EDUCATION
Curriculums Break Away from Tradition Trends include earlier physical chemistry courses, more emphasis on undergraduate research 150TH
ACS
NATIONAL
MEETING
Chemical Education
Many U.S. colleges and universities have broken away from the traditional chemistry course sequence of general, analytical, organic, and physical chemistry plus one advanced course. In many schools all of the basic courses are taught in the first three years, with the fourth year available for more specialized advanced courses and research. Less course time is being spent on qualitative analysis and volumetric and gravimetric analysis. More emphasis is being placed on instrumental analysis. Elementary organic chemistry is now given with increasing emphasis on reaction mechanisms. Physical chemistry is being offered much earlier—it's now given in some schools in each of the eight semesters of the undergraduate program. Also, an increasing number of schools are including independent laboratory research in their undergraduate chem-
istry curriculums. These are some of the curriculum trends that were brought out at the Symposium on the Changing Chemistry Curriculum. A number of factors have been operating to put pressures on colleges and universities to raise the level, amount, and sophistication of undergraduate chemistry training, Dr. Robert I. Walter of Haverford College (Haverford, Pa.) told the symposium. One factor is the rapid development of chemistry and the other sciences during the past 20 years. A second is the recent improvement in high school training in mathematics and the sciences. Another is improved communication between chemistry teachers through the Journal of Chemical Education and through special conferences. And finally, graduate schools are expecting a higher level of undergraduate training in chemistry. All of these factors led the American Chemical Society's Committee on Professional Training to revise its minimum standards for evaluating undergraduate professional education in the fall of 1962. As a result, a
great many schools have discussed and tried out curriculum changes in recent years. To get more information on the nature and scope of these changes, the ACS Division of Chemical Education sponsored a survey of current undergraduate chemical education. Questionnaires were mailed to 830 schools on a National Academy of Sciences list of those that grant a bachelor's degree with a major in chemistry. About 63% of the schools contacted sent back replies. Of these, about 95% said they had made some changes in their undergraduate curriculum for chemistry majors during the past five years. Trends. From the curriculum changes that were reported in the survey, it's possible to discern several trends, Dr. Walter says. Many schools have broken away from what he calls the almost "dreary uniformity" of a year of general chemistry, followed by qualitative and quantitative analysis, organic chemistry, and finally physical chemistry in the senior year. Possibly the most general trend, he says, is in the direction of teaching all the basic courses in the first three years, with more specialized advanced courses and research in the fourth year. Analytical chemistry's location in the curriculum has come in for some major changes. Most schools now offer qualitative analysis as a part (usually less than a semester) of a freshman course. Volumetric and gravimetric analysis are distributed through the four years of the program, but still appear most frequently in the
Chemistry Laboratory Student Should Pose His Own Questions 'The student (in the general chemistry laboratory) ought to be aware that he is asking a question as he manipulates the apparatus and reagents. To the degree possible, the procedure the student follows ought to be planned by the student himself. . . In general, it is true, it is necessary that an explicit question be given to the beginning student. But the answer to this question usually requires that other, subordinate questions also be identified. Some of these, at least, need not be identified by the directions the student receives. For example, if the assigned question deals with a measurement of the heat of neutralization, it can be left for the student to discover that to answer this question in the laboratory, he must first himself recognize that this question must be attended to: Should the quantities of acid and base be chemically equivalent, or should one be in excess, and if so, which? Cookbook manuals which answer all such subordinate questions, often without even identifying their statement-directions as answers to questions, are clearly not useful in meeting this criterion. It is possible to prepare semicookbook directions in which,
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progressively through the academic year, fewer and fewer subordinate questions are stated explicitly and answered with specific directions, thus encouraging the student to participate more intensively in determining laboratory answers to questions. ". . . there is a psychological lift in the student's interest when he generates his own meaningful question by personally speculating about the hidden consonance in apparently conflicting data. Even when the "hypothesis" the student seizes upon has come from a textbook, the student still feels possessively oriented toward the explanation since he recognizes it, perhaps not consciously, as a statement from which he must draw a question that he can ask of nature at hns laboratory bench, using procedures which he has devised to yield data which Jie can delight in interpreting." DR. JAY A. YOUNG King's College, Wilkes-Barre, Pa. From a paper presented before the symposium
sophomore year. However, only a fraction of the total instructional time in the sophomore year is spent on analytical chemistry, in contrast to the prevailing practice 20 years ago, Dr. Walter says. A change appearing with great frequency is the scheduling of a semester of instrumental analysis during one of the last three terms of the curriculum. Elementary organic chemistry is now given most often as a sophomore course, usually with some attention given to organic reaction mechanisms, Dr. Walter notes. One third of the schools that replied to the survey give some laboratory work in organic qualitative analysis during the second semester of this course. In some schools, physical chemistry is now offered in each of the undergraduate program's eight semesters, Dr. Walter says. About 2 5 % of the schools replying to the survey give a substantial amount of physical chemistry in the first term of the curriculum. Some schools require a semester of rigorous physical chemistry in the second term. Others offer only some descriptive topics from traditional physical chemistry in the early years. Physical chemistry is most often given today as a junior course, along with thermodynamics. Some schools present descriptive material from quantum mechanics in the freshman year. A striking growth in independent laboratory research as part of the undergraduate curriculum has occurred. Most schools limit this to the fourth year of the program. Availability of supporting funds from the National Science Foundation has stimulated this increase, Dr. Walter points out. Amherst Program. One school that has made significant changes in its chemistry program during the past 20 years is Amherst College. Amherst's curriculum for chemistry majors is now based on a compulsory mathematics-physics course given in the freshman year. Chemistry is not given until the sophomore year. In describing Amherst's chemistry program, Dr. Robert B. Whitney, chairman of the college's department of chemistry, pointed out that the school's core curriculum (adopted in 1947) left no time for chemistry in the freshman year. So the chemistry department planned its program to begin in the sophomore year, requiring and using the calculus and physics in compulsory mathematics-physics given to all freshmen at Amherst.
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The faculty soon found that one semester was enough to cover the old one-year beginning chemistry course, and that the students were obtaining a more mature understanding of the subject. Enrollment in general chemistry dropped very slightly and later rose again. There was evidence that a few students were being weeded out by the physics, Dr. Whitney said. But as a result of the stimulating approach that the mathematics-physics course offered, a few top students who hadn't planned on majoring in science became interested in continuing. Following the one-semester general chemistry course, one semester each of qualitative and quantitative analysis was offered to sophomores. One year each of organic and physical chemistry was given to juniors, and advanced courses and individual research projects were offered in the senior year. Since the program began 18 years ago, vast changes have occurred in the high school preparation and in the general public awareness of the sciences and mathematics. In 1947 the Amherst program challenged everyone, but now many students enter with high maturity and sophistication in many academic fields, Dr. Whitney says. Also, lecture methods are becoming less acceptable, the faculty believes. Therefore the Amherst faculty has decided to abandon the core curriculum in its subjectmatter form and will establish three courses called "Problems of Inquiry," one in each of the divisions (humanities, social studies, and natural sciences). These courses are taught in smaller groups and in some cases with different treatment for students of different degrees of advancement or interests. The Amherst chemistry department has recently decided to make general chemistry optional and to launch the college chemistry program with a onesemester course in chemical thermodynamics, requiring physics and calculus as prerequisites. The laboratory for this course and the following course (tentatively called inorganic chemistry) is a demanding quantitative program, Dr. Whitney says. In the laboratory, students determine the chemical, electrical, and thermal quantities which are of interest in studying chemical equilibria. Juniors in the new Amherst program next year will have two one-year 56
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Brown's Program Starts with Physical Chemistry Semester Course
1st 2nd 3rd
3rd 4th 5th 5th and 6th
Equilibrium, Rate, and Structure Organic Chemistry Organic Chemistry (Organic Qualitative Analysis) Physical Chemistry Physical Chemistry Inorganic Chemistry Instrumental and Quantitative Analysis and Electronics
Advanced courses in physical, organic, and inorganic chemistry in last four semesters
The undergraduate chemistry curriculum at Brown University typifies the growing tendency of U.S. schools to offer physical chemistry earlier in the student's program
courses with laboratory work partly integrated. Both organic and inorganic preparative methods will be taught, Dr. Whitney says, and the substances prepared will be studied by various spectroscopic methods and by chemical methods in determining structure and in kinetic mechanistic studies. The class work in physical chemistry, he adds, will begin with quantum mechanics and continue with methods of structure determination and statistical thermodynamics.
Brown University Curriculum. The trend toward offering physical chemistry earlier in the curriculum is typified by the chemistry program now offered to undergraduates at Brown University. Since much physical organic chemistry has been pushed by necessity into the first organic course, the need for a physical chemistry course prior to organic chemistry became clear. The Brown University chemistry staff therefore decided to begin the chemistry program with a semester of physical chemistry. The first semester in the chemistry program at Brown is an introduction to physical chemistry, explains the university's Dr. John Ross. Three topics—equilibrium of chemical reactions, rates of chemical reactions, and structure of molecules—are discussed in some detail. Since calculus is taken by the students at the same time, it's used where necessary. Presenting
rigorous physical chemistry in the first semester introduces the student to the basic concepts of chemistry early in his career, Dr. Ross says. It also provides the theoretical foundation for courses in modern chemistry, he adds. Changes at I IT. Another school that is making some marked changes in its undergraduate chemistry curriculum is Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago). In 1961, faculty committees were formed to design a chemistry major program that would take advantage of the increased scientific sophistication of IIT students and give them the best possible preparation for graduate school. The new program was adopted for students entering IIT in 1963. The main features of the program as described by Dr. Arthur E. Martell, chairman of H T s department of chemistry, are: • A first-year course comprising one semester of chemical principles and bonding, and a second semester of the chemistry of the elements. • A four-semester sequence of physical chemistry courses beginning in the third semester. • Reduction of classical quantitative analysis to a three-hour, one-semester course with a limited number of experiments. • Research in some form to be experienced by all students. Moving physical chemistry up to the sophomore year allows the upgrading of the content of other courses given in the third and fourth years. The subject matter in advanced organic, inorganic, and analytical courses can be based on a knowledge of physical chemistry. Therefore, material of a much more advanced nature can be included in these courses, Dr. Martell says. Reducing the amount of classical quantitative analysis results from a recognition that modern analytical techniques have become largely instrumental and are based on physical principles not covered in the traditional quantitative course, Dr. Martell says. Requiring all chemistry undergraduates to do some research stems from the principle that the only way to become familiar with research is by doing it. All chemistry graduates, whether they go to industry or to graduate school, will have to deal with research chemists, or with the results of research in some form or other, Dr. Martell points out.
