ah&?& CHEMICAL EDUCATION R--Sw Report of the Curriculum Committee Preface For some time the 200 volunteer members of the Currioulum Committee of the Division of Chemical Education have been hard at work attempting to develop outlines and statements of behavioral objectives, and to integrate them for use in chemistly at the high school and college levels. While our effort is incomplete, it is time to share some of our thinking with all of our colleagues in chemical education so that we might solicit your response and incorporate your ideas and suggestions into our work, as well as to cordially invite your direct participation. The following is a. "position" paper produced at the request of the Curriculum Committee by Harold Cassidy. Dr. Cassidy is performing a task set by the steering council' of sub-committee chairmen. We have asked him to state a position, to initiate a. philosophic framework for reports that will follow throughout the year. We invite from feedback directed to any of those listed below. the community of teachers and other readers of THIS JOURNAL,
Mariorie Gardner, Committee Chairman; University of Maryland
Statement of Purpose This analysis of some challenges facing the Curriculum Committee does not presume to represent more than the Author's opinions. These opinions have been modified in discussions with committee members (having suffered some abrasion in the process) and have been edited most helpfully by several committee members. Thus they represent a t least some of the present thinking of the committee. This analysis is presented a t this time because of the need for an overall framework within which to fit possible solutions to our problems. The committee is faced with two related concerns: (1) the chemistry curriculum for majors and pre-professional science and technology students; (2) the chemistry curriculum for our growing non-science and even anti-science, willing or dragooned, clientele. It is clear that these are different challenges. The latter curriculum cannot be merely a diluted or de-mathematized (i.e., second-class) version of the former, but must be given full status in its own right. At the same time there are fundamental considerations basic to both. We start with these. Observations
(1) The relative number of scientifically literate people is not increasing even though there are vast resources of intelligent citizens. (2) There is increasing support for cults of irrationality and nihilism. It must be concluded therefore that our present approaches to science education are not working as we would like them to. Acceptance of this conclusion justifies the work of this committee. It is axiomatic that no one today can be considered culturally literate without a sound knowledge of what science is, what is has contributed to our lives, and how it affects our technologies (scientific and humanistic). This knowledge should be based on some substantive scientific experience. We agree with Ernest Gellner's statement that much of our present education alienates our students from their culture. This alienation either turns them backward to attempt a recreation of an outmoded and anachronistic past, or leads them to ex34
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Journal o f Chemical Education
Members of the Steering Council
Con".
O n c ~ u i c : Stanley Bunce, Rensselaer Polytechnic !nstitute, Troy, N.Y. B S H A Y ~ BOAnL~ ~ c ~ w eJay a : Young, Auburn Umverslty, Auburn, Ala R r o r a ~ ~ m ~ nRobert r: Kloss. Governors State Unwers~tr, Park Forest, Ill. Hmn SCHOOL:Donald Summws, New hlexioo State University. Laa Cruoes, N. M. I ~ o n c m i c : James Huheey, University of Maryland, College Park. Md.
pect an unrealistic Utopian future based on some ideology. This dreadful state of affairs urges us on. Because so much of our previous effort in chemical education has been focused on content, we have tended to neglect the problems of commuuication and the personal problems of the students in learning the meaning of science and sensing its power to strengthen their lives. Although we have not hitherto felt the need to consider these %on-chemical" problems, two current factors other than anti-science behavior call our neglect explicitly to our attention: (1) psychologists and learning theorists have gathered an enormous body of hard, reproducible data relative to teaching and learning in human beings which cannot be negelected; (2) the rapidly expanding multimedia and computer technology has provided the opportunity for truly individualized instruction, with all that this implies in terms of freeing the student to progress a t his own rate and increasing the ease of maintaining an up-to-date course. One of the most promising aspects of this development has been the gradual acceptance of a systems approach. This has especially predisposed us to recognize that all these aspects are linked in the system student-subjecbteacher. A third and extremely important concern which our analysis compels us to consider is the need to convey to the student what role science plays in our culture and in his own life. Scientists are concerned with the processes and behaviors of material objects. Except for a small number of introspective investigators these material objects are outside of our heads: "out there." They are usually intractable to certain kinds of manipu-
lations as things. So we have learned how to make a symbolic transformation (Langer) from the things undergoing processes "out there" to symbols and concepts "in here" in our "heads," where this expression covers a multitude of responses to stimuli. The process explicitly involves constructing conceptual models that are much simpler, more abstract and idealized, than the rich, undisciplined, raw stimuli. We have learned how to manipulate some of these symbols by logic and mathematics, and intuitive processes so as to develop, discover, and predict consequences. These are validated when they agree with the way the world is. Now this kind of procedure is of course practiced in all intellectual work, scientific or not. What distinguishes the scientific approach is (1) that this is done as a policy; (2) that special techniques have been devised to make the observational side as free as possible from personal bias (whereas in some other kinds of intellectual activity the personal bias is of the essence); (3) that by restricting to certain kinds of data the symbolic operations become amenable to quantitative manipulation; (4) that the connections between concepts, whether stated as laws or hypotheses, form a highly linked and integrated network of relationships; and (5) that nothing is considered factual and trustworthy unless i t has been validated against nature-against the way the world is. The point that can be made clear to most students, majors and nonmajors alike, is that this fantastic network of linked cognitive relationships connected to nature through experience (an existential dimension, indeed) is a bearer of meaning. They themselves can verify this in the delight that comes as a well worked out chain of reasoning brings a fitting conclusion; or as some experience of theirs fits into this body of knowledge and experience and so validates their own experience; or as they observe the behaviors of scientists. The practicing scientist who contributes to this grand nexus is himself a creator of something meaningful; he certainly gives meaning to his own activities, and in this sense builds his identity in the frame of reference of his science. This is of tremendous cultural importance since it challenges the bases of much nihilistic philosophy that has captured the imagination of so many students. It seems to me that if we could truly convey to students and others (especially in continuing education courses) the function of science as our most powerful bearer of rational meaning this would be the most productive non-chemical outcome of our teaching: it would tremendously enhance the chemistry itself. This outcome would be especially important in reaching non-scientists, for it is something they can grasp, and it can give them hope. Combined with this must be the recognition of the role of non-rational mental processes in science (for example inspiration, intuition, creative aesthetic experience) for this connects us most fruitfully to other disciplines such as the humanities and their technologies, the arts. This role is played in science by the operations that may be called by such names as intuition, induction, problem-solving of certain kinds where innovation is needed.
In partial summary, the chemistry curriculum should reflect the substantive facts of our science, but in such a way that the needs of our students as people are taken into account. This is what many of them are talking about when they turn from science; when they say i t is not "relevant" they mean that we are not doing what we should to communicate the kinds of concern we have sketched. We can formalize what we are saying by talking about "systems" but what I have described has been practiced intuitively by good teachers since time began: they did not use these terms, and may not have formulated some of these concepts. Many of the practices of successful teachers have been formally analyzed today; thus we can more efficiently help others to learn. The systems approach may turn out to be a matter of some importance in connection with stating our objectives better; with specifying for student and teacher what is to be learned. Turning now to specific chemistry curricula we find ourselves faced with a dilemma with which countless committees have struggled for years: when we stick to broad generalities we can agree, but as we attempt more detailed specification of curricular content the area of agreement constricts. Yet by the very nature of our self-imposed criteria we feel the need for a t least re%sonably detailed specification of acceptable content for the three kinds of courses that should be available to the student for his choice: pre-professional-major courses; less vigorous courses for majors in other sciences; specially designed courses for non-scientists. One important observation helps us here. The amount of substantive material available in science is fantastically large-beyond individual comprehension (literally). Moreover, students rarely remember more than a very few facts unless they constantly use them. Thus there is a range in this factor from the major to the non-scientist. But all students leave our courses with lmg-remembered attitudes. Some teachers may become nervous a t this statement-and rightly so if we were arguing that we should teach attitudes, but all I am saying is that in my experience attitudes are more adhesive for most students than facts. However, psychologists have rather convincingly shown that attitudes are not easily taught; they rather are changed by changing behavior. This is why the present emphasis on behavioral objectives in curricular development is so important, provided we are not trapped into thinking of this approach as the new "ultimate solution to all problems." It is a solution for some problems, but we must use our heads in order to apply it properly; to assess its limitations; to avoid its becoming a strait jacket; to permit it to help us to remain future-oriented: in short to use it with that restraint that is becoming to the employment of a new and powerful tool. A later paper from the Committee will discuss behavioral objectives in some detail. Broadly speaking, the behavioral objective approach requires us to specify changes in the behavior of our students. These changes must be observable, and present objective evidence that learning (and thus teaching) has occurred. Harold Cassidy Yale University N e w Haven, Connecticut
Volume
49, Number I , January 1972
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