LabSim: a fully featured laboratory simulator for innovative teaching of analytical chemistry
research: Seminar
LabSim: a fully featured laboratory simulator for innovative teaching of analytical chemistry
The introduction of innovative teaching strategies in the classroom is usually a hard process, because it requires significantly modifying the teaching approach, which has been tested and refined over the years according the classic concept of teacher-centered learning. Moving to student-centered teaching, which plays a pivotal role in innovative teaching techniques, requires radical changes in the teacher’s point of view, which need the study of novel technologies. This type of transition takes a long time to train the teacher, but new educational needs can accelerate dramatically this process such as the emergency remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To overcome the impossibility to teach the Pharmacy students of the University of Milan in a real analytical chemistry laboratory, LabSim program has been developed (https://www.ddl.unimi.it/labsim). In six month, a comprehensive VR-based simulator of qualitative inorganic chemistry has been completed and used to teach the students as early as January 2020. During virtual exercises, specifically prepared according to educational goals of the course, the students can collect information and data to promote not only their learning but also their critical thinking. LabSim software was successfully used also in two editions of the 4EU+ VIRTCHEM project (https://4euplus.eu), which is an innovative training course in chemistry thanks to the use of different types of VR programs for an immersive experience within the simulation of chemistry laboratories, industrial chemistry plants and the investigation of structure of molecules.
Biography
Alessandro Pedretti
Alessandro Pedretti was born in 1970. He received his degree in Medicinal Chemistry at University of Milan in 1995. After PhD studies with Prof. Luigi Villa, he became assistant professor in medicinal chemistry at University of Milan in 2001. In 2015 and 2023, he became respectively associate professor and full professor in medicinal chemistry at the same university. His interests mainly deal with computer programming applied in computational chemistry, realizing novel software tools for molecular modelling, docking analysis, QSAR and virtual screening. More in detail, he developed VEGA ZZ (available at www.vegazz.net), a software package able to build, visualize, optimize and analyze 3D structures. Thanks to its user-friendly graphic interface, this software has a large number of registered users (more than 26000), ranging from professional researchers to students, who are approaching the molecular modelling for the first time.
Finally, Alessandro Pedretti’s research activity led to more than 100 articles published in peer-reviewed international journals and 6 book chapters.
research: seminar
LabSim: a fully featured laboratory simulator for innovative teaching of analytical chemistry
The introduction of innovative teaching strategies in the classroom is usually a hard process, because it requires significantly modifying the teaching approach, which has been tested and refined over the years according the classic concept of teacher-centered learning. Moving to student-centered teaching, which plays a pivotal role in innovative teaching techniques, requires radical changes in the teacher’s point of view, which need the study of novel technologies. This type of transition takes a long time to train the teacher, but new educational needs can accelerate dramatically this process such as the emergency remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To overcome the impossibility to teach the Pharmacy students of the University of Milan in a real analytical chemistry laboratory, LabSim program has been developed (https://www.ddl.unimi.it/labsim). In six month, a comprehensive VR-based simulator of qualitative inorganic chemistry has been completed and used to teach the students as early as January 2020. During virtual exercises, specifically prepared according to educational goals of the course, the students can collect information and data to promote not only their learning but also their critical thinking. LabSim software was successfully used also in two editions of the 4EU+ VIRTCHEM project (https://4euplus.eu), which is an innovative training course in chemistry thanks to the use of different types of VR programs for an immersive experience within the simulation of chemistry laboratories, industrial chemistry plants and the investigation of structure of molecules.