THE USE OF MIX PLATFORM FOR ORGANIZING BLENDED LEARNING IN TEACHING GENERAL CHEMISTRY TO STUDENTS OF ENGINEERING SPECIALTIES

The relevance of the article is stipulated by the fact that systematic studies on blended learning in teaching Chemistry in higher educational establishments are not thoroughly presented. The expediency of implementation of flipped classroom model in teaching General Chemistry to the prospective engineers is substantiated. It is found that mixing of traditional (in person) and distance learning is one of the most common blended combinations. The models for blended learning, which are classified according to the ratio of the traditional form of education to the electronic one and the degree of students' independence during educational material assimilation, are presented. Within the framework of the pedagogical experiment, the flipped classroom model has been chosen since its implementation does not require any changes in the curriculum. During the pedagogical experiment, educational and methodological materials have been placed on the MIX platform of Sumy State University electronic resource. The model for studying topics on General Chemistry is proposed. The analysis of the results of the pedagogical experiment has shown the following: 1) the achievements of students from experimental groups is significantly higher than those from control ones; 2) students consider blended learning to be modern, convenient and more effective; 3) when working independently with electronic resources students prefer the presentation with audio and video accompaniment to text material, although the latter is well illustrated; 4) to motivate students to work regularly and independently, it is advisable to introduce a coefficient (we have 1.5), which multiplies all the marks for a particular topic, in case a student has independently passed the test on a new topic by at least 60%. The use of flipped classroom blended learning model in General Chemistry teaching enhances the efficiency of educational process, as well as prospective engineers' acquisition of subject competence in General Chemistry. Dispersive analysis of the pedagogical experiment results has shown their validity.