A Chemical Equilibrium teaching approach through POGIL active learning
Chemistry Teaching; Chemical Equilibrium; Active Methodologies; POGIL; Constructivism
The chemical equilibrium subject explains some of the chemical phenomena and is related to other fundamental concepts of the epistemological field of Chemistry. However, it presents many learning barriers, already widely reported in the literature.
We present a teaching proposal aiming to involve the students in the process of learning this subject, in a participatory and collaborative way, with the perspective of becoming a citizen endowed with intellectual autonomy and critical thinking.
The POGIL - Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning is the chosen active learning to be employed in the sequence of activities designed for the classroom and laboratory. The study was developed as qualitative research, having as participants subjects the teacher and students of the second grade of High School and Technical Work Safety in the Teônia Amaral State School, located in the city of Florânia–RN, Brazil.
Data collection were performed through questionnaires, pedagogical test, other documents, and participant observation. The set of the results revealed active participation of the students in the proposed activities. The students presented greater interaction between the peers and the researcher-teacher, a higher level of interest and commitment in the activities, as well as improved their skills to build the knowledge.
Activities with increasing levels of complexity, taking into account students' previous knowledge and discussions at the end of tasks, are promising to enhance the understanding of the qualitative aspects of chemical equilibrium. For the most part, the students were able to attribute dynamic behavior to the chemical equilibrium and could understand that reactants and products coexist in the same reaction vessel.
As an educational product of this work, we propose a guidebook for high school teachers, for developing the activities exploited here.