The Learning-style-based Approach and Optimal Use of e-Resources in

Teaching Ecological Disciplines

Tetiana M. Derkach

1 a

, Tetiana V. Starova

2 b

and Alexander V. Krajnikov

3 c

Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design, 2 Nemyrovycha-Danchenka Str., Kyiv, 01011, Ukraine

Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, 54 Gagarin Ave., Kryvyi Rih, 50086, Ukraine

Frantsevych Institute for Problems of Materials Science, 3 Krzhizhanivsky Str., Kyiv, 03142, Ukraine

Keywords:

Learning Styles and Preferences, Electronic Resources, Teaching Ecological Chemistry, Plant Pollution.

Abstract:

The paper aims to optimise electronic resources used in teaching ecological chemistry following the educa-

tional preferences of students. An approach is used to select e-resources in accordance with the available

individual learning preferences of students, teaching styles of teachers and the content of the discipline. The

R. Felder and B. Soloman model studied the learning preferences of students of Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical

University majoring in chemistry and informatics and students of Kyiv National University of Technologies

and Design majoring in industrial pharmacy. Most students in both groups study visually, sensitively, ac-

tively and sequentially. Didactic materials on the theme “Ecological chemistry of the lithosphere” of the con-

tent module “Ecological chemistry of environmental objects” were elaborated according to student groups’

learning proﬁles. Expanding the content of the course of ecological chemistry is proposed by including an

additional topic on the problems of environmental pollution of medicinal plants. The new topics’ content is

considered to better match the educational material with the prevailing sensitive learning style in most stu-

dents and simultaneously strengthen the ecological component and form the necessary competencies in future

professionals. Forms of work that involve the use of different cognitive functions are described and therefore

contribute to their balanced development. It allows a person to be ﬂexible in the unrestrained development of

technological progress, be open to different ways of obtaining information, and perceive it without resistance

and stress.

1 INTRODUCTION

Sustainable development of society implies the devel-

opment of the economy, which provides natural sys-

tems’ ability to recover and exist stably. Under such

conditions, resources are used to meet human needs

without erosion of natural systems’ integrity and sta-

bility. The goals in sustainable development, formu-

lated at the UN level, aim to solve global problems.

One such global goal is to make people aware of their

responsibility for the results of their activities.

Education for sustainable development is deﬁned

as education that guarantees knowledge, skills, values

and views to ensure a more sustainable and fair soci-

ety. Education should train professionals to address

the growing and changing environmental challenges

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1087-8274

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7995-3506

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1546-1670

facing the planet (Ashford, 2004). Accordingly, ed-

ucation must change to provide knowledge and atti-

tudes that will enable students to contribute to sus-

tainable development. At the same time, education

should be strengthened in all programs and activities

that promote sustainable development. Sustainable

development must be integrated into education, and

education must be integrated into sustainable devel-

opment.

The educational process organisation needs to be

changed because each individual’s development must

become “sustainable”. Student understanding of the

ecological consequences of people’s activities in ev-

ery day and productive spheres of their lives should

also become deep and internal. During the integra-

tion of appropriate approaches into training, the au-

thors tried to move in two directions. The ﬁrst is to

improve or change the forms and methods of learning,

creating conditions for individuals’ sustainable devel-

opment. The second direction changes the content of

Derkach, T., Starova, T. and Krajnikov, A.

The Learning-style-based Approach and Optimal Use of e-Resources in Teaching Ecological Disciplines.

DOI: 10.5220/0010924600003364

In Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology (AET 2020) - Volume 1, pages 381-399

ISBN: 978-989-758-558-6

381

academic disciplines by ﬁlling academic programmes

with factual data. Such data should reﬂect the actual

state of things in the real world. They should illustrate

the relationships in the chain of human activities – the

state of the environment (controlled or uncontrolled

changes) – result (risks and dangers for people).

Concerning the ﬁrst approach, teachers should pay

more attention to students’ learning styles. Education

for sustainable development provides an exciting vi-

sion of an interdisciplinary and learner-centred way

to empower students to advance a pro-social and en-

vironmental agenda in their organisations, communi-

ties and personal lives. Introducing a student-centred

higher education model requires considering the sub-

ject’s preferences regarding study methods (Saarinen

et al., 2020; Damsa and de Lange, 2019; Gao, 2014).

Such an approach will allow students to use their

available cognitive functions and improve their gnos-

tic functions to develop rapidly.

Students differ signiﬁcantly in the speed and man-

ner in which they master new information and the

conﬁdence they process and use it (Lee et al., 2010;

Cofﬁeld et al., 2004). With the development of in-

formation and communication technologies (ICT),

the range of electronic resources (e-resources) and

tools that are used or can be used in the educa-

tional process signiﬁcantly expands (Osadcha et al.,

2020; Kholoshyn et al., 2020). Such a statement is

especially true of teaching natural sciences (Nechy-

purenko et al., 2020b; Modlo et al., 2020). Accord-

ingly, the problem of individual perception of students

of different resources is becoming increasingly im-

portant.

The modern education paradigm also promotes in-

terest in learning preferences to develop the necessary

attitudes and skills of lifelong learning, especially in

the context of the need to “learning to learn.” The

logic of lifelong learning assumes that students gain

more motivation to learn if they know their strengths

and weaknesses in the learning process. In turn, if

teachers can respond to people’s strengths and weak-

nesses, student achievements are likely to increase.

Learning to learn skills can be the basis for life-

long learning. Students become independent in their

learning if they know their strengths and weaknesses.

The adverse effects of reduced contact between lec-

turers and students with introducing new ICTs will

be balanced by a more effective learning strategy that

students can use outside the classroom.

Attempts have long been known to take the prob-

lem of academic achievement beyond simple solu-

tions, such as the connection with intelligence or

previous academic achievements (Childs-Kean et al.,

2020; Cassidy, 2004; Pashler et al., 2008). One such

concept used in determining the factors inﬂuencing

the effectiveness of learning is learning style. Since

learning styles were investigated in a massive amount

of research, there are many deﬁnitions, theoretical po-

sitions, models, interpretations, and construction di-

mensions. For example, the review (Cofﬁeld et al.,

2004) lists 71 models of learning styles with differ-

ent applications – from pedagogy to commercial use

for testing propensity to professions, particularly on-

service training, the management or professional de-

velopment courses and more.

At the same time, there is criticism of the very

concept of learning styles (An and Carr, 2017; New-

ton, 2015; Wininger et al., 2019). The very idea of

a variety of approaches to learning among students

is usually not criticised. The concept of correlation

between learning styles, teaching methods and aca-

demic performance is more often criticised. A large

number of model ideas about learning styles is a natu-

ral consequence of extensive empirical research. This

situation can be expected for any continually evolv-

ing concept. However, the level of ambiguity and dis-

cussion is so high that even the task of choosing the

appropriate tool or model to use is burdensome.

Teachers in all ﬁelds are increasingly aware of

the critical importance of understanding how peo-

ple learn. It is equally important that any attempts

to integrate learning style into educational programs

are made from an informed position. According to

(Cofﬁeld et al., 2004), the vast majority of models

of learning styles can be divided into ﬁve groups.

This distribution covers more than 50 different mod-

els. Each group is characterised by the presence of

several well-developed and popular theories. Some

of them, which are decisive in the distribution of ﬁve

groups, are listed below.

1. Constitutionally-based learning styles and prefer-

ences including the four modalities: visual, audi-

tory, kinaesthetic, tactile (Dunn and Dunn, 1992;

Gregorc, 1984);

2. Cognitive structures which are reﬂected in learn-

ing styles (Riding, 2002);

3. Learning styles are one component of a relatively

stable personality type (Apter, 2001; Jackson and

Lawty-Jones, 1996; Myers and McCaulley, 1998);

4. Learning approaches, strategies, orientations and

conceptions are considered instead of learning

styles (Entwistle, 2018; Sternberg, 1999; Ver-

munt, 1996);

5. Flexibly stable learning preferences (Allinson and

Hayes, 1996; Mayer, 1993; Herrmann, 1996;

Honey and Mumford, 2000; Kolb, 2000).

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382

Each group is based on different assumptions.

Some theories are based on studies of brain func-

tion. Accordingly, speciﬁc nerve activity associated

with learning can be detected in different areas of the

brain. Other inﬂuential ideas come from established

psychological theories. Learning styles are believed

to be formed based on the ﬁxed traits and intellec-

tual abilities of individuals. Therefore, styles can be

accurately identiﬁed and then reliably measured us-

ing psychological tests. Test results predict behaviour

and learning achievements.

In contrast to the above models, other theories

avoid all notions of individual features. Attention is

focused on the contextual and situational nature of

learning. Such models prefer to study the biography

of an individual rather than styles or approaches.

Very popular are models that present learning

styles as “ﬂexibly stable”. Previous learning ex-

periences and other environmental factors may cre-

ate preferences, approaches, or strategies rather than

styles. Therefore, styles can vary from context to con-

text or even from task to task. Sufﬁciently reliable

tools for diagnosis and predictions can be created and

used to improve student’s learning level. In this ap-

proach, learning style is not a ﬁxed feature but a di-

verse differential advantage in learning, which varies

slightly from situation to situation. At the same time,

there is some long-term stability in the learning style.

Models of learning styles as ﬂexibly stable prefer-

ences, which are usually well adapted for teaching

natural and technical disciplines (Felder and Silver-

man, 1988; Felder and Spurlin, 2005), will be used

in this paper. According to this approach, one should

ﬁrst understand the learning preferences of individual

students and the preferred learning style of a whole

student group (Alzain et al., 2018, 2016).

Previous research corroborated the existence of

correlations between student learning styles and their

preferences in choosing e-learning resources. The

use of e-resources, which can be called sensitive to

learning style, is widespread in natural sciences, such

as chemistry, biology, physics, ecology, engineering

(Derkach and Starova, 2017; Derkach, 2018, 2019;

Nechypurenko et al., 2018, 2020a). This fact must

be taken into account when organising training.

Regarding the course content changes, a clear and

essential from a practical viewpoint is the introduc-

tion into the curriculum of data on environmental pol-

lution of wild medicinal plants. In Ukraine, industrial

pollution of rivers, soils, and consequently plants is a

serious problem. By some estimates, about 25% of

the drugs used worldwide are directly obtained from

medicinal plants. In Ukraine, approximately 50% of

the bulk medicinal herb feedstock are cultivated un-

der controlled conditions. At the same time, the rest

belongs to wild plants.

However, the number of certain types of medicinal

plants is decreasing, and the natural reserves of some

wild species are entirely or partially depleted. About

200 species are listed in the Red Book of Ukraine,

and more than 70 are regionally rare (Minarchenko,

2014). Many wild medicinal plants have limited re-

sources. More than 50% of them are signiﬁcantly

distributed but grow scattered or sporadically. Har-

vesting of such plants in natural places of growth is

unproﬁtable. The shortage of plant raw materials is

due to the ecological load, changing climatic condi-

tions, and anthropogenic factors. In addition to re-

ducing plants’ natural habitat, damaged ecology also

deteriorates their quality due to contamination with

various pollutants.

In summary, the optimal organisation of the ed-

ucational process ensures the acquisition by future

professionals of the competencies necessary for the

work and organisation of production and technology

in a sustainable society. Optimisation of the educa-

tional process concerns both the methods and educa-

tional resources and the studied disciplines’ content.

Considering the learning styles inherent in individual

students provides individualisation of education while

increasing the effectiveness of learning.

This work aims to identify ways to modernise

the educational environment of universities to imple-

ment the philosophy of sustainable development in

the competence of future graduates of the Faculty of

Natural Sciences. First, the prevailing learning styles

of student groups majoring in chemistry and informat-

ics will be determined. Then the acquired knowledge

will be used in optimising teaching methods in study-

ing ecological chemistry.

2 EXPERIMENTAL

2.1 General Scheme of Experiment

The central part of the experiments was performed at

Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University (KSPU). To-

tally 61 persons, including ten male and 51 female,

participated in the experiment. They were virtually

all ﬁrst- to ﬁfth-year students of the Faculty of Natu-

ral Science of two admission years. They took un-

dergraduate or graduate courses majoring in chem-

istry and informatics. Senior students studied the

integrated course “Ecochemistry and Environmental

Monitoring” in the 4th year of study. Junior students

have not yet begun to study it.

The experiment consists of three stages. At ﬁrst,

The Learning-style-based Approach and Optimal Use of e-Resources in Teaching Ecological Disciplines

383

the dominant learning styles were studied for all stu-

dents who participated in the experiment at the KSPU.

The variability of learning styles was studied depend-

ing on students’ gender, age and study year. Based on

the results of measuring the preferences of individu-

als, educational proﬁles were developed for student

groups.

The course “Ecochemistry and Environmental

Monitoring” consisted of 18 lecture hours and 72

hours of laboratory works. This course fruitfully links

theoretical knowledge of chemistry and its practical

application. It included three content modules de-

voted to various aspects of ecology. The second stage

of the experiment aims to correct teaching methods

for the module “Ecological chemistry of environmen-

tal objects”. For this purpose, didactic materials have

been developed that best meet the existing educational

preferences of student groups.

At the next stage of the experiment, correcting

the course content was proposed by including a new

topic, “Ecological pollution of plants”, in the mod-

ule “Ecological chemistry of environmental objects”.

The new topic’s content strengthens students’ envi-

ronmental competencies, expanding their knowledge

to the food and pharmaceutical industries.

Some aspects of the new content were improved

by one of the co-authors using the same experimen-

tal stages 1 and 2 at the Kyiv National University

of Technology and Design (KNUTD). A total of 178

students majoring in industrial pharmacy at the Fac-

ulty of Chemical and Biopharmaceutical Technolo-

gies participated in the experiment to determine ed-

ucational proﬁles.

Students from both universities specialised in re-

lated, albeit different areas of education. As is well

known, educational beneﬁts strongly correlate with

the ﬁeld of study. For this reason, the stylistic educa-

tional characteristics of students of both universities

were analysed separately. In both cases, the sample

size was limited by the available number of students

because almost all students participated in the experi-

ment.

Some environmentally-oriented educational ele-

ments were introduced in an analytical chemistry pro-

gram at the bachelor’s level and a pharmaceutical

quality system curricula within a master’s program

at KNUTD. Accordingly, 164 undergraduate students

and 14 masters took part in the testing of learning

preferences. Such a change in the curricula forms a

student understanding of the need to continuously ac-

quire new knowledge about plant raw materials and

continuously improve the production process.

The obtained results and research methods used at

KNUTD are described in this article. They comple-

ment the experiment results at KSPU and can be fur-

ther used to improve the course “Ecochemistry and

Environmental Monitoring”.

2.2 Index of Learning Style Instrument

The instrument, known as Index of Learning Style

and developed by R. Felder and B. Soloman (there-

inafter Felder-Soloman’s model), was used to study

students’ learning preferences (Felder and Brent,

2016; Felder and Soloman, 2020). All respondents

were interviewed to respond to 44 questions.

The instrument categorises individuals in line with

their preferences in four complementary dimensions.

These dimensions are as follows: perception – sens-

ing (sns in a clipped form) or intuitive (int), informa-

tion input – visual (vis) or verbal (vrb), data process-

ing – active (act) or reﬂective (ref) and understanding

of information – sequential (seq) or global (glo).

In other words, each of the four dimension con-

sists of two opposite styles or a pair of style and anti-

style. An 11-point scale scores them. The advantage

of one of two opposite styles is estimated based on

the distribution of 11 points between them. In this pa-

per, the results related to preferred learning styles will

be given percentages indicating the relative number of

students in the sample with a particular style. There-

fore, the number of students will always be 100% for

a given style and anti-style pair.

2.3 Style-induced Preferences in

Learning

Consider in detail aspects of the R. Felder and B.

Soloman model’s learning styles, namely the main

characteristics of cognitive functions, if one of the

styles prevails.

Sensing-type students prefer to learn the facts.

They should solve problems using known methods.

They do not like difﬁculties and surprises. So, they

will be upset if they receive a question on educational

material that has not been covered in detail in a lec-

ture room. Sensing students are also attentive to de-

tail, well-remembered, and do laboratory works, more

practical and careful.

Intuitive students prefer theories and hypotheses,

love innovation, and do not like repetition. They have

a better understanding of new concepts and tend to

feel more conﬁdent with abstractions and formulas.

They work faster and more inventive (Felder and Sil-

verman, 1988; Felder and Spurlin, 2005). Students

with a pronounced sensing learning style do not like

courses that are not relevant to reality. Intuitive stu-

dents do not like instructional courses that require a

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

384

lot of memorisation and tedious calculations.

The beneﬁts of one or the other way of learning

can be strong, medium or weak. Students should be

able to act in both ways to be effective in teaching and

solving problems. If they favour intuition too much,

they may lose important details and make mistakes

in calculations and lab work due to inattention. If

they rely solely on sensing learning, they will reduce

learning to cramming and repetition of known meth-

ods, refusing to live experiment and develop creative

thinking (Felder and Soloman, 2020).

Sensing-type students remember and understand

information better when they see how it relates to real

life. When they study a discipline that contains much

material in the form of theories and abstractions, dif-

ﬁculties may arise. The teacher should be given spe-

ciﬁc examples for each concept and methodology and

show how these concepts are practically used to pre-

vent obstacles in learning theoretical problems. Sup-

pose the teacher does not provide sufﬁcient speciﬁc

data. In that case, sensing students should ﬁnd it

on their own or in a textbook, or other texts, or us-

ing a joint brainstorming session with their learning

colleagues (Felder and Silverman, 1988; Felder and

Spurlin, 2005).

Usually, intuitive type students take most lectures

without problems. However, suppose such students

ﬁnd themselves in classes where they are primarily

required to memorise and mechanically use formulas.

In that case, they may have problems and boredom.

Therefore, the teacher should be provided with inter-

pretations and theories related to the facts studied. If

this does not happen, students of intuitive type should

try to ﬁnd regular connections independently (Felder

and Soloman, 2020).

Students who have a distinct visual learning style

better remember what they see – pictures, diagrams,

ﬂowcharts, graphs, movies and visual demonstra-

tions. Verbal students are more likely to receive in-

formation in the form of words – written and oral ex-

planations. Both types absorb more when the infor-

mation is presented both visually and verbally (Felder

and Soloman, 2020).

Most classes use very little visual information:

students mainly listen to lectures, read materials writ-

ten on blackboard and textbooks, and manipulate ma-

terials. The facts indicate that most students are peo-

ple with a visual type of perception. In other words,

they do not get as much as they could if the visual pre-

sentation of data were used more in the class (Felder

and Silverman, 1988; Felder and Spurlin, 2005).

Suppose the student has a visual type of percep-

tion. In that case, he/she must independently ﬁnd

diagrams, sketches, diagrams, photographs, graphs,

or any other visual representation of course materi-

als, which is predominantly verbal. References to

videos, videos of the course will be helpful. Students

should use maps or ﬂowcharts. Such materials de-

pict critical points of a theme in the middle of squares

or other ﬁgures, with demonstrations of connections

between concepts (in the form of a line with arrows

between blocks) (Felder and Silverman, 1988; Felder

and Spurlin, 2005). It is helpful for students of the

visual type to use colour markings of records. Each

colour has its meaning in such markings, highlighting

concepts related to the same topic, class, type, etc.

(Felder and Soloman, 2020).

Students of verbal type should write short sum-

maries or translations, of course, materials in their

own words. Group work can be beneﬁcial to them.

They understand the material better by listening to

classmates’ explanations and learning even more

when explaining the content to others (Felder and Sil-

verman, 1988; Felder and Spurlin, 2005).

Students who have the advantage of an active

learning style can better understand and acquire new

knowledge by doing something with them. Reﬂective

students should ﬁrst calmly reﬂect on the information

received and then begin working with it (Felder and

Silverman, 1988; Felder and Spurlin, 2005).

It is desired to have a balance of both styles. If the

student always does and then thinks, at ﬁrst, he or she

may take up the case too hastily, which will create

problems. If he spends too much time thinking, he

can never do anything about it.

As a rule, active students are more comfortable

working in a group than reﬂective students who prefer

to study alone. Attending lectures without any move-

ment and physical activity, apart from giving notes, is

not easy for both types, but especially tricky for active

students (Felder and Soloman, 2020).

Suppose there is little classroom time when dis-

cussing discipline or discussing it together. In that

case, students with an active type of perception should

make up for that. To do this, they need to prepare for a

class together with a group of friends to take turns ex-

plaining topics to each other. It is helpful to imagine

that they can be asked the next presentation and rep-

resent how they will respond (Felder and Silverman,

1988; Felder and Spurlin, 2005).

When students have a little time in the lecture

room to reﬂect on new knowledge, persons with an

intuitive perception should try to make up for the lack

of that. To do this, they need to read and memorise

the educational material and stop from time to time to

repeat what they have read, think about possible ques-

tions and apply their knowledge. It is also helpful for

them to write small summaries based on what they

The Learning-style-based Approach and Optimal Use of e-Resources in Teaching Ecological Disciplines

385

have read or taken notes in the audience, presenting

the material in their own words. Such an approach

requires additional time but will allow better study of

information (Felder and Soloman, 2020).

Students with a predominant sequential learning

style gain understanding through successive steps,

each of which is a logical continuation of the pre-

vious one. Global-type students tend to learn giant

leaps, gathering information almost haphazardly and

then suddenly grasping the essence (Felder and Solo-

man, 2020).

Students with sequential perceptions tend to fol-

low a logical step-by-step search. Students with

global perceptions can solve problems quickly and

put the pieces together once they have understood the

big picture (Felder and Silverman, 1988; Felder and

Spurlin, 2005).

Many people may mistakenly qualify as “global”

because everyone felt astonished by the “illumina-

tion” (Felder and Soloman, 2020). However, what

makes the perception global or sequential happens

before the outbreak. Students with a very pro-

nounced global perception who cannot think sequen-

tially may experience severe difﬁculties until they un-

derstand the overall picture (Felder and Silverman,

1988; Felder and Spurlin, 2005). Even when received,

they may have a vague idea of the details of the sub-

ject. Simultaneously, sequential students may know

a great deal about speciﬁc aspects of the subject un-

der study but not understand how they relate to its

other components or other matters (Felder and Solo-

man, 2020).

Most courses in higher education are taught se-

quentially. Suppose a student has a sequential type of

perception. Suppose also a teacher moves from one

topic to another and misses the logical steps. In that

case, it may be difﬁcult for the student to keep track of

his or her reﬂections and remember something. One

needs to complete the missing steps with the teacher’s

answers or yourself, referring to the directories. Stu-

dents should logically arrange the lecture material. To

develop global thinking, one must try to relate each

new topic to one studied before. The more a student

does this, the deeper the problem will be understand-

ing (Felder and Silverman, 1988; Felder and Spurlin,

2005)].

Suppose students have a global type of learning

style. In that case, it will be useful for them to un-

derstand their need for a general picture of the subject

under study before mastering the details. If a teacher

starts a new topic without explaining how it relates to

what has been learned before, it can cause problems.

However, there are steps a student can take to get a

total picture faster (Felder and Soloman, 2020).

Before beginning the ﬁrst paragraph of the next

section of the text, a student with a global learning

style needs to review the section completely to un-

derstand a general idea. Initially, this will take extra

time and subsequently avoid multiple revisions of in-

dividual parts (Felder and Soloman, 2020). Instead of

spending time reviewing each subject for a short time

each day, it may be more beneﬁcial for such students

to study topics in large blocks (Felder and Silverman,

1988; Felder and Spurlin, 2005).

Students of this type should try to relate the sub-

ject under study to what they already know. For ex-

ample, they can ask a teacher to help them see the

links or ﬁnd them in the additional literature indepen-

dently. At one time, a global student suddenly un-

derstands new material and understands its relation to

other topics or disciplines. Then, he/she will be able

to apply new knowledge very effectively. The student

can use acquired information in a particular way that

most sequential students do not dream of (Felder and

Soloman, 2020).

2.4 Structure of Ecological Chemistry

Course

Ecology is a scientiﬁc matrix on which the sustainable

development of society is built. Sustainable devel-

opment, in essence, is the inclusion of environmental

knowledge in development activities in general. The

course of ecological chemistry continues the cycle

of chemical disciplines focusing on analysing chem-

ical processes and objects in nature. Mastering the

course will contribute to the formation of professional

competencies of the future chemist, teacher of chem-

istry and ecology, or laboratory assistant of chemical-

ecological laboratories.

The task of the course of ecological chemistry

is to provide students with knowledge about: a) the

chemical composition of natural objects; b) natural

processes that occur with the participation of natu-

ral compounds in the presence of pollutants; c) sys-

tems of monitoring control over the condition of nat-

ural objects; d) indicators that determine the qual-

ity of the environment; e) features of chemical con-

trol of natural objects. The structure of the disci-

pline “Ecochemistry and Environmental Monitoring”

is given in table 1. The content of the discipline con-

sists of three modules. One of the four topics of mod-

ule 2, namely the topic “Environmental chemistry of

the lithosphere”, was chosen for the study to optimise

teaching methods and tools following student groups’

educational preferences.

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386

Table 1: Structure of discipline “Ecochemistry and Environmental Monitoring” by topics and hours.

Name of topics Total Lectures Labs Independent

work

Module 1. Introduction to a special course

1.1 Monitoring & ecochemistry as environmental sciences 7 2 – 5

1.2 Human habitat 15 1 10 4

1.3 Chemical elements of the environment 8 1 4 3

Module 1 subtotal (hours) 30 4 14 12

Module 2. Ecological chemistry of natural objects

2.1 Scientiﬁc aspects of ecological chemistry 14 – – 14

2.2 Ecology of the atmosphere 30 2 14 14

2.3 Ecological chemistry of the hydrosphere 22 2 6 14

2.4 Ecological chemistry of the lithosphere 24 4 6 14

Module 2 subtotal (hours) 90 8 26 56

Module 3. Monitoring of natural objects

3.1 Scientiﬁc bases of environmental monitoring 15 1 – 14

3.2 Atmospheric monitoring (air and gas mixtures) 24 2 8 14

3.3 Hydrosphere monitoring 24 2 12 10

3.4 Lithosphere monitoring 27 1 12 14

Module 3 subtotal (hours) 90 6 32 52

Total (hours/credits) 210/7 18 72 120

2.5 Algorithm of e-Resource Selection

To select educational resources according to students’

educational preferences, we used the approach ﬁrstly

described in (Baldiris et al., 2009). We determined

students’ preferences with different learning styles for

certain types of ICT and e-resources used in the train-

ing of students of the Faculty of Natural Sciences.

Individual e-resources were evaluated by questioning

teachers and students. The assessment was made ac-

cording to the so-called advantage indicator, deter-

mined on a 3-point scale. Points mean:

0 – an indifferent attitude to a resource because the

respondent does not believe that this resource can

contribute to the learning process;

1 – good attitude, the student considers it appropriate

to work with this e-resource but does not give it

an advantage over others;

2 – very good attitude; the student likes to learn with

this type of resource and prefers it to other re-

sources. The respondent also considers it very

important for teaching that the teacher offers e-

resources of this type.

According to the student survey results, the aver-

age scores of resource assessment were determined

for students with different learning preferences. The

results show how the type of e-resource is consistent

with the type of student learning style. Such assess-

ments became the basis for optimising the choice of

teaching materials by the teacher. According to the

teacher survey results, tables of expert evaluation of

the feasibility of using e-resources in teaching speciﬁc

topics of various disciplines at the Faculty of Natural

Sciences were created.

In the presence of such evaluation data, the proce-

dure for optimising the choice of resources to work in

a particular student group can be reduced to the fol-

lowing steps:

1. Deﬁning the types of student learning styles as a

combination of four aspects (act / ref, sen / int, vis

/ vrb, seq / glo). Analysis of the group’s composi-

tion, construction of its average proﬁle or division

into subgroups of students with similar learning

preferences.

2. Compilation of a list of e-resources required for

teaching a speciﬁc topic, based on a table of expert

evaluation of the module content.

3. Calculation of the speciﬁc indicator for each al-

located e-resource as a quantitative measure to

justify the feasibility of using the resource in the

classroom for groups with a particular combina-

tion of learning styles.

An example of the application of the described

technique is given in (Derkach, 2018). An approach

that implies using several types of e-resources for

main learning elements was applied for further work

in the group. It was considered that the style of teach-

ing and the use of e-resources might run counter to the

preferences of students, encouraging them to grow in

less developed areas. However, the level of discom-

The Learning-style-based Approach and Optimal Use of e-Resources in Teaching Ecological Disciplines

387

fort for students should not be too great. Therefore,

we used e-resources that had an average score of ≥ 1.

Duplication of information and inappropriate use of

class time was not allowed.

2.6 Methods of Plant Chemistry Study

As argued in previous sections, one of the priorities

among teaching methods is to teach sensitive stu-

dents. It is favourable for them to create an envi-

ronment where the material’s presentation is based on

real-life examples with speciﬁc information or indi-

cators and their comparison. This feature was one

of the arguments favouring the introduction of an in-

depth study of the inﬂuence of the environment on

plant chemistry in the course of ecological chemistry.

The content of metallic and non-metallic impuri-

ties in plants and the content of biologically active

substances, from a practical viewpoint, is most impor-

tant for medicinal plants. These plants are the raw ma-

terial base for the pharmaceutical industry. Besides,

they are widely used in the food industry, like spices

or dietary supplements.

Plants always contain elemental impurities. Some

chemical elements in plants, known as essential ones,

take part in biochemical processes. In contrast, oth-

ers do not contribute to plant development and are the

product of plants’ interaction with the environment

(Kabata-Pendias, 2011). The contents of elemen-

tal impurities and biologically active substances are

formed under the environment’s inﬂuence (Derkach

and Starikova, 2019). At optimal concentrations, the

essential elements are helpful while they can become

toxic in excess.

On the contrary, a plant poorly develops in deﬁ-

ciency of essential elements. In the meanwhile, the

content of essential microelements is often not con-

trolled in herbal medicines. Both essential and non-

essential elements can be toxic to the consumers of

herbs. Some non-essential metals (As, Cd, Pb and

Hg) are very harmful (Chizzola, 2012; Locatelli et al.,

2014).

Accordingly, the potential presence of toxic met-

als and the variability of biologically active sub-

stances content largely determines the quality, effec-

tiveness and safety of medicinal plants and herbal

medicines (Derkach and Starikova, 2019; Derkach

and Khomenko, 2018a). Knowledge of the problems

of plants, in general, and medicinal plants, in partic-

ular, will signiﬁcantly strengthen the environmental

competence of future chemists. Some of the results

obtained, which are essential for the formation of en-

vironmental competence, will be presented in the fol-

lowing sections.

The primary experimental method for studying the

elemental composition of plants was ﬂame atomic ab-

sorption (FAAS). Biologically active substances were

investigated by high-performance liquid chromatog-

raphy (HPLC). The used sample preparation methods,

equipment and details of experiments are given else-

where (Derkach and Starikova, 2019; Derkach and

Khomenko, 2018b).

3 RESULTS

3.1 Preferences in Learning Styles

The results obtained in the study of learning prefer-

ences are shown in Fig. 1 as the average for all in-

terviewed students. A signiﬁcant difference was ob-

served in three dimensions: sns (65.7%) / int (34.3%);

vis (64.2%) / vrb (33.2%) and act (59.5%) / ref

(40.5%). No essential difference was found in the

fourth dimension of seq (50.1%) / glo (49.9%). In

other words, a style prevails over its anti-style in three

dimensions. In the fourth dimension, a balance is ob-

served between style and anti-style.

Figure 1: Preferences in learning styles for students of the

Faculty of Natural Sciences of KSPU, the speciality 014

Secondary education (chemistry & informatics).

Typically, learning style is a relatively stable and

weakly variable characteristic of a person formed un-

der the inﬂuence of its psychological and physiolog-

ical characteristics. For example, it was shown in

(Derkach and Starova, 2017) that it is weakly depen-

dent on the year of study for ﬁrst- to fourth-year un-

dergraduate students.

The opposite view is that dominant learning styles

can change under the inﬂuence of external circum-

stances. Such inﬂuencing factors may include the

ﬁeld of study and type of material being studied, de-

livery mode, the age of an individual, motivation and

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388

educational level, etc.

It is also commonly believed that learning styles

are not sensitive to the student’s gender but may vary

signiﬁcantly between students in different ﬁelds of

study. However, the question of the stability of learn-

ing styles and their dependence on students’ gender

and age can still be considered debatable. The results

obtained in the paper allow us to evaluate the inﬂu-

ence of the above factors. For this reason, the results

of testing the learning styles were divided into groups

by gender (ﬁgure 2).

Comparing the results of the two studied groups

“boys” and “girls”, we can see that respondents-boys

and respondents-girls have a difference between the

two dimensions: “boys” – vis (75.8%) / vrb (24.2%),

seq (59.1%) / glo (40.9%); “girls” – vis (62.6%) / vrb

(34.0%); seq (46.9%) / glo (53.1%).

In two other characteristics, the difference is al-

most imperceptible: “boys” – sns (68.2%) / int

(31.8%), act (60.6%) / ref (39.4%); “girls” – sns

(65.4%) / int (34.6%) and act (59.8%) / ref (40.2%).

Also, testing all students’ learning styles was di-

vided into groups by age (ﬁgure 3). Comparing the

results for ages of 17–20 and 20+ years, we concluded

that these groups’ respondents had only minor differ-

ences. For 17–20 years, the preferred styles are as

follows: sns (64.1%) / int (35.9%), vis (66.2%) / vrb

(33.8%), act (59.3%) / ref (40.7%), seq (51.1%) / glo

(48.9%). For 21+ years, sns (68.2%) / int (31.8%), vis

(61.0%) / vrb (39.0%), act (59.7%) / ref (40.3%), seq

(48.7%) / glo (51.3%).

In our opinion, there is a slight difference in the re-

spondents’ learning styles because all the respondents

study in the same speciality. The existing prefer-

ences among students-pharmacists of KNUTD com-

pared with the average indicators of students-chemists

of KSPU are given in ﬁgure 4. Learning preferences

are shown for undergraduate and separately for grad-

uate students of KNUTD.

The predominance of the act, vis and sns styles is

maintained for all groups of students. KSPU students

are balanced in measuring seq-glo. At the same time,

pharmacists show a pronounced advantage in favour

of a sequential style. The most signiﬁcant difference

is between undergraduate students of KNUTD and all

other groups. That is, the difference between students

of KSPU and masters of KNUTD is signiﬁcantly re-

duced. The measurement of seq-glo is an exception

because the existing advantage of a sequential style

among pharmacists does not change over years of

study.

3.2 Teaching Ecological Chemistry of

the Lithosphere

Considering the obtained proﬁles of educational ad-

vantages in groups, we have prepared a didactic ma-

terial on the topic “Ecological chemistry of the litho-

sphere” of the content module “Ecological chemistry

of environmental objects”. Most students in the group

are those who study visually, sensitively, actively, and

sequentially. That is why we used the methods, forms,

and e-resources that are well percept by them in the

lecture. Example:

• a large amount of multimedia presentation data

was used for visual perception of information dur-

ing the lecture;

• for sensing data processing, lecture information

was provided based on life stories and situations;

• to attract an active component of the training

types, several problematic situations on this topic

were created. Students worked in small groups for

several minutes over their decision;

• a link between current material and everyday life

was demonstrated for the sequential component.

For the lecture, information on the following pro-

cesses was elaborated: soil formation, weathering and

its varieties, leaching, gouging, salting and others,

and learning about the participation of living organ-

isms in soil formation.

Submission of material on the lithosphere’s fun-

damental processes was also adapted to students’ pre-

vailing stylistic characteristics: visual, sensing, ac-

tive and sequential, but other techniques have already

been used. Example:

• a multimedia presentation with various diagrams

and photographs illustrating the content of the

theme was used for visual stylistic characteristics

during the class;

• for the sensing style, the information of the lecture

was related to the environment, which is directly

an integral part of human life;

• for the active component, lectures speciﬁcally

made mistakes in the content and provided an op-

portunity for students in small groups (2–3 peo-

ple) to consider where the inaccuracy was made;

• for a sequential component, the connection be-

tween current material and everyday life was

demonstrated.

During the laboratory session, we formed practi-

cal knowledge about the soil composition and some of

its indicators. For this purpose, the following methods

were applied:

The Learning-style-based Approach and Optimal Use of e-Resources in Teaching Ecological Disciplines

389

Figure 2: Preferences in learning styles for male (a) and female (b) students.

Figure 3: Preferences in learning styles for students of 17–20 (a) and 21+ (b) years old.

• illustrations of the mechanical composition of the

soil, video of bean growth, and instructions for

planting it in the soil were used simultaneously

with the parallel text that described these pro-

cesses to learn by visual style during the labora-

tory work;

• for the sensing style, the information related to the

fertile surface layer of the lithosphere, which is di-

rectly connected with human life, was provided.

Students were asked to ﬁnd signs that determine

the quality of the soil and its use in human activ-

ity;

• an analysis of soils in which beans grew was used

for the students with active style in the laboratory.

Students worked in small groups analysing soils.

The content of students’ independent work in-

cluded tasks that, in our opinion, are intended to

help develop a global, reﬂective, verbal, and intuitive

styles of learning activity.

Here are examples of the tasks of students’ in-

dependent work. Students were invited to do the

following task to develop a global characteristic of

the seq/glo pair of learning styles. “Use the guides,

the Internet, and other recommended sources to learn

about the content of the ecological chemistry of the

lithosphere. Determine the importance of chemical

processes in soils for the formation of biogeochemi-

cal cycles of chemical elements and their substances

in the nature of our planet”.

To satisfy the reﬂective learning style in the act/ref

dimension, we asked students to do the following.

“Using lecture notes, read the study material, occa-

sionally pausing to repeat what you have read. Write

small abstracts based on what you have read. What is

the main source of pollution of the lithosphere? De-

scribe the main components of the emissions from

such a source and their inﬂuence on the fertile soil

layer’s chemical composition. What are some ways

we can deal with the primary and re-contamination of

key areas?”

To satisfy the requirements of a verbal style in the

vis/vrb pair, we asked students to do the following

task: “Using the above text, make a diagram of the

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390

Figure 4: Learning styles of 1-5 years students majoring in chemistry & informatics at KSPU compared to styles of 1–4 years

undergraduate and 5-year master students of industrial pharmacy at KNUTD.

biogeochemical cycle of carbon.

Carbon in nature:

The chain of carbon atoms is the basis of all or-

ganic matter: proteins, fats, carbohydrates and other

compounds that are necessary for the life of all liv-

ing organisms. The carboniferous circulation between

wild and inanimate nature occurs at high speed. The

main inorganic compounds of carbon are its oxides

(CO

and CO) and carbonate, making up carbonate

rocks. The most mobile carbon compound in the at-

mosphere, which plays a signiﬁcant role in the cycle,

is carbon dioxide (CO

Carbon’s central reserve is concentrated in car-

boniferous rocks (carbonates, dolomite, etc.) at the

bottom of the ocean and in the Earth’s crust, as well

as fossil fuels. The carbon reserve in the atmosphere

is much smaller. However, it plays a signiﬁcant role

in the cycle due to its mobility. As a result of the rel-

atively small reserves in the atmosphere, the carbon

cycle is more vulnerable than the nitrogen cycle.

Recently, the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide content

has been steadily increasing, indicating that the equi-

librium processes in the biosphere are disturbed. The

reason is human economic activity: high carbon diox-

ide emissions from burning fossil fuels, reducing for-

est area, pollution of the oceans. As a result, pho-

tosynthesis intensity and carbon dioxide binding de-

crease. Increasing carbon dioxide content is the lead-

ing cause of the greenhouse effect and an increase in

the average temperature on the planet.”

We proposed that students do the following task

to develop an intuitive style in the subsystem sen/int.

“Tailings cause a large amount of dust under the in-

ﬂuence of wind ﬂows, which leads to the pollution

of atmospheric air and its deposition in large areas of

land. Suggest a plan for minimising dust generation”.

Thereby in the course of the study, we started to

introduce students to different forms of work. These

forms involve using the different cognitive functions

and therefore contribute to the development of their

balance. In turn, the latter allows a person to be ﬂex-

ible in the unrestrained development of technological

progress, be open to different ways of receiving infor-

mation and perceiving it without resistance and ten-

sion. As a whole, students evaluated the completed

tasks at a high level, which indicates that the student’s

perception of new tasks is positively fulﬁlled, without

sabotage.

3.3 Teaching Plant Pollution

As shown in the previous section, the sensitive per-

ception of information is characteristic of most KSPU

and KNUTD students. Such students perceive the

theoretical part more effectively if they can establish

a connection between theory and real-life facts. It

seems appropriate to strengthen the course of ecolog-

ical chemistry with new topics, which are essentially

based on the consideration of numerous real-life ex-

amples. The environmental pollution of plants by hu-

man economic activity products looks promising be-

cause its teaching can include many real examples.

On the one hand, such topics will be well perceived

by students with the revealed educational preferences.

On the other hand, they will strengthen the environ-

mental component in the education of future profes-

sionals. Accordingly, if the previous section considers

procedures, methods and approaches to learning eco-

logical chemistry, this section considers the proposed

changes in the discipline content.

Previously measured elemental and chemical

composition of several widespread medicinal plants

growing in different regions of Ukraine (Derkach and

Starikova, 2019; Derkach and Khomenko, 2018a,b)

were used as environmental education elements in the

teaching of analytical chemistry and pharmaceutical

The Learning-style-based Approach and Optimal Use of e-Resources in Teaching Ecological Disciplines

391

quality system. Elemental composition compared to

the available recommendations for the content of met-

als and metalloids in plant foods, medicines, dietary

supplements, spices, etc. Authorised organisations

use different characteristics to determine the limits of

element intake in the human body. Virtually all ele-

ments, except for particularly toxic ones (As, Cd, Pb,

Hg), can play a dual role and become toxic in a par-

ticular concentration. As a rule, there is a concentra-

tion interval of optimal daily human consumption of a

particular element. Various norms regulate either the

recommended dose of the element (often per 1 kg of

human weight) or the maximum allowable intake.

Two aggregated characteristic exposures, enti-

tled Level of Optimal Consumption (LOC) and Up-

per Limit of Safe Consumption (ULSC), are con-

structed based on the universally recognised norms

(Derkach and Khomenko, 2018a; WHO, 2007; EC,

2006; www.atsdr.cdc.gov, 2016; Rubio et al., 2018).

Ranges of some element concentrations were mea-

sured in a few popular medicinal plans (St Jon’s wort,

chamomile, nettle and sage). The measured concen-

trations were compared with the LOC and ULSC val-

ues, as shown in table 2. The ULSC and LOC ratios

to the maximal measured concentrations respectively

estimate maximum allowable and safe limits of daily

intakes of the most contaminated studied herbs from

the viewpoint of possible side effect of the microele-

ments (table 2).

Figure 5 illustrates the variability of biologically

active substances in medicinal plants.

As an example, the HPLC were shown for herbal

preparations “St. John’s wort herb”, prepared by four

different suppliers and purchased in Kyiv pharmacies.

As an example, the HPLC were shown for herbal

preparations “St. John’s wort herb”, prepared by four

different suppliers and purchased in Kyiv pharmacies.

As is seen, the concentrations of ﬂavonoid rutin and

hypericin are the highest in samples of supplier 4. In

contrast, the herbs of supplier 3 are most enriched in

hyperforin. Herbs of suppliers 1 and 2 are charac-

terised by the highest concentrations of quercetin and

hyperoside, respectively. Among ﬂavonoids, the ob-

served concentration ﬂuctuations are relatively mod-

erate for quercetin and hyperoside. For these com-

pounds, the maximum-to-minimum concentration ra-

tios are 1.45 and 1.87, respectively. The variation

of rutin concentration is the highest, 13.8 for the

maximum-to-minimum ratio. Amid ﬂavonoid ﬂuctu-

ations, the instability of antidepressants (hyperforin

and hypericin) appears to be moderate – 3.11 and 4.7

for these compounds, respectively.

4 DISCUSSION

4.1 Learning Preferences in Different

Fields of Studies

The study results have shown that the existing prefer-

ences in learning styles among students majoring in

chemistry and informatics generally persist through-

out their studies. They are relatively weakly depen-

dent on gender and age. The students demonstrate

solid preferences for sensing, visual and active learn-

ing style. In the dimension of seq-glo styles, an ap-

proximate balance is observed.

The question arises as to whether the invented be-

haviour patterns are universal or inherent only to a

particular speciality. Learning styles were determined

for students of different specialities at the Faculty of

Natural Sciences (ﬁgure 6) to compare with students

majoring in chemistry and informatics (ﬁgure 1).

A difference in almost all style dimensions is ob-

served between specialities. For example, most ecol-

ogy students prefer reﬂective style (52.7% ref vs 4.3%

act). In contrast, all other specialities prefer ac-

tive learning (51.5–61.6% of active students vs 38.4–

40.5% reﬂective). A discrepancy in the sen-int di-

mension almost reaches 11% – from 61.1% for phys-

iologists to 71% for chemists. In the vis-vrb dimen-

sion, it exceeds 16%. Students majoring in biology

and physiology are the most balanced, while visual

learning dominates in all other specialities. The spe-

ciality “ecology” and “biology + physiology” demon-

strate a clear preference for sequential style. In con-

trast, students of biology + chemistry and chemistry

+ informatics specialities are well-balanced in this di-

mension.

Similar to the results obtained, there is much evi-

dence in the scientiﬁc literature that students in differ-

ent study ﬁelds often demonstrate different learning

styles (Derkach and Starova, 2017; Derkach, 2018;

Sahragard et al., 2016). The origin of different

learning styles in different environments is not ﬁ-

nally evident yet. Instead, one may suppose that

learning styles are educational strategies that charac-

terise the individual’s actions in response to a partic-

ular learning situation. Thus, the learning styles or

individually-unique ways of educational activity by

their very nature may depend directly on the educa-

tional technology used, including the teaching meth-

ods, types of educational resources, teacher position,

status educational institution, etc.

So, the deﬁnition of learning styles as ﬂexibly

stable preferences in information processing, instruc-

tional technologies, and learning strategies ﬁts the ob-

tained results well. Accordingly, the development

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392

Table 2: LOC and ULSC ranges in comparison with the measured concentration range and safe daily intakes.

Element Measured con-

centrations,

µg/g

ULSC, mg LOC, mg Maximum

allowable

intake, g/day

Safe

intake,

g/day

Al No data 0.5-10 10

As (in in-

organics)

No data 0.021-0.3 0.02

B No data 6.2-20 14

Ba No data 4.0-14 14

Be No data 0.14 0.14

Ca No data 2500 1000

Cd 0.2-0.9 0.02-0.07 0.007 22 8

Co 0.08-0.4 0.02-0.04 1500 50

Cr 0.2-2.0 0.25-21 (CrIII) 0.002-0.003 (CrVI) 125 1

Cu 5.0-12 10.0-12 0.7-0.9 833 58

Fe 25-120 9.7-58.8 8.0-18 81 67

Hg No data 0.35 0.014

K 7500-9900 4700 475

Mg 1000-1600 350-2500 310-420 219 194

Mn 40-150 2.0-11 0.35-2.3 13 2

Mo No data 0.03-2 0.045

Na 110-160 1500 0 9375

Ni 0.8-2.8 0.2-1 71 0

Pb 0.1-6.2 0.1-0.25 0.14 16 23

Sb No data 30

Se No data 0.3-0.4 0.055-0.35

Sr No data 42

V No data 0.7

Zn 19-34 21-50 8.0-21 1 235

of didactic materials based on the identiﬁed learn-

ing proﬁles seems appropriate for teaching ecological

chemistry.

4.2 Conﬂict of Styles

Lecturers have their advantages of learning styles

(Rahimi et al., 2017). Most lecture courses are aimed

at a small number of people who can perceive and

process information intuitively, verbally, reﬂectively

and sequentially. Such a situation creates a disadvan-

tage for many students.

Lab work, being inherently sensing, visual, and

active, could offset some of the imbalance. How-

ever, most laboratory work involves, ﬁrst and fore-

most, mechanical exercises. They illustrate only a

small part of the concepts discussed at the lectures and

rarely provide a robust understanding or development

of skills. Thus, sensing, visual, active and global stu-

dents rarely meet their educational needs when study-

ing at higher education institutions.

The discrepancy between teaching and learning

styles has several serious implications. In this case,

the students feel that communication is taking place

in an unknown foreign language.

These problems can be minimised, and educa-

tion quality can be signiﬁcantly improved if teachers

consider the particularities of student preferences in

teaching styles (Richardson, 2011; Franzoni and As-

sar, 2009).

It is challenging to create the conditions for the

presentation of information that satisﬁes all possible

student learning styles in one audience. There are dif-

ferent approaches to solving this problem.

The works we have done earlier describe the

methodology of choosing methods, forms, and teach-

ing aids, taking into account students’ peculiarities

of learning styles of different specialities (Derkach,

2019; Derkach and Starova, 2017; Derkach, 2018).

He has a right to life and another approach that in-

volves applying the techniques of presenting informa-

tion conveniently to each style for a while.

The development of all cognitive styles is beneﬁ-

cial for students. Therefore, seeking to strike a bal-

The Learning-style-based Approach and Optimal Use of e-Resources in Teaching Ecological Disciplines

393

Figure 5: Concentrations of biologically active compounds (hypericin, hyperforin and ﬂavonoids) in herbal medicines St

John’s wort of different suppliers.

ance for everyone in the learning process can be help-

ful. Then students will have natural learning activ-

ities available to them and create conditions for the

development of other learning styles. Such a situa-

tion can promote active learning and a positive atti-

tude towards it and lead to the strengthening of less

developed abilities (Mayer, 1993).

When developing a global teaching style, it is

better to study the material using visual techniques.

These techniques should allow students to offer a gen-

eralised conclusion from their analysis. To do this,

you should ﬁrst show the schematics of the links of

the elements for study, experiments, results, and then

allow students to reach the provisions of speciﬁc the-

ories independently.

When developing a reﬂective teaching style,

teachers sometimes need to stop during the lecture

to allow the audience to think and formulate ques-

tions. You should also schedule small group problem-

solving sessions. Then group students will have a

chance to spend one or several minutes solving any

of the many different issues and problems. Some ex-

amples of such problems are as follows. “Start solv-

ing this problem”, “What is wrong with what I wrote

on the board?”, “Suppose you enter a lab, check the

measurement results, and ﬁnd that the formula we just

derived gives incorrect results. How many possible

explanations can you come up with?”

Also, to develop a global teaching style, it is nec-

essary to demonstrate the logical connection of par-

ticular topics. It is also essential to show the interac-

tion between current material and other topics of the

same discipline, other courses and daily life. Encour-

aging or engaging in self-help in homework is essen-

tial. Students who participate in collective learning,

both in and out of the classroom, receive better grades

and show tremendous enthusiasm (Mayer, 1993).

4.3 Environmentally-induced Variation

of the Chemical Composition of

Medicinal Plants

The data in the previous section provide several exam-

ples of the impact of the environment on the elemental

and chemical composition of a number of medicinal

plants. The introduction of this type of material in the

curriculum creates a favourable environment for sen-

sitive students. Among undergraduate pharmacy stu-

dents, up to 88% of students have a sensitive learning

style.

These examples clearly illustrate the fact of varia-

tion in plant composition depending on growing con-

ditions. For example, the content of some biologically

active substances, which determine the effectiveness

of herbal medicines, varies by 1.5–14 times. Accord-

ingly, the quality of herbal medicines of various ori-

gins varies within these broad limits. It should be

emphasised that these examples are herbal medicines

that are purchased legally in pharmacies. The obvious

conclusion is that the existing quality control system

does not fully ensure consistent and uniform herbal

medicine quality.

The analysis of the given data on the elemen-

tal composition also shows high variability in plants’

composition in different areas. The content of toxic

impurities and excessive contamination with essential

elements that are not toxic in moderation directly af-

fects herbal medicines’ safety. Besides, the presence

of ions of some metals in plants can affect their ef-

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394

Figure 6: Learning styles of 1–4 years KSPU students majoring in biology & chemistry, biology & physiology, ecology and

physical education.

fectiveness. Many free ions can form metal-organic

complexes, bind biologically active substances into

complexes and reduce their activity.

Draws attention to the fact that the plants available

in pharmacies in terms of the content of the most toxic

metals generally meet the standards (table 2). The

most unfavourable situation is concerning cadmium.

Daily safe internal consumption of the most contami-

nated grass should not exceed 8 g. Even worse is the

consumption of plants with high Cr and Mn contents;

no more than 1 and 2 g, respectively, are safe for daily

intake.

As is known, Ukraine has rich deposits of man-

ganese (about 10% of world resources). The explored

reserves of mining companies are 140 million tons

or about 21% of world reserves (Sun et al., 2020).

The country is a prominent producer of manganese

ore. The primary deposits are concentrated in the

Dnipropetrovsk region. The chain of manganese cir-

culation, from its extraction, further processing and

end-use in various industries, is illustrated in ﬁgure 7.

The initial data for illustration are taken from (Sun

et al., 2020). According to the results of 2017, the

total manganese in the world is 23.9 million tons.

The source of manganese supply is manganese

and iron ores, as well as manganese-containing scrap.

When processing ore and scrap, they are converted

into various intermediate products by smelting, elec-

trolysis or other technological processes. They are

various ferroalloys and other manganese compounds.

As a ﬁnal consumption, manganese is used to produce

steel and aluminium alloys, various galvanic cells,

fertilisers, animal feed components, and other prod-

ucts.

Sooner or later, the lifespan of manganese prod-

ucts expires and such products are discarded. If the

spent elements are collected, their secondary use be-

gins in the form of scrap. Unfortunately, most of the

discarded products are not efﬁciently collected and

processed. They are classiﬁed as waste. Currently,

there are almost no well-established systems (except

for steel metallurgy) of manganese regeneration.

Accordingly, waste manganese products and

emissions from the metallurgical and mining indus-

tries are environmental pollution sources. The scale

of pollution from human activities is huge. As al-

ready mentioned, the primary manganese deposits,

ferroalloy and metallurgical plants are concentrated

in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Accordingly, the im-

pact of these enterprises on the environment focuses

on this region. Simultaneously, heavy manganese pol-

lution of small rivers is registered even in the Ternopil

region (Prokopchuk and Hrubinko, 2016). This pa-

per presents data on manganese contamination of

The Learning-style-based Approach and Optimal Use of e-Resources in Teaching Ecological Disciplines

395

Figure 7: Supply and intermediate products and end-use of Mn in the world (million ton and %).

medicinal plants collected in four different regions of

Ukraine. For example, manganese and iron are known

to be antagonists in plants (Alejandro et al., 2020; Za-

itsev et al., 2020). In many countries, iron concen-

tration in tissues of most plants is usually higher than

Mn content. Ukraine is an exception in this sense,

as the concentration of manganese has been shown

to exceed typically iron concentration (Derkach and

Khomenko, 2018a,b). Obviously, the source of such

pollution is the spread of manganese waste.

Mn is the ﬁfth most abundant metal on the Earth.

Mn does not occur naturally in a pure state (Schmidt

and Husted, 2019; Huang and Zhang, 2020). It exists

in both inorganic and organic compounds — the in-

organic form being the most common. However, Mn

also exists in organic forms, particularly as an addi-

tive to fertilisers and fuels. In principle, Mn can oc-

cur in 11 different oxidation states, varying from -3 to

+7 because of 7 electrons in the outer electron shell.

In living tissue, Mn has been found as Mn

, Mn

and possibly as Mn

. Higher oxides and other com-

plexes of Mn at lower oxidation states are not ob-

served in biological materials. This element is essen-

tial for normal biochemical and physiological func-

tions in plants and serves as a co-factor for some en-

zymes.

The most common toxicity is manganese in a pro-

fessional environment. However, there are known

cases of adverse health effects of this element due

to environmental impact. Poisoning by this element

is referred to as manganism (Lange and Condelo III,

2016). The suggested dietary intake of Mn is about

2 mg/day (table 2). Organ systems most affected are

the liver, heart and nervous system.

4.4 Optimisation of Teaching Methods

and Forms to Study Ecological

Chemistry

The article attempts to modify future specialists’ eco-

logical training in chemical specialities, integrating

sustainable development ideas. Teaching technolo-

gies have been improved in several areas to prepare

future professionals to work in a sustainable produc-

tion environment.

To ensure the sustainable development of the stu-

dent’s personality, they tried to promote a conscious

attitude to their cognitive activity and create condi-

tions for the most practical knowledge acquisition.

Determining the proﬁles of groups allowed the au-

thors to use the technology of integration of meth-

ods, forms and means of teaching, including ICTs,

taking into account the peculiarities of the formed ed-

ucational preferences of students. The use of quan-

titative criteria for assessing the feasibility of using

e-resources on this technology can prevent the emer-

gence of “conﬂict of styles” of teaching and learning.

The content of educational components was ﬁlled

with factual material that reﬂects the current state of

environmental ecology. The primary purpose of this

was to form students’ understanding of the connection

between changes occurring in nature due to human-

made impact and elements of their future professional

activity. It was also important to better align the

developed teaching material with the requirements,

which dictate the presence in groups of the vast ma-

jority of active and sensitive students.

To ensure the organisation of training using ICT,

dedicated educational and methodological support

was developed. It includes instructions for the self-

facilitated execution of computer simulations and sets

of multimedia presentations. The developed method-

ical recommendations for teachers reveal a technique

of using the described e-resources in the real educa-

tional process.

5 THE PROSPECTS FOR FUTURE

RESEARCH

Preliminary diagnosis of students styles in the group

allows the teacher to create conditions for enriching

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

396

students’ stylistic behaviour, which will increase the

productivity of their intellectual actions.

The use of the educational resources created in

this work will help prevent the “conﬂict of learning

styles” of teachers and students.

The paper’s ﬁndings can be used in higher educa-

tion institutions’ educational process to teach the ped-

agogical cycle disciplines. For example, “Methods of

teaching chemistry in a specialised school and voca-

tional education institutions”, as well as professional

disciplines “Organic chemistry”, “Computer statisti-

cal processing results” and others.

Continuing experiments to establish links between

students’ academic performance and the development

of their cognitive styles is a promising area of re-

search. Summarising their results will help to formu-

late principles for the organisation of efﬁcient training

of future chemical specialists.

6 CONCLUSIONS

1. The paper proposes changes in teaching methods

and the discipline’s content in ecological chem-

istry teaching. The change in teaching methods

and content is focused on optimising e-resources

according to students’ educational preferences.

Individuals’ educational preferences were studied

for 1-5 year students majoring in chemistry and

informatics at KSPU and 1-5 year students major-

ing in industrial pharmacy at KNUTD.

2. The Index of Learning Style instrument by R.

Felder – B. Soloman was used. Most future

chemists learn visually, sensitively, actively and

sequentially. The styles of undergraduate students

majoring in industrial pharmacy are qualitatively

similar and show even more pronounced prefer-

ences in 3 dimensions. In the glo-seq dimension,

pharmacists have a clear advantage in the sequen-

tial style, while chemists’ styles are relatively bal-

anced.

3. Learning preferences are relatively stable during

undergraduate study and vary very little depend-

ing on gender or age. Detailed comparisons of

undergraduate and graduate students among the

future pharmacists show an increase in the num-

ber of masters with ref and vrb preferences. So,

student proﬁles in these dimensions become more

balanced in passing from undergraduate to gradu-

ate studies.

4. Based on individual students’ learning prefer-

ences, the group proﬁles are calculated using the

previously developed methodology. It considers

the rating of e-resources by the average score of

student preferences and the difference between

the ratings of experts and scores of students with

different learning styles.

5. Developed didactic materials, which correspond

to the group’s educational preferences, were used

to teach the topic “Ecological chemistry of the

lithosphere”.

6. The topic “environmental pollution of plants”

contains a large number of concrete examples.

The possible introduction of this topic into the syl-

labus of ecological chemistry aims to improve the

correspondence between the content of the disci-

pline and students’ educational preferences with a

sensitive learning style.

7. In the study, we started introducing students to

different work forms that involve different cog-

nitive functions and contribute to their balance.

In turn, the latter allows a person to be ﬂexible

in the unrestrained development of technological

progress, be open to different ways of receiving

information and perceiving it without resistance

and tension.

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