Internet Resources

An Analysis of Chemistry Websites

Introduction:

A chemistry teacher, whether veteran or neophyte, will find that the internet can be his/her most valuable teaching resource. There are websites with lesson plans, websites with activities, websites with tests and quizzes, websites with history and concepts. There is a website for practically every chemistry-teaching need. However, as is the case whenever one uses the internet, one must be certain to always evaluate the useability and validity of the content within each website.

In addition, in thinking about what might be most useful for a teacher viewing this index of websites, I approached this from my standpoint, as a teacher new to teaching chemistry. I thought I would want to have a comprehensive list of useful sights, that covered a variety of topics, and in fairly large quantity, so that I could peruse and pick and choose, according to what my needs at the time might be. Therefore, rather than an in-depth look at just a few websites, I have chosen to provide an index of several dozen websites (collaboratively compiled by me, and my cohort-mates, Loreen Holstein and Jenny Line), with a brief description of each. In addition, while I have looked at all the websites, and feel that they are all rich and useful, I have chosen to add additional notation for whether each is primarily useful as a teacher resource, or is primarily useful as a student resource, for additional help, homework assignments or research (several are good for both teachers and students). Finally, in compiling the list, we attempted to include only websites that had a high level of interactivity, or were meant to promote interactive activities in the classroom.

Since this turned out to be quite a long and comprehensive list, I thought it would be useful to use Webb's Depth of Knowledge as a way of categorizing what types of teaching resources are available in each website. For those of you who are not familiar with Webb's Depth of Knowledge, it is a questioning system developed using Bloom's Taxonomy. However, rather than having six levels, there are only four. These four levels are 1) Recall and Reproduction, 2) Skills and Concepts, 3) Strategic Thinking and 4) Extended Thinking. Websites with Level One content would be good for introducing new information and establishing backgorund context. Websites with Level Two content would be good for developing skills and concepts (as indicated by its name). Level Three content would include activities and content that would have the students take the learned skill/concept to the next level. Labs and demonstrations would fall into the Level Three category. Level Four content would be websites that students would use for conducting research to add more information and new concepts to what they have already learned. Interestingly, I believe there is a strong correlation between these levels and the steps used in the POGIL approach to teaching concepts that we have been employing in the University of Pennsylvania MCEP program, and which I am absolutely going to start using in my classroom.

I hope this is a useful index, please let me know if any of the links are broken. My email is ksundeen@sas.upenn.edu.

Have fun exploring!

Click Here For the Table of Websites

List of Table Symbols

Level One Content - Information on this website is good for producing specific pieces of information and facts.	1
Level Two Content - Information on this website is good for helping to connect and reinforce concepts. Tutorial websites fall under this category.	2
Level Three Content - Information on this website is good for helping to elevate concepts to a higher understanding, and for connecting concepts with other concepts. Experiment and demonstration websites fall under this category.	3
Level Four Content - Information on this website is good for helping students to conduct research to find out more information on their own about concepts they have learned.	4
Good for teacher use
Good for student use

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