ChemiPuzzle: A Tool for Assembling the Structure of Organic Compounds and Enhancing Learning through Gamification

摘要

Educational games are effective learning tools frequently used to motivate students and enhance their engagement in the learning process. Using these games in challenging courses, such as organic chemistry, creates a more engaging and student-friendly learning environment that can enhance students' learning. Drawing organic compounds and representing them in different forms is among the early skills students are urged to master in organic chemistry; therefore, failing to achieve this goal negatively affects the students' performance throughout the semester. ChemiPuzzle is a digital jigsaw puzzle consisting of pieces with atomic and bond symbols, developed to assist students in assembling the Lewis structure of organic compounds. ChemiPuzzle, Google Slides, and a free online buzzer tool were used to create the competition game that targeted multiple educational objectives and key concepts such as bond-line structures and condensed ones, formal charge, constitutional isomers, and resonance contributors. Evaluation of the pre-and postassessment results revealed a significant enhancement in one of the learning outcomes (resonance vs constitutional isomers), and a less significant change has been detected for the others since the preassessment results for these questions were already high. Students' evaluations of the different game's aspects were positive and highly encouraging, and this prompted us to convert ChemiPuzzle into an online tool that can be freely accessed and used in different learning activities.