Engaging Participation and Promoting Active Learning through Student Usage of the Internet To Create Notes for General Chemistry in Class

Reported here is a study of an interactive component to General Chemistry I and General Chemistry II where a new pedagogy for taking notes in class was developed. These notes, called key word created class notes, prompted students to locate information using the Internet guided by a key word. Reference Web sites were added to a next generation of key word creation class notes. It was shown through surveys that students felt it was easy to find the required information, and they felt confident that they located the correct information using the Internet. With the addition of the key word creation class notes, the number of students receiving grades of D or F, or withdrawing from the course, dropped 30.9%, which thus reduced attrition rates.