STR120: A Web-Based Board Game for Aiding Students in Review of the Structural Theory of Organic Compounds

This article provides information about designing, implementing, and evaluating an online cooperative gameVikings gameto assist high school and undergraduate students in reviewing contents related to thermochemistry, chemical equilibrium, and chemical kinetics. It is a free-of-charge game and is available in both English and Portuguese. The game was introduced into the classroom as an educational review tool, offering an innovative approach to supplement traditional problem-solving classes. Also, upon evaluating student learning, it became evident that the game significantly contributed to educational enhancement. The learners expressed highly favorable opinions about the game, considering it an innovative and valuable complementary didactic tool.

Section: General Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vikings: An Online Cooperative Game for Reviewing Thermochemistry, Chemical Equilibrium, and Chemical Kinetics

da Silva Júnior,

de Lima Castro,

Silveira Jucá

et al. 2024

“…Most recently, we published two papers , in this Journal covering the structural theory of organic compounds, including resonance, but not specifically on this theme. This scenario motivated us to create an educational game, 7 to Win, that would help students review organic species’ resonance concepts and develop their skills in drawing resonance structures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Web-Based Board Game for Aiding Students’ Review of the Resonance of Organic Compounds

da Silva Júnior,

Melo Leite Junior,

Alexandre

et al. 2024

Self Cite

Research indicates that students frequently struggle to apply their knowledge of organic compounds' structural theory to understand the concepts related to resonance and learn to use curved arrows to write resonance structures. Educators have developed educational tools and methodologies to aid students in overcoming their learning difficulties. This paper presents a virtual multilingual (English, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian) card game to assist undergraduate students in reviewing resonance concepts and practicing drawing resonance structures. The game was implemented in Introductory Organic Chemistry courses in Brazilian and Italian universities as a fun gamebased activity. The results showed that the game was evaluated positively by learners who considered it an alternative approach to traditional problemsolving classes.

“…Many researchers have developed games for chemical and biochemical education. Examples include card games to aid memorization, − quiz games, , board games with chemical challenges, − escape rooms, − narrative games, , murder mysteries, , and the use of ChemDraw as a game . Game writing has been used as an educational tool, while Lego and Lego Serious Play have been used to teach scientific concepts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Murder Mystery Gamification Session to Consolidate Analytical Biochemical Techniques Learning

Hill,

Harmer

2023

Gamification has a strong track record of improving student engagement and learning in the chemical sciences. Metaanalyses of different approaches to gamification have highlighted that providing a game fiction, encouraging students to work in teams, and breaking games into smaller "quests" are particularly effective. Here, we aimed to increase students' engagement and learning with four analytical biochemistry techniques (high-performance liquid chromatography, sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, Western blot, and mass spectrometry) by creating a game that required them to use every method to solve a "murder mystery". Our game was based on the popular games "Mafia" and "Among Us" and introduced an original game fiction relevant to our setting. Students attending the formative gamified session gave highly positive feedback. They indicated that they enjoyed the session and increased confidence in the methods involved. Free text comments praised many of the elements deliberately introduced into the game. To our surprise, the main criticism was that the session was not challenging enough. We developed a revised session that required students to undertake more detailed data interpretation, which students reported gave the expected increase in difficulty. All materials and code for running our session and generating new mysteries with original data are available online.