What are students’ learning and experiences in an online learning tool designed for cognitive and metacognitive skill development?

Abstract

Organic chemistry has its own representational language and as with any language, any barrier with the language makes understanding the message difficult. In this article, we describe the design of an open education resource that empowers students to master this language, the Organic Mechanisms module in orgchem101.com. We also describe the structure and findings of a pilot study designed to measure students’ learning and experiences using the module, with a focus on principles, structure, and key findings, rather than on the chemistry-specific elements.