Model of simulator for the teaching of chemical distillation

Abstract

This paper discusses how an educational simulator was designed and developed to support the teaching - learning process in the topic of single and fractioned distillation in a chemistry's course, taking into account the importance of didactical units to plan syllabus and the way in which educational simulators can be integrated as tools for a course in order to enhance learning activities under a web learning environment. Moreover, this paper discusses how the constructivism pedagogical model and the problem-based learning model were used inside the simulator in order to propose a model that can be followed to design other educational tools for chemistry, and obtaining a simulator completely developed with open source software. The model proposed in this paper consist of three main components, which are the didactic unit, the educational simulator and the pedagogical and didactical approaches, those components are described and were defined taking into account teachers and student's needs in the topic mentioned. First of all, in this paper is described the problematic and background, followed by a description of didactic units and educational simulators. After that, there is a description of the solution proposed and finally the methodologies and outcomes are discussed.