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Rensselaer Conference on laboratory Instruction: Summary and Comment
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The more than 200 participants in the conference, "Laboratory Instruction in Chemistry" held a t Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on June 10-12 were well-rewarded for the time. monev. " . and effort thev invested in attendine. Each of the five sessions was informative and stimulating, and nearly all of the 50 papers provided useful new approaches or attractive provocative ideas for improving laboratorv instruction. Particiuants and contributions came from colleges and universities of all sizes and -philosophies; exciting and successful innovation came from large and small and from established and developing institutions alike. The conference atmosphere was congenial and constructive; its tenor was serious and searching. Expressions of appreciation are due the co-sponsors-the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and Rensselaer (as part of its 150th anniversary activities), and Professor Robert L. Strong and members of the Rensselaer chemistry faculty who arranged the program and served as hosts. A report of the conference containing abstracts of all papers is tentatively scheduled for the January 1975issue of this Journal. The conference sessions were titled: Purposes and Organization of the Instructional Laboratorv in Chemistrv: Integrated Chemistry Laboratory ~nstruction;~nstruciional Aids and Eauinment: Comnuters in Laboratow Instruction; The ~ene;al ~ h e m i s t r y ~ a h o r a t o r y . On the basis of what happened at Rensselaer in June, one could conclude with confidence that: a) both the integrated laboratory and the investigative approach to laboratory instruction now are in wide and successful use in chemistry; b) the use of instruments has expanded to the point that in some institutions even the more advanced instruments such as the umr and mass spectrometer now are available to students a t all undergraduate levels, including some freshmen: c) audiovisual aids are being used far more imaginatively and in more different situations in chemistry laboratories at all kinds of institutions than would have been predicted four or five years ago; d) computers rapidly are becoming as common and as vital as the analytical balance in undergraduate chemistry laboratories; e) the general chemistry laboratory remains the chemical Tower of Babel, as its beleaguered designers continue to struggle with the problem of providing some-. thing of substance for everyman. Among the more novel programs described are: a) a course offering all the experimental work in sophomore quantitative analysis during the four-week January term; b) computer-managed laboratories in which, among other things, students make appointments via computers to use instruments; c) an inquiry-oriented undergraduate cdrriculum centered around laboratory experience with a minimal number of formal courses and lectures; d) an integrated interdisciplinary undergraduate curriculum in physical sciences including integrated interdisciplinary
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laboratories; e) a unified laboratory course on instrumentation and measurement in which students are taught fundamentals of instrument operation and how to design and build their own instruments. They then design their own experiments (and test those designed by colleagues) to make measurements using the instrumentation they have studied; fl courses that integrate library and laboratory: a ) use of comuuters in the simulation of certain aspects o f laborat06 experiments, including familiarizing students with a technique such as titration or enahline them to manipulate parameters such as pressure and temperature; h) development and use of new audiovisual approaches such as the 35mm lap-dissolve projection technique. Perhaps the most exciting result of this conference is recognition of the incredible intensity, diversity, and quality of the effort being made to improve laboratory instruction in all kinds of institutions and in all facets of the undergraduate program. Clearly, our students will benefit greatly from all this. We have now broken the artificial harriers dividing the various subdisciplines of chemistry so that students can study chemical systems rather than techniques. We have designed investigations of some especially interesting chemical systems to help them understand that scientific experimentation is an unfolding, open-ended, creative, and highly personalized process. We have placed instruments of every variety and degree of sophistication at their disposal so that few aspects of chemical measurement are inaccessible to them. We have programmed the computer to help them with calculations and other forms of data reduction, to act as their patient tutor, to organize and tabulate their results, and in some cases, even to take their data. We have prepared audiovisual materials of considerable subtlety to help make their learning easier and more palatable. We are showing them that we care and that their learning is important to us. We can expect a good response from them. There is, however, one thing we probably should hear in mind. Nietzsche may have had a point when he said: "He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying." To the extent that this is applicable here, we might expect that he who would learn to he a creative investigator in chemistry one day must first learn to do such things as simple arithmetic and logarithms, to apply this to elementary chemical problems, to weigh and titrate and perform other important laboratory operations reliably, to analyze and synthesize thoughtfully, to know much of what now is known in chemistrv with some assurance, t o . . .:one cannot investigate into inkstigation. Of course,one cannot "technician" himself into it either. WTL
Volume 5 1 , Number
7. July 1974
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427
