Chemical Education Today
Editorial
Reaping the Benefits of Chemical Education Research It is my belief that chemical education research studies provide many results that are of practical benefit to those of us in the classroom. Consequently, one of my major goals for the Chemical Education Research column in this Journal is that authors clearly state how their work is applicable to our day-to-day teaching. In this issue three groups of authors have achieved this goal and provided much for all classroom teachers to think about. Jean, Huffman, and Noh (p 1558) have studied students’ problem-solving ability. Helping students to develop problemsolving ability is a major objective of most science courses. These authors indicate that both using a four-stage problem-solving strategy and using thinking aloud pair problem solving improved students’ problem-solving ability. The problem-solving strategy used was derived from Polya’s (1): 1. Understand the problem 2. Devise a plan 3. Carry out the plan 4. Reflect on the process and results
The authors concluded that “verbal interactions between solvers and listeners can help students become more cognizant of both their own thinking and the thinking of other students”. A study by Lin, Lee, and Treagust (p 1565) shows that even in the second semester of a school year, when teachers have had time to get to know their students well, there is “a large, significant gap between teachers’ estimations of student performance and actual student achievement”. In several cases teachers’ predictions of how their students would perform on a test measuring the students’ qualitative understanding of stoichiometry were low by more than 40%. The students were at eighth-grade level, the sample size was small, and the authors warn against generalizing to all teachers and students, but I would be willing to bet a good steak dinner that this gap applies to most of us. The study also found that “the more opportunities for students to discuss, explain, and present their ideas, the better students’ conceptual understanding would be”. The third study, by White, Brown, and Johnston (p 1570), indicates that “few chemistry and biochemistry seniors have given much thought to social issues where information from their disciplines might be helpful in understanding those issues”. Though this study did not measure it, I would predict that most of us would also overestimate our students’ ability to apply what they have learned in formal chemistry courses to social and political issues. The authors conclude that students fail to make connections between the chemical principles and facts they have learned and societal issues. They recommend that in courses throughout the curriculum students should be encouraged to develop such skills. Several themes underlie these studies. One is that in our rush to cover the material, we often go so fast that students are unable to assimilate and make connections among the
www.JCE.DivCHED.org
•
many things they are …we need to spend more learning. Developing problem-solving competence requires learning time reflecting on our own subskills, connecting teaching practices and the and integrating them, and receiving feedback to indicate whether the results we have achieved in skills have been maslight of the new perspectered and used appropriately. Another theme is tives brought by chemical that communication among students should education research. be encouraged and that all students should be afforded the same opportunities to discuss their ideas and answer questions. Interacting with other students can often provide the feedback needed to develop problem-solving and other skills and often provides a means by which students become more aware of the societal implications and applications of the subjects they are studying. For example, White, Brown, and Johnston found that face-to-face presentations by peers were effective in changing students’ opinions regarding societal issues. A third theme is that we teachers could benefit from more effectively applying all four stages of Polya’s problem-solving strategy to the problem of teaching chemistry. If we consistently overestimate the efficacy of what we are doing, then we don’t really understand the problem and we need to think more about how to define it. This can lead to better plans for addressing the problems we perceive and should allow us to carry out those plans more effectively. Most important of all, we need to spend more time reflecting on our own teaching practices and the results we have achieved in light of the new perspectives brought by chemical education research. One of the great things about teaching any subject is that we are constantly in touch with learners and thereby are encouraged to learn ourselves. This is certainly true in chemistry teaching, and chemical education research has a lot to contribute to what we know about how to teach. In this area we are on what has been referred to as a J curve or a hockey-stick curve—and we are still on the ice. But we are starting to climb the curve. We will all benefit in the future from well thought out studies that evaluate and compare different approaches to teaching and learning. Reading the Chemical Education Research column in this Journal and similar papers in other journals is a good way to climb that curve faster. Literature Cited 1. Polya, George. How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method; Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, 1945.
Vol. 82 No. 10 October 2005
•
Journal of Chemical Education
1431
