Using Touch-Screen Technology, Apps, and Blogs To Engage andSustain High School Students’ Interest in Chemistry TopicsHeejoo Kim,† Priya Chacko,† Jinhui Zhao,† and Jin Kim Montclare*,†,‡

†Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, New York University Polytechnic School of Engineering, Brooklyn, NewYork 11201, United States‡Department of Biochemistry, SUNY-Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York 11203, United States

*S Supporting Information

ABSTRACT: As part of an outreach program, we integrated chemistry apps with blogging to enhance the learning experience ofstudents in and outside the classroom. Our outreach program involved college mentors who participated in the development andimplementation of chemistry lessons alongside the classroom teacher. Three technology-rich modules that focused on molecules,balancing equations, and nuclear chemistry were taught to high school students. Feedback-oriented and interactive lessonsthrough apps with blogging were used to engage the students with the instructors as well as their peers. The combination ofblogging with interactive apps increased student involvement and sustained their interests in the chemistry topics covered by themodules. The students were divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental groups were required to use theblog, where students viewed the questions and uploaded their answers and comments. The control group did not have access tothe blog during the modules. Performance, class participation, and interest in STEM fields by the groups were examined. Thestudents received a personalized, interactive learning experience in chemistry, the college mentors gained teaching and mentoringexperience, and the teacher received assistance in implementing technology in the classroom.

KEYWORDS: High School/Introductory Chemistry, Upper-Division Undergraduate, Multimedia-Based Learning,Communication/Writing, Humor/Puzzles/Games, Women in Chemistry, Periodicity/Periodic Table, Lewis Structures,Minorities in Chemistry

As technology evolves, people’s means of acquiring, using,and sharing information evolve as well. For example, the

Internet provides a system for communication, and it hasshown both positive and negative outcomes for individuals andcommunities.1 Some have argued that Internet use can result inthe elimination of face-to-face meetings and interactions leadingto a lack of social bonds.1 Recently, however, researchers havediscovered that Internet-based interactions can act as a bridgebetween individuals with online relationships through socialnetworking services such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, andothers allowing individuals to maintain relationships easily andinexpensively.1 According to the research by Boase et al., peopleuse the Internet to put their social networks into motion whenthey need help with important issues in their lives.2 Socialnetworks have become crucial to society, allowing individuals toconnect with other people and experts to help them makechoices.2

Blogs, short for “weblogs”, are personalized Web sites wherethe author can post text, videos, audio files, and pictures toengage others on the Internet.3,4 Traditionally, one or moreauthors compile them, and readers of the blog can leave theircomments on specific entries, or blog posts.4 Blogs areespecially useful in sharing information and fostering discussionbetween viewers and the author (the “blogger”).4 Since thereare many sites available for creating blogs, it does not requireknowledge of Web design.4 The use of blogging beyond socialnetworking is currently being exploited in the field of science.5

Blogging has been adopted for sharing news, views on researchprojects, and pedagogical ideas and practices.5 In fact, major

science and education publication also run blog sites.5−8 Sincescience concept familiarization, including science language andcritical thinking development, is the key intent of our program,we chose to incorporate blogging into the chemistry classroom.However, to our knowledge, blogs have not been usedexclusively in high-school science classrooms. As touch-screentechnologies are successful in generating and sustaining studentinterest as well as enhancing learning through multiple senses,we have employed iPads as the vehicle for blogging in theclassroom.9,10 In this paper, we report on an outreach programthat incorporates blogs with chemistry lessons to increasestudent interest and performance in high school chemistrytopics.Our program has had a long-standing collaboration with the

Urban Assembly Institute of Mathematics and Science forYoung Women (UAI).9,11 Two female college students wereselected to serve as mentors for the program. One mentor was asenior and worked as a teacher’s assistant as well as a teacher atSaturday School in the Goshen Child School; she was part ofthe program the previous year. The other mentor was a juniorwho had previous teaching experience as a tutor in biology andchemistry. There were approximately 71 female students in the10th grade at UAI, of which 89% were African-American and11% were Latino. All the parents of the students at UAI signeda standard Department of Education release form enabling usto request and report feedback from the chemistry students.12

The program was conducted with the objectives to (1) help

Published: September 29, 2014

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close the classroom-technology gap by developing specificlesson plans through the use of blogs, (2) assist a chemistryteacher with particularly difficult topics in high-schoolchemistry, (3) encourage young underrepresented women topursue science and engineering careers by increasing theirinterest in the sciences (through the use of novel technology-oriented classroom activities and teaching from female collegementors), and (4) publicize the results and modules for thebenefit of the field of chemical education. All the lessons thatwere used to achieve this are included, along with teacher’smanual, as Supporting Information.

■ THE PROCESS

Throughout the 2012−2013 school year, the college mentorsworked closely with the teacher to determine the chemistrysubject areas in which students needed the most help andreinforcement. Three lessons (“modules”) were developed withthe intent of subject reinforcement, increasing and sustaininginterest in chemistry and science, and preparing students forthe New York State Regents Examination in Chemistry. Theselessons were performed on select days in March, April, and Mayof 2013. All three modules involved students viewing andsolving problems as well as sharing their answers on the blog. Inorder to engage students with the blog, it was explicitly countedas class participation. Each module began with a 7 minintroduction by the teacher on the topic followed by a 5 minintroduction by the college mentors on the technical aspects ofthe activity. While the first two modules employed specificapps, the last module involved educational video clips thestudents watched, followed by an activity related to the video.Students were allowed to work by themselves, in pairs, or insmall groups of up to 3 people (there were four classes withapproximately 17 people in each class). The student mentorsand the teacher were available to assist and guide studentsthrough technical difficulties as well as questions on the blogcontent. Evaluations were distributed and collected after each60 min lesson and were used to improve the subsequentmodule. This feedback-modulated classroom enhancement wasadopted based on success in previous projects.9,11,13−15

■ THE BLOG

Our blog, called “RediscoverChemistry”, was created viablogger.com (Figure 1).The college mentors were the administrators of the blog and

posted the module introduction, questions, and other content.The two mentors developed the concept for the blog and itscontent collaboratively. Links to helpful, educational chemistryvideos as well as supplementary questions related to themodule were made available for the students to completeoutside of class (Supporting Information). The blog could beviewed by anyone, but the administrators of the blog had theauthority to approve the comments. This function was helpful,as it reduced plagiarism because students were not able to viewtheir peers’ answers until after class, when the comments wereapproved. The students used their school-provided Gmailaccounts to login and leave comments on the blog. Startingwith the second module, GoogleDoc Surveys were employed tosubmit comments to address the slow WiFi connection in theclassroom. Upon submission of answers via GoogleDocs, asummary of the results was posted after the module. Whilework on the blog and modules started in September 2012 and

continued until May 2013, a pilot study was performed in the2011−2012 academic year (Supporting Information).

■ THE MODULESThe first module, “Lewis Dots”, was adopted from our previouswork.1 The Lewis Dots App,16 available on the Apple iTunesstore, provided students insight into Lewis Dot structures andthe basics of bonding (such as sharing electron pairs, valenceelectrons, and ionic vs covalent bonding). Module 1 from theLewis et al. paper1 was directly posted on the blog, and studentscould use the iPad to make molecules and explore interatomicbonding relationships with the Lewis Dots App. In addition,students could post pictures of their molecules on the blog.Completion of the activity involved answering the questions onthe blog, saving screenshots of the molecules made on theLewis Dots App, and filling in a puzzle to reveal a chemistryjoke.The second module, “Balancing Equations”, was incorpo-

rated in the classroom to allow students to practice balancingvarious types of equations, such as single and doublereplacement, combustion, and redox reactions. Joe Scrivens’s“Balancing Equations” App was used.17 This app possesses over100 equations, which appear in a random order. In the “Home”screen of the app, students could choose from balancing 10, 20,50, 75, and even 100 equations in one session. When thestudent tapped “Start,” an equation with only chemical formulasand spaces in front of each chemical formula (where thecoefficients of the equations should have been) appeared, alongwith the numbers 1−9 beneath the equation. The student couldthen drag the numbers to the spaces to balance the givenequations. When finished, the student could check the equationand resubmit her answer if it was wrong. After practicingbalancing equations with the app, students were given 10 newequations to balance and given 10 min to finish them. Theresults were submitted via a private GoogleDoc survey. Afterthe submission, a summary of the survey answers was posted onthe blog and students were instructed to provide their opinionof the module and results via the blog.For the last module, “Nuclear Chemistry,” students watched

two educational video clips from a Web site called “EducationPortal”.18 The first video covered three different types ofradioactive decay and their effects on the nucleus. The secondvideo focused on balancing nuclear equations and predicting

Figure 1. Screenshot of “RediscoverChemistry” blog from http://polycbtl.blogspot.com.

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the products of a nuclear reaction. Students took notes whilewatching the videos and used the notes to answer the modulequestions via a GoogleDoc survey. After the submission, asummary of the survey was posted on the blog and studentswere instructed to comment and ask questions via the blog.While the first module was employed previously and

modified for integration with the blog, the other two moduleswere newly developed based on the request of the teacher. Bothbalancing equations and nuclear chemistry, in addition tomolecular bonding, were challenging topics for the students.Thus, these technology-dependent modules emphasizing blog-based interactions were implemented to help engage thepredominantly underrepresented female students.

■ PERFORMANCE AND EVALUATIONSFour classroom groups, consisting of 71 total students, wereinvolved in the program. These groups were divided randomlyinto experimental and control groups for the modules. Theexperimental groups were required to use the blog, wherestudents viewed the questions, uploaded their answers, andcommented. The control group did not have access to the blogduring the modules. Rather, they were handed a physicalworksheet with the same questions as the experimental group.All other components of the program, such as the apps,educational video clips, and teacher and mentor support, werekept the same in the experimental and control groups.The class blog was created and the experimental group was

given access to the blog via iPads (Figure 1).19 The studentswere able to post and view entries using their Gmail accounts.The students answered questions as comments, but they couldnot be viewed until a teacher or mentor approved the commentfor public display. When students posted their answers ascomments, the results only appeared on the administrator’sdashboard. In order for the comments to be posted publically,the administrator could select the “Approve” button. As for thesecond and third module, students were asked to submit theiranswers through a GoogleDoc survey, which minimized thesubmission time. While students could not view their peers’comments, after submission they were able to check andcompare the answers among themselves from the pickedsubmission summaries as well as provide feedback to theirclassmates’ answers. The students also could share usefulscience resources, post their thoughts, and ask or answerquestions on the modules. By contrast, the control groupanswered the same questions on worksheets and had no chanceto share or compare with their classmates. Since bloggingallowed the experimental group to be more involved incontributing and interacting with classmates, they wereexpected to perform better in terms of engagement in science,class participation, and understanding the topics.Each module was graded and evaluated by the TAs. The

experimental group showed better performance on the first twomodules than the control group. For the experimental group,average grades of module 1 and 2 were 80.5% and 94.6%,respectively. While the control groups’ average grade of module1 and 2 were 76.1% and 91.7%, respectively (Figure 2). Bycontrast, for module 3, the control group showed betterperformance with 72% versus 69% demonstrated by theexperimental group. Overall, there was a slightly improvedperformance by the group exposed to technology and blogging.To assess whether each module was able to engage the

students and investigate the effects of blogs and apps, studentswere required to fill out evaluations immediately after the

completion of each module. This provided valuable feedbackon the lessons and the program overall.6

The evaluation for module 1 showed the significantdifferences in class participation for the experimental groupand control group. While the 79% of experimental groupstudents answered that they contributed and asked questionsduring the module, 33% of the control group studentsanswered likewise. Most of the control group (40%) answeredthat they did not contribute but asked questions (Figure 3).

Both the experimental and control groups showed similarlevels of interest in STEM. Approximately 23% of theexperimental group and 19% of the control group answeredthat the module had triggered their interest in science and thatthey would like to work or study in a STEM related field lateron (Figure 4). Most of the students for both groups (42% ofthe experimental group and 69% of the control group)answered that they were not sure but enjoyed the module.For the second module, slightly higher levels of class

participation of 71% were demonstrated in the control groupwhen compared to the experimental group (66%) (Figure 3).However, the experimental group showed higher levels ofinterest in STEM fields than the control group. Specifically,31% of the experimental group students exhibited interest infuture STEM fields whereas only 13% of control group studentsanswered that module 2 inspired their interest in sciencecareers for the future (Figure 4).

Figure 2. Students’ performances on each module.

Figure 3. Students’ participation during modules 1, 2, and 3.

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The third module evaluations illustrated consistently highlevels of class participation for the experimental group (64%answered they participated and answered questions); however,the control group demonstrated a lower degree of participation(53%, Figure 3). More students in the control group answeredthat the teacher and mentors did the talking most of the time(20% of control group and 7% of experimental group).Interestingly, both groups showed similar levels of interestwhere 33% of the experimental group and 29% of the controlgroups answered that module 3 had triggered their interest inscience (Figure 4). Consistently, more than 60% of theexperimental group students believed that they participated andcontributed in class (Figure 5).

The experimental group students felt that they were moreinvolved with the lessons and had contributed to the class viablogging. Moreover, the experimental group demonstrated anincreasing level of interest in STEM highlighted by an upwardtrend (Figure 6).While the control group also completed the modules, they

showed inconsistent levels of class participation (Figure 5).Overall, the class participation of the control group changedaccording to the interest level in the topics; they exhibited themost interest in balancing equations leading to a high level ofparticipation. This inconsistency was also manifested in theirlevel of interest in STEM; a decrease in interest was observedafter completing module 2 (Figure 6).To evaluate the impact of blogging on performance, the

overall course grade for the students most active on the blog

was assessed relative to the overall class average. The mostactive students on the blog had the most number of entries onthe blog over the course of the school year. The class averagefor the year was 72% ± 11%, but the five students who weremost active on the blog had an average grade of 84% ± 2%(Figure 7).

This trend indicated that as students participated more inblogging, their grades improved. The students who mostactively blogged achieved grades greater than one standarddeviation than the class average grade, demonstrating thatblogging was an effective tool for teaching chemistry.

■ DISCUSSIONTo extend learning beyond the classroom, we chose toincorporate the element of blogging, where students’ accessto classroom materials was not limited to the 60 min confinesof a class period. Furthermore, through the incorporation ofblogging in our mentoring program, students engaged incollaboration by allowing them to comment on and work withstudents who were not part of their class or group.From the results, we found that blogging helped students to

engage in the topics presented in the modules in and outsidethe classroom. According to the data, the experimental group(bloggers) showed consistent high levels of class participationand contribution and also exhibited high interest levels in thetopics covered. While the control group also demonstratedinterest in certain topics and pursing STEM because of the iPadApp integration, their participation and the STEM interestfluctuated (Figures 5 and 6).Blogging was the essential part of the experimental group’s

increasing interest level and participation. Students understood

Figure 4. Students’ interest in future STEM field after modules 1, 2,and 3.

Figure 5. Class participation and contribution level trend for bothexperimental and control groups.

Figure 6. Trend of both groups’ interest in future STEM field.

Figure 7. End of year class averages for all 71 students and the fivemost active bloggers.

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that the contribution to the blog had a direct benefit.20−22 Theshared part of the blog brought the students together and madethem feel that they were “working together,” whichconsequently increased their involvement, and by activelyblogging, these students were able to achieve higher gradesmore consistently than the control group or the infrequentbloggers.

■ PROGRAM OUTCOMESThe modules implemented in the program had positive impactson the students, teachers, and college mentors. The studentsfrom UAI were able to review and reinforce challengingchemistry topics in and out of the classroom. The hands-onmodules in conjunction with advanced technology encouragedstudents to learn science and adopt important technical skills.Students could apply what they learned from the modules toanswer questions on the Regent Examinations. Students fromboth groups could receive one-on-one help from the collegementors, peer support through the blog, and support to pursueSTEM in their future. Overall, the students participating in thisprogram exhibited improved engagement in science, classparticipation, and understanding of the topics. The collegementors gained valuable experience sharing their knowledgeand mentoring the students to engage in science. Theclassroom teacher was able to implement technology-richmodules in the classroom to further engage her students withthe lessons she taught.

■ ASSOCIATED CONTENT*S Supporting Information

Information about the pilot study that tested the initialassumptions stated in this paper as well as justification formodifications to the modules from the pilot study to theexperimental stage of examination and the Teacher’s Manualcontaining instructions, questions, and answers keys for theLewis Dots, Balancing Equations, and Nuclear Chemistrymodules. This material is available via the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.

■ AUTHOR INFORMATIONCorresponding Author

*E-mail: montclare@nyu.edu.Notes

The authors declare no competing financial interest.

■ ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThis program was supported by the Teagle Foundation and theNational Science Foundation (NSF, Grant DMR-1205384), aswell as partially by the MRSEC Program of the NSF underAward Number DMR-0820341. We are also particularlygrateful to Jessica Chen, the UAI Chemistry teacher, andCarlo Yuvienco, the app developer.

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