Molecular animations have often been designed to help communicate information about the particulate nature of matter to help students make sense of macroscopic events such as experiments and demonstrations. While students make noticeable improvements in their molecular level explanations after viewing animations, they tend to change very general characteristics and expend less attentional effort on detailed features portrayed in the animation.  Experts often bemoan the fact that animations are models that are inherently simplified and flawed, but little has been done to challenge students to critique the models. In this study, three animations were designed to be in variance in their mechanistic portrayal of a redox reaction. Students were challenged to critique the plausibility of the animations as they fit with experimental evidence. The results from studies testing this method indicated that students needed more practice learning how to critique models in connection to macroscopic evidence. As a result, perspective videos were created that share commentary of how a student might make sense of the animations in connection to the evidence. During this talk, I will present how the perspective animations were created and how they affected students’ ability to critique information communicated in the contrasting animations. <br/>

Animation perspectives: Making sense of contrasting molecular animations through commentaries

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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