Chemical Education Today
Teaching Secondary School Science: Strategies for Developing Scientific Literacy, 6th ed. Leslie W. Trowbridge and Rodger W. Bybee. MerrillPrentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1996. xi + 481 pp. Figs. and tables. 20.8 × 27.5 cm. ISBN 0-024-21561-9. $65. Constructing Science in Middle and Secondary School Classroom Dale R. Baker and Michael D. Piburn. Allyn and Bacon: Boston, 1997. xx + 395 pp + appendix. Figs and tables. 18.3 × 24.1 cm. ISBN 0-205-16588-5. $55. Instructor’s manual available. The Chemistry Classroom: Formulas for Successful Teaching J. Dudley Herron. American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1996. xiii + 259 pp + appendices. Figs and tables. 17.6 × 25 cm. ISBN 0-841-23299-7. $36.95. You don’t get your book into its sixth edition unless you are doing something right, and Teaching Secondary School Science does a lot right. It is a good, general-purpose textbook for secondary science “methods of teaching” courses. In its 25 chapters and appendix, the reader finds discussed almost every topic of concern to a beginning teacher—from developing a personal philosophy of teaching, to national standards for science education, curriculum development in middle and secondary schools, methods and strategies of teaching, handling controversy in the classroom, and assessing student performance. It is a generic textbook, which can be utilized for courses preparing students to teach in any of the secondary science disciplines. I have used it in our “methods” course, and it also been used in the past by our biology department. When I use this book for chemistry (and physics) students, I supplement it with a great deal of material that is specific to the disciplines and is not adequately addressed by Trowbridge and Bybee. This includes resources from ChemSource and its associated videotapes (SourceView), much more about safety and waste disposal, and specific information about chemical topics from my own experience and from a room full of printed and video resources. This year, I will be directing my physics students to the new book Teaching Introductory Physics, by Arnold B. Arons. We also spend more time on the use of computers and networks. Trowbridge and Bybee provide one brief chapter on this, but the subject requires a great deal more. It may well be impossible to adequately discuss this topic in a general textbook. ❖ ❖ ❖ What I like about Constructing Science is that it has an attitude. Instead of just a bland “You can teach this way, or you can teach that way” approach, Dale Baker and Michael Piburn of Arizona State University say that there is plenty of evidence that people learn only when they “construct” knowledge. They tell their readers how to go about helping students to construct scientific understanding, beginning with an explanation of why science education needs
to change. This is followed by 14 practical chapters about how to bring about constructivist learning in a classroom. Constructivist education requires that the learners’ prior knowledge be taken into account from the outset. Students already know plenty about the world in which they live. They have built a framework for the physical world— otherwise they would be unable to get along in it. Usually, this pragmatic structure differs dramatically from what we, as supposedly sophisticated scientists, know to be true. But “telling them” what is “correct” just doesn’t work. Not only do people forget unconnected factoids as soon as they are no longer perceived as useful, but the accumulation of insights rather than information is the only way in which real scientific literacy can be accomplished. Baker and Piburn try to show us how to generate those insights in the minds of our students. Constructing Science doesn’t mince words. On science textbooks, the authors say, among other things, “Textbooks reduce science to its least common denominator.” On lecture-format teaching, “Any dialogue that takes place within a single voice is no dialogue at all and is inconsistent with the constructivist perspective. It is suspect. It is more a form of indoctrination than it is a conversation.” In fact, nearly every chapter in the book begins with a commentary in which the authors state that they disagree with conventional wisdom about the topic to be discussed. Their conclusions are supported with abundant literature references that buttress their points of view. This is not a manual for beginning teachers, explaining what the science curriculum is, how to write lesson plans, and the other material that is done so well in Trowbridge and Bybee. The chemistry teacher will find few examples of topics that can be directly imported into his or her classroom. But the constructivist approach to teaching is done better here than in any other “methods” book I’ve seen. ❖ ❖ ❖ Dudley Herron is a veteran chemical educator, whose contributions to this Journal are numerous and of high quality. He has had experience in teaching both secondary and tertiary chemistry, and The Chemistry Classroom is a distillation (pardon the obvious metaphor) of what he thinks teachers should know. Every effective teacher develops a style of teaching that is consistent with his or her own personality and experiences. Professor Herron sensibly recognizes that truth, and warns the reader that no model of teaching, even the vaunted and holy “Learning Cycle”, is appropriate for every situation. The textbook is intended to convey some of the author’s insights to less experienced or less perceptive colleagues, so that they can incorporate them into their own practice. Herron begins the text with brief descriptions of his most memorable students, types that any teacher will eventually encounter, and throughout the book uses examples from his own history to illustrate general principles of knowledge, teaching, and learning. I find his descriptions of the specific difficulties that students experience in learning and teachers have in assessing chemical concepts to be particularly valuable. Herron’s recommended approaches to teaching are often described in terms of the stages intellectual growth elucidated by Jean Piaget, whose theories of knowledge and learning permeate the book. In that respect, there are similarities to Constructing Science, but the examples provided by Herron are nearly all from chemistry. All three of these textbooks provide profitable reading for any chemistry teacher interested in learning
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book & media reviews better to teach. Both Constructing Science and Teaching Secondary Science aim at the potential high school teacher, but tertiary instructors could profit by reading them. While it would certainly be useful for secondary school teachers, The Chemistry Classroom will appeal more than the other two books to college/university professors or graduate teaching assistants who would like to do a better job. I hope that many of them will read and use these books. H. Harris Department of Chemistry University of Missouri, St. Louis St. Louis, MO 63121
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