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Innovation for Its Own Sake?
I just had an NSF educational proposal turned down: certainly not an unusual event. I thought it was a reasonable proposal, designed to provide for closer contact and more two-way communication between students and their instructors. The review committee seemed toagree on this point, since their major comment was that the proposal suggested "a gwd hack-to-the-basics approach." Little did I realize that this remark was the kiss of death. I don't mean to imply that this particular proposal necessarily should have been funded. Having sat on NSF committees, I realize that only the best of the cream can he supported. What concerns me is that the proposal was never considered on its educational merits because it wasn't "innovative." The committee was simply carrying out NSF policy: "Proposals are sought which request modest support for imaginative undergraduate science teaching projects." Notice that there is no requirement that the proposal provide for excellence in the teaching program. One would presume that review committees would try to fund high-quality programs, but there is no doubt that the major emphasis is on the word "imaginative." The projects funded by these programs most often contain certain catch-words which have become synonymous with educational innovation: "self-paced," "relevant," "computer-interactive," "Keller plan," etc. The common denominator of most of these catchy, "innovative" programs is that they attempt to make the educational process easier for hoth the instructor and the student. My purpose here is to suggest that this kind of an approach not only has failed to improve the educational process, hut may have contributed to an overall decline in educational quality. Most objective observers would agree that our current chemistry graduates are not as well prepared as were those of five or ten years ago. Industry recruiting personnel often complain that the current crop of graduates is under-prepared, under-motivated, and generally a bit naive in comparison with previous classes. Although a number of other factors may he cited, such as poor high school preparation, an uncertain employment market, and skepticism about chemicals in the environment, I believe that some of the directions that "educational innovation" has taken in recent years may be hurting the quality of chemical education we provide for our students. First, consider the question of "relevance." No one will quarrel with the use of "relevant" examples of fundamental principles, especially when they really do illustrate the principle being discussed. A problem arises, however, when we go beyond occasional appropriate examples and try to teach biology, medicine, or environmental engineering in a basic or organic chemistry course. There is only so much time in a semester, and every lecture spent on "relevant" topics implies spending one less lecture on chemical principles. If we ourselves found chemistry sufficiently interesting and exciting to make a career out of it, we should be ahle to generate that interest and excitement in our students without having to neglect the fundamentals in favor of more charismatic material. A supervisor of a large Medical Technology program once told me, "If you want to throw a few medical examples into your chemistry course, that's fine. Just make sure that you cover all the chemistry they need to know. We'll teach them the medicine they need, hut we can't go hack and cover
the chemistry you didn't teach because you were too busy trvine . to teach medicine." Self-paced and computer-interactive programs have a far greater potential for damage to the educational system than does the "relevant" watering-down of courses. "Self-paced" instruction seems terriblv nice from an instructor's vievmoint. Once the manual is written, there are no lectures to begiven (except for an occasional review session), and the instructor can hibernate in the faculty lounge. One problem, hc,wever. s only :I is that the self-paced approach ~ n l n l l y~ i w students shallow u n d e ~ s i a n d i n ~ b i t hmaterial: e ~t any given time the students are all working on different material, so appropriate lectures and review sessions are virtually impossible.-Students cannot get together and argue over how to do any particular problem set, since they are all working on different ones. I remember how I learned my entire P-chem course in weekly bull sessions running until 3 a.m. the nights before the prohlem sets were due. This kind of discussion of concepts among students is almost entirely lost in a self-paced course. In addition, the compartmentalization inherent in most self-paced courses encouraees - the students' tendencv to use onlv shortterm memory rather than long-term understanding to prepare for examinations. Although students in any course will begin to lose command of the material five seconds after they have been examined over it, this tendencv is reinforced bv the nature of most self-paced programs. What about the standard argument that a self-paced course avoids the "lockstep" rigiditiof a standard lecture course? Except for making us traditionalists sound like Gestapo agents, this argument isn't very compelling. Take our freshman chemistry program, for example. A bright, well-prepared student can take a course which covers the highlights of the two-semester majors' course in one semester; and a very nmrlv oreoared . student can enroll in a remedial hieh-school level course. Altogether, there are six freshman chemistry courses from which entering" freshmen can choose. all of which will provide for human interaction and student discussion a t different paces. A "locksteo?" Certainlv: but one which is tailored to each group of st"dents. On thkone hand, you can force each student. who ~resumahlvhas not taken the course before, to decide how fast helsh; should try to take each particular portion of a course in order to understand the concepts and yet complete the course in time to use it as a prerequisite for another course needed to maduate. We prefer. however, to allow an instructor, who hasseen the couise before, to plan out a rational and consistent rate of progress through the material. In addition to allowing for discussion of the material amongstudents, this method helpsto eliminate the last-minute rush of the self- aced student who has been loafing along and suddenly realizes that there are three weeks left to finish eleven chanters of P-chem or helshe won't he ahle to take that graduate level biochemistry course in the senior year. Whatever their advantages seem to be, both the self-paced and computer-interactive approaches have one major element in common: They greatly diminish the opportunity for human contact and two-wav communication between instructors and itudents. 'l'here is no doubt that books and computer terminals can teach individual scientific vrincivles, hut thev simply cannot supply some of the most importa& learning aids: a few
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Volume 55, Number 3, March 1978 / 163
words of concern, encouragement, and explanation, a shoulder to cry on, an occasional kick in the pants, and the experience to know which student needs which "learning aid." Students need to he forced to integrate ideas, restate concepts in their own words, and defend their conclusions in the face of logical or illogical questioning. There will never he a computer suhstitute for this kind of old-fashioned discussion and interaction. Another fallacy implicit in these systems is the goal of making teaching and learning easier for the instructor and students; but teaching and learning can never be made truly easy. To a large extent, learning is directly proportional to the amount of effort expended; and programmed texts and computers can program minds with ideas, hut only interaction with scientists can develop a mature scientific mind. Innovation certainly has its place in chemical education. Research developments continually supply new information
164 1 Journal of Chemical Education
which needs to be woven into undergraduate courses, and new and better methods of explaining established concepts will always be found. The routine use of catchy "innovative" techniques that water down or automate the teaching program, however, needs to be reevaluated. New programs should he considered strictly on their promise for increasing educational quality, and not on their deviation from techniques which have previously succeeded. Above all, we must remember that information and concepts do not make a scientist; there is no substitute for the inspiration and exasperation of two-way human interaction with other scientists.
Leroy G. Wade, Jr. Colorado State University. Fort Collins. 80523
