The first seminar of the Fall Semester of 2019-2020 will be given by Assoc. Prof. Sevil Akaygün and Assoc. Prof. Emine Adadan.

The title of their talk is "Animation Challenge: Investigating the Effect of Critiquing the Animations in Variance on Preservice Teachers' Understanding of Redox Reactions."

Redox reactions have been found to be challenging for many students as they need to visualize the processes occurring among the particles, the invisible aspect of chemical phenomena. Dynamic visualizations, such as animations have been used in learning chemistry as they depict the interactions involving particles. Generally, in chemistry classes students are asked to watch animations but not necessarily asked to critique them. Yet, for conceptual understanding, it is important for learners to be mentally active and question. The aim of this study is to investigate how mental models of preservice chemistry and science teachers evolve after critiquing conceptually varying animations of redox reactions. In this study, variation theory was adopted as the conceptual framework because preservice teachers critiqued conceptually varied animations for a redox reaction while comparing them with their mental models. Twenty-seven chemistry and twenty science preservice teachers participated in a two-round study. In the first round, they first viewed an experimental video of a redox reaction. Then, they generated their own submicroscopic animations. Next, they viewed two submicroscopic animations; one of them was showing a scientific representation, and the other included a common alternative conception. Then, they wrote reflections by critiquing them and regenerated their own animations. In the second round, they repeated this sequence for another redox reaction; but viewed three submicroscopic animations; one scientific and two included alternative conceptions. About one week later, they were interviewed to obtain further information about their understandings. The four animations they generated, revealing their mental models, were coded and analysed to identify the level of their understanding either having scientific, moderate, weak or alternative understanding. The results of the study suggested that the majority of the preservice teachers improved their understanding towards more scientific understanding as they critique animations and revisit their mental models of redox reaction.