Pedagogical research over the past decade has shown that chemistry courses have high failure rates and low accessibility. The implementation of novel active-learning approaches has great potential to offset these trends. Fundamental concepts that serve as "pinch points" are ripe targets for designing innovative, gamified course materials…

Herein we propose the implementation of an "escape room" activity to reinforce chemistry-related concepts for students of the Bachelor of Arts and Fashion. In this work, a combined online and offline activity is developed, easily adaptable to different environments. The online activity consists of 5 blocks of multiple-quiz questions…

Educational escape rooms are immersive puzzle-based games that rely on teamwork skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, and communication. This paper describes the development of desert island themed escape rooms in a blended learning environment using physical and online puzzles that were hosted on Genially. The blended escape rooms were…

Many studies have incorporated concept maps into digital games to enable learners to make connections between subject concepts in the game. However, most learners do not associate spontaneously with the thematic concepts in the game but need to be facilitated by effective scaffolding mechanisms to reconceptualize the learning process and content.…

Many scientific concepts and theorems are often abstract and challenging to relate to real-life problems, making it difficult for students to grasp them. Therefore, some researchers have attempted to enhance students' understanding by employing a contextual learning approach, which allows students to apply scientific knowledge to real situations…

Gamification has a strong track record of improving student engagement and learning in the chemical sciences. Meta-analyses of different approaches to gamification have highlighted that providing a game fiction, encouraging students to work in teams, and breaking games into smaller "quests" are particularly effective. Here, we aimed to…

This article presents and discusses the results of an educational innovation that seeks to introduce the world of molecular gastronomy in chemistry lessons as a means to review stoichiometry and offer an alternative way to learn. In the literature to date, there is no evidence of haute cuisine having been employed to contextualize stoichiometry…

An escape room uses a game-based active learning approach to develop students' critical thinking and problem-solving skills in an immersive environment. An escape room was developed to provide an innovative method to reinforce concepts in chemical bonding for a first-year general chemistry course. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was…

Novel assessment tools are more often used in class especially after the Bologna Process (Pereira, D.; Flores, M. A.; Niklasson, I. Assess. "Eval. Higher Educ." 2016, 41, (7), 1008-1032, DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2015.1055233) in Europe. "Kahoot" has emerged as an attractive and interactive gaming platform, and considerable…