Application of contemporary education strategies to motivate students' interests in studying electrode equilibria and to develop lifelong learning skills

Abstract

The physical chemistry is one of the most important areas in A/L chemistry syllabus because it helps to interpret the activities of the real life situations. The concepts of physical chemistry can be related to day-to-day examples to make the subject interesting and to help students to grasp concepts at depth. Students who learn electrode equilibria in Physical chemistry for G.C.E. (A/L) are likely to experience some confusion and unexpected difficulty in learning through the prevailing teaching learning process in G.C.E. (A/L) chemistry classes. The work described here is an attempt to introduce a new method that can be carried out in the school classroom environment to develop the teaching learning process of electrode equlibria successful. It is hoped that such contemporary teaching approach would help the students to understand the electrode equlibria concepts better. Therefore, this study will help change the attitude of majority of A/L chemistry students who have a fear for physical chemistry by thinking that it is the most difficult area in A/L chemistry syllabus. According to the A/L chemistry syllabus the “electrode equlibria” lesson can be divided in to three parts. They are “electro chemical cell”, “electro chemical series”, and “electrolysis”. The multimedia facilities were used to teach “electrochemical cell” part and “electrolysis” part. Here the power point was used as the animation software. The hands on experience were given to introduce the “electro chemical series” part and a wall poster was used to get attraction from the students. A group activity was introduced to motivate the students in teaching learning process. The results were analyzed by considering the marks of a pre-test and a post-test. According to the analysis of the result of this research, it was found that such teaching method improves the learning ability of students. Enrichment of students with basic concepts of the subject matter could probably help students to have strength and confidence to apply knowledge to the problem solving in the chemistry subject as well as in their future endeavors.