Practicing Multimodal Chemistry Communication through Online Collaborative Learning

The use of online collaborative assignments between three organic chemistry classrooms, two in the United States and one in Canada, was examined for impact on learners' communication abilities and confidence. Students were assigned a partner from another university and challenged to communicate over video chat to collaboratively solve problems for six weekly assignments in organic chemistry. One focus of the intervention was to aid in increasing student ability to communicate chemical concepts using verbal, written, and symbolic modes. In this chapter, we will discuss the focus of each assignment, identifying communication modes and how the assignments build in communication complexity. Postassignment reflections will also be described along with exemplary outcomes of student metacognition displayed through these reflections. © 2019 American Chemical Society.