimate.” “I often look for connections between things around me and chemistry. The combination of art or craft in chemistry is very exciting for me.” Gained tools/ideas for “I was given new directions and ideas on how to renew my teaching. A more holistic thinking about teaching.” teaching “In the normal teaching I did not change. In the inquiry lab, yes, the course helped me a lot.” “I saw more of the connection between art and chemistry. I acquired new teaching tools.” Drive to do things differently “I now understand that, sometimes, doing things a little differently can lead to enjoyment in learning.” “The course gave me “approval” for the idea of using art at all sorts of stages in learning. I love it very much!” Increased awareness of the verbal/ nonverbal gap “I understand that the fact that I know how to understand a picture does not mean that it is so simple for the student. It is important to articulate what we see.” “There was a change in my approach to the skills required during the description. It was really meaningful to me.” Thinking introspectively about practice “Today I divide the lessons into more “subtopics” and try not to teach too many topics in one lesson. Sometimes I start something in the middle of the lesson, asking the students just to listen.” “Something changed in my perception; at first, I taught concepts that are very abstract for students; but I also learned. I didn’t understand why they don’t comprehend some of them, but today I understand the need to give them something tangible, an experiential link for internalizing and long-term storage.” aOut of the 23 teachers responding to the follow-up questionnaire, 20 answered the question reported in this table: “What changes have you undergone as a result of having participated in this course?” The categories here emerged from a content analysis of the responses. helpfulness scale. Some of them explained that although they gained certain skills and increased their repertoire, they did not feel that the course specifically dealt with online learning, or that they believed that the whole approach would work better faceto-face. To assess the course’s impact on the teachers’ practices, we asked them what changes they had undergone as a result of having participated in this course. Out of 23 teachers, 20 answered this question, and we organized some of their narratives according to the kind of change they reported. Table 4 shows some excerpts of the teachers’ narratives. In some cases, the narratives are intrinsically interconnected.
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