Leallyn B. Clapp Brown University Providence, Rhode Island 02912
All Changes in Teaching are For the Better, Almost
We are celebrating the centennial year of the ACS and the bicentennial for the nation hut Brown University is in its 212th year. I thought it might he amusing t o tell you some of the changes t h a t have occurred a t Brown in the chemistry curriculum during that time. In the first place I and perhaps most of you would not have been admitted to Brown in 1764.2 T h e Laws of the College then stated t h a t pvrson mm expect I,, be admitted into t h i s Collrgr unless he ;hall 1b2 ;ahIr 119 rrad accurately, runstrue. and p a w "l'ull\'and rhr (;reek Testament and Virgil. - . and shall be nhlr to wrm true Latin in prose; and shall bring suitable testimony of a blameless life and conversation, Eicl
If the first nart didn't exclude -vou...oerhaos the second Dart would. Recognizing the existence of both virtue and vice, the College opted for virtue. T h e Laws stated If any scholar shall be guilty of blasphemy, robbery, fornication, forgery, or any such atrocious crime, he shall be forthwith expelled. Every scholar is strictly forbidden to play at cards or any unlawful games; to swear, steal, get drunk, or use obscene or idle words; strike his fellow students or others; or keep company with persons of a known had character; or attend at places of idle or vain sports. T h e Charter of 1764 barred religious tests and guaranteed "uninterruoted lihertv of conscience." These were revolutionary ideas a t that time and you may see the fine hand of Roger Williams, dissenter, independent man, and gadfly in all this. With this contrast in conservative order and religious freedom it may he surprising that the College took a stand on the political ferment of the times. But classes were suspended from 1776-82 and almost all the students and faculty were active participants in the revolt. University Hall housed troops 1776-80 and was used as a hospital for French troops 178082. By 1876, a foot was in the door for lowering the admission requirements. For the BA degree there were examinations in Latin, Greek, Math, English, and French b u t the Ph.B. allowed admission without the Greek examination. T h e BA's took chemistry and physics in the fifth semester b u t the Ph.B's took chemistrv (3 hrslwk) in Sem I. analvtical chemistry (5 hrslwk) in 11, (10 hrslwk) in'~em'111, and (10 hrslwk) in Sem V. The course description for chemistry in the 1876 catalog was as follows: T h e chemical laboratory is open 8:30 a.m.-230 p.m. everv . dav. exceDt Saturdav. Attention is given to metaliurgy, pharmacy, medicinal chemistry, agricultural chemistry, and applications of chemistry t o mann-
ern
I
The Cover: Leallyn B. Clapp ofBrown University is recipient of the 1976American Chemical SocietyAward in Chemical Education, sponsored by the Scientific Apparatus Makers Association. Dr. Clapp, past Chairman of the Division of Chemical Education, an organizer of the Chemical Band Approach course for secondary schools, author of general chemistry texts and internationally known in chemical education circles is one of the most resoected chemistrv teachers in Amrrwa t.da). Thii paper is a wndrniation $11 his i.\hl.\ u wrd addre+. w e n ;at the ('entennis1 \leetint: 01 AC'S in New York in April of this year.
534 1 Journal of Chemical Education
facturing processes. T h e textbooks were Appleton's "Introduction to Qualitative Analysis," Appleton's "Introduction to Quantitative Analysis," Appleton's "Chemical Reactions," Thorpe's "Inorganic Chemistry," and Thorpe's "Chemical Problems." T h e College expense for 1876 was $102 b u t in 1877 the tuition was raised $25 and increases have scarcely stopped since. There were 18 faculty members of which two were chemists. This reflects the prestige of Professor John H. Appleton rather than the relative importance of chemistry in the curriculum. The President, a Baptist minister, taught natural theology and there were no deans. T h e earliest exam in chemistry for admission t h a t I could find in the Deoartment was " eiven in 1906. The auestions were entirely factual in nature-nothing conceptual as is evident below. I. Define the term ion.
..
Vl. Describe the preparation and properties of chlorine gas. VII. Describe, with explanations and equations, some experiment performed by the pupil with carbon or some compound of b".U"...
VIII. Write completed equations (with formulas) as required below: Potassium chlarate (heated) Ferrous sulphide sulphurie acid Carbon monoxide +oxygen Copper nitric acid IX. Write formulas for: 1. Hydrochloric acid, 6. Lead chromate, 2. Phosphoric acid, 7. Barium carbonate, 3. Hydrogen peroxide, 8. Ferrous oxide, 4. Calcium sulphate, 9. Starch, 5. Silver nitrate, 10. Cane sugar. X. One hundred pounds of sodium nitrate contain: 1. How many pounds of sodium? 2. How many pounds of nitrogen? 3. How many pounds of oxygen? N a = 23 N = 14 O = 16 Hieh since 1906. We eave out " school chemistrv has chaneed " a copy of this exam to our high school teachers in the twelve summer institutes we have had a t Brown iust toreiterate that some changes have occurred even in textbooks.
+
+
- - -
Organic for Freshmen I suspect t h a t I won the SAMA Award for something I didn't do. Most of you may associate Brown with the teaching of organic chemistry t o freshmen. I was not entirely responsible; I was pushed. Paul Cross came into m y office one day in 1947 and said. "How would vou like t o teach oreanic chemistry t o freshmen?" I was a polite assistant professor a t that time and he was a resoected nrofessor so I said. "Imnossihle." B u t t h a t answer was not acceptable to Paul. He enScientific Apparatus Makers Award lecture given at the Chemists Club, New York at the Centennial Meeting of the ACS, April 7, 1976. 'From the opening convocation of the 212th year of Brown Universitv bv President Donald F. Hornie. Seot. 16.1975. 2~ram'FrankNewman, President of'& Cniveriity of Rhade Island as reported in theProuidence Journal, October 4, 1975.
How would you like to teach organic chemistry to freshmen?
Our second year course was then physical chemistry and the fifth semester was inoreanic chemistw. not entirelv descriotive noa since the students knew what an electrode potential was. The diiferenre in the cheniistrr of chlorine and bromine is still partlv desrriptive hut de,criptive with a number attached, tht oxidatiw potential and the free enemy change. By the time my text was published in 1957 the organic chemists at Brown, Jerry Nace and John Edwards, were saying that you couldn't trach a decent course in organic chemistry involvmg mechanisms without knou,iny som? kinetics. Indeed, one muit understand the difference between kinetic and equilibrium control in order to understand the behavior of organic systems. So in 1963we staged another revolution and completed Paul Cross' original concept in the curriculum by putting a course in front of the 1948 curriculum, the content of which was six weeks of kinetics, six weeks of thermodynamics and eauilihrium. and four weeks of an introduction to structure. ?;hat was dbne over my dead body by John Edwards. John Ross and Ned Greene but it led to a meat improvement in my teaching of the second and thirdsemester (oreanic courses) because now I could d e ~ e n don mv students beLg able to understand the difference between kinetic control and eauilihrium control in a chemical reaction. Everv change in teaihing is for the better, almost.
larged a little on his thesis: "What we should do is start with the fundamental principles of physical chemistry and everything after that shall be added. However, desirable as that system would he, it is impractical in 1947 while our students are learning calculus and physics. Why don't we teach them what is still descriptive in chemistry, namely organic. You think about it." I didn't think about i t a t all because I knew it was impossible. But Paul sent Spike Coles down to work on me and since we were the same a&, I could hare my knuckles with him. Then Bob Epple came to me one day and said, "I hear that you're going to teach organic to the freshmen next year." Then I knew that things were getting serious. I told Snike Coles and Bob E n d e that the freshmen would break round-bottomed flasks,'drop thermometers, and have a fire everv other dav hut in the end I wrote some chemistw of the northeast part" of the periodic table in the summer bf 1948 which eventuallv became "The Chemistrv of the Covalent h n d . " I kept at irast a wrek ahead of the siudenra and Sptke ('oles and derrv h c e munttorcd mv lecturps that rirst \,ear and suggested some changes. We ran parallel curricula for four years. We decided that chemistry majors were good enough students to recover from any damage we inflicted on them. None of the perils I feared-breaking thermometers, dropping flasks, and having fires-came to pass. Perhaps we were more careful and certainly our graduate assistants were more careful because they thought we were crazy. In 1952 we applied the new curriculum to engineers, biology majors, premeds, everybody who took any chemistry and abandoned the traditional curriculum. Paul Cross kept the climate right for this experiment in chemical education. We had 13faculty members, all under 35 years of age except two and we had long and fearsome discussions on how to put a curriculum together not hy throwing things out (the method generally used by tinkerers with single courses) hut by starting from scratch and putting things in by logical sequence. Let me say that the traditional order of teaching the subject matter of chemistry seems to he a historical accident. At Brown the order was probably not different from that in your own institution. According to the Brown historical catalogs the chemistry laboratory was first opened in 1853 but lectures in chemistry probably started in 1848. In 1865 the catalog reads, "It is the design of the department to teach students analytical chemistry and then to direct their studies to practical anolications of chemistrv." and ouantitative - Qualitative . analys'ig were first listed as separate courses in i874 so that in 1876. there were one inoreanic and three analvtical courses. In 1889 orpanir chemistry was o i i ~ r e dat Hrown for the first rimc with that title and nhviical chemistw was addrd in 1901. Biochemistry was not added till 1973. We were a little late with that one.
Our latest escapade is to introduce what Tom Morton calls the ..zero effluen~lal,oratory." The ideal is to haw nothing no down the stnk ewrr)t what is hiodearndable or innucu(,us iike sodium chloride. Thestudents recover their solvents for re-use and we have cut out the use of chloroform,henzene, and carbon tetrachloride. We use no Bunsen burners so the number of fires in the organic lab has been cut to zero. Nobody can boil benzene with a flame in an open beaker if neither henzene nor a Bunsen burner is available. We use steam baths and heat lamps instead. The students are a t least aware af environmental hazards. We require a pre-lab statement in the notehook alagut thr ~)xicitiesondhazird, of any chemirnl that will be used that day. These are taken from thr hlerck index o r CHC handhook from thc. lihran.. h e r \ chanee in teachinr is for the better, ahnost. This expekment k curriklum change was snonsored bv the Exxon Foundation and those interested can get more information from Professor T. H. Morton. We haven't solved all the problems. Some solvents are allowed to evaporate in desks over the week from one lab period to the next hut there are advantages, not the least of which may he psychological. Even the teaching assistants may take some of the practices to their own research. What is our next escapade? Probably PSI, personalized systems instruction. You have heard much about the Keller plan and its other manifestations in various Division meetings and symposia recently and I won't sav more about it. Whether it is here to stav or whether it goes the way of programmed instruction remains to be seen.
Evolution of a Curriculum
The Importance of Changes in Teaching Methods
It occurred to us in our deliberations that the historical accident of the development of the various branches of chemistry might not in 1948 be the best pedagogical order in which to teach chemistrv. So while our students were eettins " a background in calculusand physics we decided to give them chemistry still largely descriptive, the chemistry of the northeast corner of the periodic table. Since we could not iustifv the chemistw of hvdroeen . " sulfide. we scrapped the scheme anh have not missed it since 1948. We decided that the teaching of equilihrium phenomena could he done in a different manner. Furthermore, we decided that auantitative chemistrv should be taueht in every course and not just those labelled analytical.
Why do I think that all changes in teaching are for the better. almost? You all know that the lecture svstem has been described as a method of getting notes of the tkacher into the notes of the student without eoine throueh the mind of either. I believe that if you can inte;ruptthat sKort circuit so that at least one of the two minds is involved. an im~rovementin transportation of information is more likely to occur. The principal point, then, is that if the instructor thinks about the consequences of any change he is contemplating, the pedagogy may he improved. This is why undergraduate teaching has a better chance for improvement than graduate teaching. At least, in an undergraduate course there is time to think about the pedagogy. When I teach a graduate course I spend allmy
-
The ideal is to have nothinggo down the sink except what is biodegradable.
Volume 53,Number 9, September 1976 / 535
time in the library keeping up with the subject matter so there is no dieestion time to think ahout how best tomake the mesentation. For me undergraduate teaching is much the greater challenge. What did I learn overseas in the ten places I have had a chance to teach? Every change in teaching is for the better. One of my great thrills in teaching occurred in Patna, Bihar when we introduced the &test tube experiment. I helieve Jay Young calls it the 9-test tube experiment in his Willard Grant Press module. There was great excitement in the lahoratory that day because none of these high school or college teachers had ever invented such an experiment. When Tony Neidig and I were in Chile some years ago the teachers were very excited when Tony asked them to draw conclusions and invent a theorv that would account for their observations in the lab. They cohdn't helieve that Tony would accept their own findings to draw conclusions. Theories came only from textbooks-the sacred printed word and so this was a new ex~eriencefor them. Every change - in teaching.is for the better, almost. This ex~erienceis not unique to overseas teachinz. I believe the Lcces.; we had in our uu,n Summer Institutes at Bruwn wasdue to the non-traditiunul aspectsofthe CHA curriculum which were new to every high schwl teacher a t the time. Tony Neidia's inventions of the black box experiment and the discover; method of teaching in the lahoratory and Larry Strong's new theory of structure (the charge cloud model) made profound changes in the thinking of the high school teachers and indeed, of the instructors. The most imnortant thing I learned overseas is that vou may speak the language hut iTyou don't also speak the cullure you may not communicate. I'll illustrate with an experience we had a t Lucknow. On the last day of classes the five American consultants thought it would he great sport to ride an elephant to class. We rented one from the local children's park and rode one mile from our residence to the University. We expected a great welcome and loud cheers but the high school and college teachers didn't crack a smile. It had about the same effect as arriving in a jeep would have had on an American campus. We did not communicate. Changes for the Future
What lies ahead in chemistry teaching? I think we are likely to he affected more by what happens in higher education in general than we are by what happens in chemistry. Milton Harris a t a meeting of the R. I. Section last November suggested that science and technology have gone through two phases and we are in the third. He said everything that happened in science and technology previous to 1940 could be considered Phase I as a base. Phase 11,1940-1965 was characterized by exponential growth in bodies, buildings, and budgets. Now we must face Phase I11 starting in 1965, which will he characterized by a leveling off to linear growth and we will have to live with that perhaps indefinitely. We cannot expectand don't need resuscitation. Weneedarenaissancenew goals and new prospects. While Milton Harris was soeakine.,nrinci~allv . . about the chemical industrv.., we can certainly count on fewer new buildings and lower budgets in education if not also fewer bodies. Teaching chemistry will not he less important hut will always need innovation. My next remarks are taken from a talk given by Frank Newmaq3 President of the University of Rhode Island, one of our neiehborina institutions. to students and Darents in
-
'l'hr r..n,rln,nly accepted parents' mle IT m e of thp central pillars whwh nr hass h u h w r rducntmnal witem. Parent, are crpetted h g n c a high pri~~nty torcllochg nnd to live ~na nmmumry with good schools even if this means paying more for a home or moving to another neighborhood. But heyand this, parents are expected to encourage, cajole, or, if necesfiary,threaten their children to insure that they study hard and get good grades. Why? Because of a linkage which goes something like this: atupm
536 / Journal of Chemical Education
We must prepare our sons and daughters for "downward mobility. ."
.
tending a good srhod and getting gmd grades insurezentrancr toa gmd collegr and for mans, a chance at n graduate or professimnl srhool. Fur thme u h o have played the game well, graduatht leads to a good job, insuring what parents want, namely upward social mobility for their offspring. Educators have encouraged this perception because they also gain what they are seeking,namely support for schools and colleges and a flaw of studious youngsters who are in class. .oreoared . to nav . ~ attention ~ . I t sermsuniair tute1l)ou n t wih a latedate-but thisstrareyy no Ihnger works. I t ii the wrong parental gamr plat, for the ID-LIs. The imr disquictinl: mturmntiun is the mounting ewdener that grades and test scores, past some modest level, donot correlate with success at anything except more schooling. In the words of one researcher,they "bear little or no relationshipto any measures of adult aceomnlishment." The second ooint. which has received eansiderahlvmore notice. is ~
~
stream that attends college. One result is growing competition for the gwd p h i in c w r y t'dd. It is nut true, derp~trrhr rhetoric d t h e day, that the nurnher of cood iohs iu 5hrtnkina. Quite the mntmrv. h few stmnlilird ,wtiwri h s t k the ooint. Between 1900 and i970.the &re of the work force clais~fmia, pn~fcssmnal,technrcnl, or managerial grew from approximately Id prrrrnt uioll jvostc,?ripercrnt. But,over thesame w e n drcsdes, theshareoiyoung pwpk in eneh age graupentwing college grew from about four percent to more than 50 percent. To these must be added a growing number of older Americans who are now attending college. Even with a degree, one must compete to be a teacher or botanist or engineer. There is still upward mohility for many, hut now downward mohility for some. Does this mean that you are wrong to be concerned about the education of your son or daughter? On the contrary, I believe that success-whether you define it in terms of a successful career, or contributing as a citizen, or of individual development-is more dependent than ever on gaining a first-rate education. However, the roles of parent and educator must he understood differently. ~
~
I call your particular attention to the two phrases "test scores correlate with success only in more schooling" and we must prepare our sons and daughters for "downward mobility in the society." I believe those factors need our attention in teaching in the future. The most important thing we can do as parents and educators is to teach our children and students to assume more responsihility for themselvrs. I'erhaps self-paced instruction may he a better wav tu do that. Even. change - in teaching e for the-better, almost: Carberry
Finally, let me tell YOU about another institution we have a t ~ r o w n Josiah . S. carberry, Professor of Psychoceramics, was a n invention of a classics professor in 1929. He found a notire on a bulletin hoard, ..On 'rhursday st ir'rlock in SayLs Hall, .I. S. Carlwrr? will rwr: a lecture on "Archaic Creek Architectural Revetmentsin Connection with Ionian Pbonology." The University calendar to this day contains titles of that ilk so that it would take a broad education indeed to detect a phoney. The classics professor in this case inserted the word not so that the notice read, "J. S. Carberry will not give a lecture, etc." That started a legendary figure on the campus. Every Friday the 13th is Carberry day (his birthday) and loose chanee is collected in Brown iues from facultv and alumni to b b hooks for the library that earberry's futuie late J. S. Carberrv had a number wife might or mieht not amrove. .. of inventions. 0;e of the latest ones for thespace age is a square camera lens which made more efficient use of negative space and would not roll off tables. He also invented the Carherry Messenger Service to transmit remarks that were uncalled for. I have been the Carherry messenger tonight.
