L. W. Collins' and L. D. Haws Mound Facility2 Miamisburg. OH 45342
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An Industrially Developed Basic Chemistry Course
Trainina laboratory technicians and service employees for the industriral chemical environment has historically been the job of universities or two-year colleges. Unfortunately, many of industry's special problems have often been treated either superficially in the academic environment, or neglected altogether. Formal c h e m i s t ~courses develooed and offered hv an industry for its employees, however, are rare: a survey of this Journal between 1950 and 1978 did not Droduce a sinale report on such a course. T o fill the need for ~ractical.iob-related instruction we developed a 3-112-month course around 31 basic chemistry tooics and Dresented it at Mound Facilitv. Monsanto Research corporati& Miamisburg, Ohio. The course is designed to supplement university courses by stressing application of concepts and to provide limited exposure to those who have not had formal instruction. I t is common industry practice to place untrained people into a laboratory environment and depend on informal teaching by professionals in the workplace. The primary purpose of the course developed at Mound Facility was to provide formal instruction in certain functional areas of chemistry important to job performance and safety while offerine broad exnosure to the more advanced contents. The diversity of theAhackgroundsof the students as weil as the intent of the course suceested that a descriotive aooroach to chemistry would he more desirable than tGe phys&hemical approach currently used in academia. The background of the students at Mound Facility ranged from no ~reviousinstruction (maioritv) . . to com~letionof college level organic chemistry (one). Most students were approaching middle age and had received little if any formal education since graduation from high school. All had significant work experience, were in the course by choice, and could relate the material to some aspect of their present johs. In addition to laboratory technicians, the class included purchasing clerks, typists, editorial assistants, librarians, and others who desired a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry to better perform their work. After developing a general course outline, we sought textbooks and supplementary instructional aids to help accomplish our objectives. The scarcity of descriptive elementary chemistry books aimed a t the industrial environment was rather surprising. Since we could not find instructional materials that exactlv matched our reauirements, the easilv tailored, modular audiotutorial course developed by wen-dlandt et a1.3 111 was selected as the most reasonable alternative. The audio-tutorial course guides the student through
the topic by means of tapes coordinated with a textbook.3The philosophy and mechanics of the approach have been previously described in this J o ~ r n a l . ~ The taoes minimized instructor oreoaration time on the part of otherwise busy research chemist; since the bulk of the material could he covered bv simolv . . olavina . . the taoe to the group. When we felt coverage of topics was too superficial, additional explanations and problem exercises were written for distribution in class to supplement the tape. I t was also necessary to discuss the tapes immediately after listening to correct misapprehensions and to schedule frequent review sessions, about every three or four tapes, to reinforce the concepts. Lectures and handouts weredeveloped for topics of special interest to Mound Facility employees such as chemical nomenclature, both inorganic andbrganic, and the chemistry of explosives-two topics we consider vital to employee safety and job performance. A unit on the library and chemical literature, a topic neglected in most introductory university chemistry courses, was developed to expand the technician's job to include literature searches. Fifteen students met twice weekly in one hour sessions for about 3 112 months. Vacation scheduline necessitated make-up sessions for some students, hut the use of taped lectures minimized the effects of this problem. The students maintained a positive attitude toward the course and were very receptive to the material. No serious prohlems were encountered. A survey and interviews with the students upon completion of the course showed that they considered the material to be of significant value in the performance of their johs and were enthusiastic in their support of the instruction. Also, hand-in exercises and in-class tests (non-graded) indicated that the majority of the students had developed the desired level of proficiency in the areas we felt most important. While we do not consider the audio-tape method to be the perfect answer to the problem of training industrial chemical workers, we feel that the approach has merit and deserves consideration hv other companies facing similar training prohlems.
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5% horn correqa.nd~nce;hmlrl l v arldrrssed. \It,und F ; d n y is oprrntcd hv .\lmmnr(~Rrsrnrrh Cc,rpmmon f w the I ' . S Drrmrlrn~nrof I'nerrv EY--6 ('. . under ('mtmrt !+I.
04-0053.
Wendlandt. W. W.. Geananeel. R. A.. and Barrv. D.. "General chemistry-an~udio-Tutorialipproach," The ~ h k e sMerrill ~ . Publishing Ca., Columbus, Ohio, 1975. Wendlandt, W. W., Geanangel, R. A,, and Barry, D., J. CHEM. EDUC., 52,110 (1975).
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Volume 56. Number 9,September 1979 1 589
