The concept of chemical bonding is abstract and perceived as difficult. While it is a fundamental concept required to comprehend other chemistry topics, the learning outcomes are not always attained. Addressing this issue, our challenge was to create a learning intervention regarding a common, fundamental chemistry concept for students in a variety of undergraduate chemistry courses. We envisioned a learning product that invites students’ interest yet is challenging. This design case discusses the process, the literature that informs our design decisions, and strategies incorporated into the design of a learning object entitled Making Molecules: Dot Structures and Ionic Compounds to mitigate the learning issue. Discussion on the context of the project, design and development strategies, evaluation, and project reflection is presented as well.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.