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Unpacking the gestures of chemistry learners: What the hands tell us about correct and incorrect conceptions of stereochemistry.

ABSTRACT: In this study, adults, who were naïve to organic chemistry, drew stereoisomers of molecules and explained their drawings. From these explanations, we identified nine strategies that participants expressed during those explanations. Five of the nine strategies referred to properties of the molecule that were explanatorily irrelevant to solving the problem; the remaining four referred to properties that were explanatorily relevant to the solution. For each problem, we tallied which of the nine strategies were expressed within the explanation for that problem, and determined whether the strategy was expressed in speech only, gesture only, or in both speech and gesture within the explanation. After these explanations, all participants watched the experimenter deliver a two-minute training module on stereoisomers. Following the training, participants repeated the drawing+explanation task on six new problems. The number of relevant strategies that participants expressed in speech (alone or with gesture) before training did not predict their post-training scores. However, the number of relevant strategies participants expressed in gesture-only before training did predict their post-training scores. Conveying relevant information about stereoisomers uniquely in gesture prior to a brief training is thus a good index of who is most likely to learn from the training. We suggest that gesture reveals explanatorily relevant implicit knowledge that reflects (and perhaps even promotes) acquisition of new understanding.

SUBMITTER: Ping R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8133643 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:RNA polymerase (RNAP) is the primary machine responsible for transcription. Its ability to distinguish between correct (cognate) and incorrect (noncognate) nucleoside triphosphates (NTPs) is important for fidelity control in transcription. In this work, we investigated the substrate selection mechanism of T7 RNAP from the perspective of energetics. The dissociation free energies were determined for matched and unmatched base pairs in the preinsertion complex using the umbrella sampling method. A clear hydrogen-bond-rupture peak is observed in the potential of mean force curve for a matched base pair, whereas no such peaks are present in the position of mean force profiles for unmatched ones. The free-energy barrier could prevent correct substrates from being separated from the active site. Therefore, when NTPs diffuse into the active site, correct ones will stay for chemistry once they establish effective base pairing contacts with the template nucleotide, whereas incorrect ones will be withdrawn from the active site and rejected back to solution. This result provides an important energy evidence for the substrate selection mechanism of RNAP. Then we elucidated energetics and molecular details for correct NTP binding to the active site of the insertion complex. Our observations reveal that strong interactions act on the triphosphate of NTP to constrain its movement, whereas relatively weak interactions serve to position the base in the correct conformation. Triple interactions, hydrophobic contacts from residues M635 and Y639, base stacking from the 3' RNA terminal nucleotide, and base pairing from the template nucleotide act together to position the NTP base in a catalytically competent conformation. At last, we observed that incorrect NTPs cannot be as well-stabilized as the correct one in the active site when they are misincorporated in the insertion site. It is expected that our work can be helpful for comprehensively understanding details of this basic step in genetic transcription.

Dataset Information

Unpacking the gestures of chemistry learners: What the hands tell us about correct and incorrect conceptions of stereochemistry.

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