The Development Learning Activities Using Three Levels of Chemical Representation for Enhance Upper Secondary Students’ Organic Chemistry Concepts

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop chemistry learning activities using three levels of chemical representations for enhancing upper secondary students’ organic chemistry concepts. The three levels of chemical representations are an important framework in chemistry education. Many students held misconceptions in organic chemistry because of students’ incapability to connect among the three levels of chemical representations. Development chemistry learning activities using three levels of chemical representations started by analyzing the applications of such a framework in organic chemistry lessons. The teaching strategy would follow the Life-Observation-Notation or LON approach. Chemistry learning activities were developed and received a quality examination by three experts who have experience in teaching chemistry to assess the content validity that arranged the chemistry learning activities according to the content. There are many teaching strategies used in these learning activities, such as concept map, demonstration, analogy, and hands on activities were developed. The learning activities provide abilities to relating the phenomena at a macroscopic level to a microscopic and symbolic level. The learning activities are expected to develop students’ understanding of chemical phenomena and organic chemistry concepts.