Robert C. Brasfed University of Minnesoto Mirineopols, 55455
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Have Vk?Innovated the Chemistry Teacher OUR ~b the Classroom?
The title (of marginal grammatical construction) deserves some explanation. An actual confirmation of an ACS Award must he personally forwarded to Washington. Without this it is not possihle to initiate the necessary formalities for its presentation. This confirmation was, of course, most happily given by phone hut somewhat to my surprise, I was asked for a title of a talk or a subject around which a symposium might be built. At this time I was in the middle of the great irrigated desert of Southern California working on "Modular Construction" with one of the newest of the California State institutions of higher learning. Week by week as I progressed in planning and construction of the modules and other learning devices I realized that if I were successful, in actuality, I would he doing myself out of what I really like to do hest-dirtying up large areas of blackboards, kicking around chemical concepts before large numbers of students, looking for hetter ways of meeting an important and exciting challenge. It seemed reasonable, then, in the few seconds I was allowed to plan a very important event in my professional career,-Why not talk about innovating the teacher out of the'classroom? Those who would take issue with some and perhaps even all of what I am about to say could paraphrase B. F. Skinner in his new hook "Beyond Freedom and Dignity." He introduces his topic by pointing to the fact that we often try to solve great problems by turning to that which we do best. I do not disagree with most of his conclusions, hut what we do best may still he very useful or even successful. The intervening months since the phone call of July of a year ago have provided time to think about many things that have transpired in the past decade or two, not a few of which have changed my way of teaching principles, and as well some soul searching. Maybe I really could have done many different things if I had not devoted anywhere from four or to as many as ten or more hours a week in front of class. I even had some fleeting thoughts, as to the possibility that I could have spent more time generating Government funds, producing more and no doubt better scholarly research papers. Realistically, could I have taught the many thousands of students more effectively had I been in tutorial sessions and actually not been in the lecture hall at all? And how does one use a tutorial approach with most sections involving 1400 students? I have to admit I am not now completely sure what we really mean by "teaching."
T h e l W l A C S Aanrd in Chemical Education sponsored hy t h e I ~ h o r n t o r yAppuriltu.; and Optical Section of t h e Scientific Apj ~ r i t t u sMakers Associalion %,as presented t,, Kohert C. Brasted at t h e Ifiilh Mcelinp 01' rhe ACS nt 1)allar in April r,f this year. Professor Hrarted. it l'ast-i'hxirman of i h r Ilivision of (:bemica1 [:.riw cation and t h e Board of P o i ~ l i c a t i o nof~ this ;li,urnn/ is director oi' the Grnwal Chemistry Pmpxm a t the llniversity of Minnesota. Frw rhernlsli h a w writtell mme books. traveled m u r ~~ x t e n s i v ~ l y on hrhnll i d rlwmiral education. reached more studcnts. o r tried more innovative approaches to teachiox. This paper is a condenmt ~ of m his SAXIA Award address. 580 /Journal of Chemical Education
Over the years associating with our Editor and our good colleague, Tom Lippincott, I have been aware that it is tough to heat him to the punch in almost any area or with almost any idea. This title and many of the ideas that follow are no exception. If you have read his editorial in the last November issue you will find several points stressed there that will he mentioned here-you may or may not believe me hut they were considered by myself almost a year before, to he part of this later day version of the Gettyshurg Address. So much of what has happened in the total educational structure-teaching and research-had its origin in the Sputnik era it's almost relying on a cliche to claim my story as having its origin a t or near that time, hut it does. The mid-fifties saw a financial structure develop and then emerge as a beautiful (for most) scientific butterfly, providing many of us with enormous opportunities, exciting challenges and, even more, sobering responsihilities toward the total world of education. I should like to review iust a few of the develooments of some of these concepts and especially some of t h e hardware that were Dart of this unbelievable erowth made oossible totally or'in part by our Federal ~ o v e r n m e n t .'The stress will he on those thines that have related more to minimizing the lecturer's job in the classroom than those thines which auemented his role. thoueh " both were Dart of the tbtal picture: The spectrum of devices-mechanical primarily- developed by experts in communication and pedagogy is indeed wide. Among the most exciting, and unfortunately most expensive, are those that utilize the circuitry of computers and television. It is not easv to create new verhiaee. more oronerlv meaningful verbiage on CCTV, but themedium H i ski as .controversial as ever as to its most suitable role in chemical education. It certainly removes the lecturer from the large classroom, usually putting him in a studio. I t places the student in any of a number of places-his dormitory room, his home, living room, a monitor room, or perhaps a laboratory, any place hut where he can reach, conveniently, the lecturer. There are few of us here in this room that have not participated regularly, some irregularly, some with enthusiasm and some begrudgingly in the medium. My personal enthusiasm and also prejudices will he known in a short evaluation. The teacher may now through this medium participate in mass instructional programs beyond his usual capacities though not necessarily in the ways we have used it most often, that is, simply producing an introductory course with well-engineered demonstrations. Instruction now can he made accessible to out-state campuses or campuses which might not be able to afford a wide spectrum of scientific expertise. Special and useful courses can he and are being produced for industry. The lecturer has, indeed, "Innovated" himself out of the classroom, hut with great benefits to all concerned. On the other hand one campus with which I am most familiar, has essentially eliminated TV in an important science discipline as a mode of instruction because the
students vigorously made their wishes known-they wanted more flesh and blood in the course structure. Many already well-defined TV operations such as supplements to the laboratory and demonstration of important techniques certainly can be aecomplished without the lecturer being in front of the class. We can certainly say that it is possible for the teacher to remove himself from the classroom to the benefit of many students. I can assure you, and I believe I will have support, the use of the medium has not given me any more time for proposal writing, any more time for research, or any more time for other pursuits. If anything in developing the necessary procedures there has been less for such activities. In a very recent issue of this Journal, Bob Wolke expounded at great length on "Behavioral Objectives" in more detail than he did a t Mt. Holyoke. Without repeating or reviewing his excellent and "Provocative Opinion" I feel I can extend the idea a bit since I, too, feel that we are more likely to educate in the person-to-person experience (even though large numbers of persons may well he involved) than we are in seeing to it that the student establishes a grade, through mastery of certain skills alone. I would hope I could in the lecture atmosphere transfer something of what might contribute to education better than by using an audio cassette, taped TV lectures, or a computer. A combination of many skills is needed to produce the educated student. It is the proper application of these skills that describes the education component. As earlier hinted, the most expensive way that I can think of to phase the teacher off the pedagogical podium is by way of one of the many computer assisted instructional and teaching devices. There is no cause to review the details, nor the many campuses where very extensive programs are under way. You know where many of them are. The recent literature has provided us with the dollar expenditures and the details. We are most likely to see the biggest impact associated with the larger "multiversities." The bases of financing, the huge resources of manpower, persons trained in electronics, communication, psychology of learning, chemistry of learning, and just plain physical facilities often will place them there. The fact that all these components have been put together properly and have finally gone on stream does not tacitly mean that there is student use and benefit. I can draw from experience. Large numbers of consoles have been made available in certain instructional areas, large blocks of time have been assured and the not inconsequential indoctrination techniques for the use of the equipment have also been provided. Except a t very welldefined and rather narrow time periods too many of the consoles are vacant. There are no flashing lights, no clever statements appearing on the video component such as; "Good chap," "Right on," "You have mastered another concept, Bully for you." And, infrequently of course, the heart sickening and ego destroying evaluation by the computer that tells the student that he must return to item OTJ, push RZ and "Get with it, Buster." I do not wish to be cynical, only that the adage about leading the horse to water is still pretty applicable. My experience in multimedia instruction usually tells me that the student who will probably gain full measure of benefit from the texth w k alone and/or the lecture will also be the one who will have the curiosity and the willingness to overcome the inertia and convince himself that the computer has the capacity to further enlarge his horizons. Unfortunately it won't be the student who desperately needs all the supplemental help that he can get, special tutorials, drill in such fascinating areas as stoichiometry, for which there are few such non-classroom aids. I certainly do not want to leave the impression that it is necessary to tie u p $S,OM),000's worth of time and talent
in instruments to achieve worthwhile goals in computer media. Manv of you in colleges and high schools are successfully ac~ompiishinga no&lassica~ non-lecture r w m approach using less costly generations of computers as well as a variety of models and instructional aids. I insist, however, that unless the students can he motivated to use these media, unless they can he convinced of the worthiness of viewine such things as well desiened and ~ r o d u c e d film loops, td participac in instructi&al film' hoth as' viewers and on occasion as actor or producer, to work through the audio cassettes, use the guide hooks, we will have wasted much of many people's time, money, and talents. I have no doubt that some will rise in righteous indignation regarding the criticism of a medium just hecause students do not take advantage of it. Is this not the responsibility of the instructor? I have, on the other hand, empathy with the student in a problem of having to budget his hours in a n altogether too short day, to simply get to the center of this activity, when he lives miles from the campus, to run the risk of finding the computer facility "down" for an indefinite period, to find at other times no consoles available, and the sometimes frustrating hit of developing ancillary skills or operation t h a t have nothing to do with chemistry. Perhaps these are trivial concerns, but perhaps they are not. In the end there is the real possihility that he will not learn anything more by these techniques than he would with a well planned reading list or, heaven help us, by reading his own textbook, or by really working a t his own notes rather than just listening to the lecture. The "innovation" I am now seeking to produce is so old that it hardly deserves the dignity of the name. I t is one which is certainly not a classroom operation. I would hope it could accomplish a number of things. 1) It should effectively bring a large number of students with diverse backgrounds to something approaching a uniform (however basic) state of chemical knowledge. 2) It should allow us as instructors to build up an this basic core using our awn individualized approaches. 3) It should further allow us, with newly found time, in our own way to develop the less easily understood principles, ones which would provide the student with a more complete box of "intellectual tools." There are in my opinion certain key concepts, usually in the form af equations, that we should have the privilege of using simply as tools-just as a carpenter uses a tool without knowing much of its basic construction or where it comes from. There are others that deserve the dignity of a derivation. The student will he richer for knowing the history and logic behind its development. The time for this bit of fun and challenge would become available if the lecturer for a certain fraction of his time were "innovated" out of the classroom. Precious time could be made available by putting the student in the carrel, to work through some of the "nuts and bolts" of chemical fundamentals on his own. 4) It should provide a better bridge to goad techniques with a minimum of lecturer's or recitation room presentation. Such devices are of course now available hut are too often avoided by the student simply because he can muddle through the work with bad technique. We as teachers do not insist that he move the few steps from the lab to the work room equipped with the hardware which can improve his laboratory abilities. These techniques, again, need not be part of a lecture or quiz room presentation. The teacher should be innovated out of the classroom. I can see the many self-paced and special tutorial operations as more oriented towards skill mastery accomplished with a great deal of drill and often with little need for personal supervision. We must assume high quality of these materials and a proper set of directions. Such master" as we referred to earlier does not necessarily lead to fullness of education. I do agree education will have as one of its important components a capacity to solve problems but the capacity to be creative needs much more. The "more" I feel is e teacher-oriented, a verbal privilege aided by a sharing of personal experiences related to the subject. 5) It should effectively present materials supplemental to, hopefully above, that presented in the lecture roam. These mate-
Volume 50, Number 9. September 1973 / 581
rials should enrich and challenge the student, but I see less of this kind of innovation than the remedial and more prwaic materials. I know that both are available and can serve our professor well outside of the classroom. Some of what has been outlined sounds as if we were directly or indirectly preaching Kellerisms. The purist would point out that the occasional lecture in this plan will he something of what we describe. That is, occasional lectures are given on the "new," the "different" essentially "bonus" material. I am in no position to give a blanket approval or disapproval of self-paced approaches. I would have been a hypocrit working in the site described earlier with the California State System if I did not sincerely believe there was much to he offered in a modularized instructional approach. An aspect strongly stressed in the plan is that of peer-type tutorial (or perhaps a tutor advanced by one term or two). I t is one that distresses me. We have certainly innovated the lecturer out of the classroom hut we have renlaced him hv someone else. Havina manv vears of experience working" with students from' the -f&t-year course through all levels of postgraduate education, I view with some skepticism the efficacy of second-term freshmen providing effective tutorial help for the first-term freshmen or even the sophomore or junior. Those of you who know something of our program at Minnesota will wonder if I am not now speaking "with the forked tongue." Do we not use undergraduates in our instructional program? The answer is a most emphatic affirmative; we would he lost without their help. But, not quite in the same "tutorial" sense. The senior staff work closely with the undergraduate and graduate assistants especially in grading and evaluation work. The tutorials operating in dormitories in the evening are effectively handled by a very select group of undergraduate students. On the other hand there are human limitations in tutorial interaction between senior staff and student. I believe one to ten would effectively occupy a day, leaving little time for research, writing, committees, etc. I am not willing to write off the lecturer and what he can present in a properly operated class. The inefficient and the unmotivated lecturer k replaceable and the many "legitimate and illegitimate offspring of the Keller Plan" may provide some of the answers. Whether or not the teacher still belongs in the classr w m of our colleees and universities has been vartiallv answered in one o r the more impressive studies I have foflowed in recent years. Dr. Ted Sheffield of the University of Toronto has reported an extensive Canadian Survey in a paper entitled "Characteristics of Effective Teaching in Higher Education." Rather than concentrate on student evaluation questionnaires from currentlv enrolled students in classes which are underway or ark just barely completed, he evaluated some 7000 responses from graduates ranging from recent to 5 to 10 years out of college. Time is not available for anything resembling a complete critique, such will appear in a new hook. But, a few abstracts might he in order. The responses brought to the top some 24 teachers in a number of areas, the best in their respective professions. Incidentally, Dr. Sheffield included a tribute to the often maligned Dean's office in that 23 of these 24 were independently identified by their Deans as heing the best in their institutions. These teachers represented a broad spectrum of interests both in and out of the classroom. They defended and used the classroom or lecture method, only one used regularly more than one instructional method,-though a number had one alternative. There was uniformity in attitudes toward their subject matter hut diversity -in techniques. I, for one, am most anxious to see this volume when it appears. Let me he very specific on why I feel the lecturer has 582
/ Journal o f Chemical Education
reason for not being innovated out of the classroom. If in the past couple of years you stumbled across one of the Chemical Vignettes in this Journal, the message is clear. As Dart of a verbal avnroach we have both the dutv and the privilege of transmitting the kind of chemist& that I like to think contributes much more to education than skills mastery and "fact packing." May I cite just a few svecifics. I think of our dutv in makine the . voung student -aware of the c h e m i c a ~ / ~ ~ l i t i cinte;face al in a very important area-energy. The thermodynamics of geothermal sources makes for a more palatable dish than that of the more frequently textbook-found material of one gas expanding isothermally or adiabatically into another. Or the rather unattractive aspect of hammering away at a relatively minor contribution of the P A V term in the first law expression when we are working with the first year chemistry student. I think too of the impact that removing a small percentage of the total petroleum produced from the petrochemical industry would have on a half million employees, by allowing this amount of the "chemical" to he used to generate the energy needed for example to cool and/or heat a domed stadium. I am concerned with the ways of educating the young mibd on the needs for nuclear fuels while alleviating fears. I would like to inculcate an inquisitive attitude even if I cannot, in a first year course, give them all of the technical skills. As another example, I would like them to think about ways in which we might remove the 60% of our liquid fossil fuels now left in the ground after we have topped off the 40% by understanding something more of liquid flow. Without further belaboring the issue I am suggesting a few well-chosen words presented a t appropriate times in a formal lecture course can make more of an impression on a young mind than sending the whole class packing to a literature reference to he shared by, say, 1500 students or to some mechanical device to listen to a tape. I feel keenly that with few exceptions instructional innovations developed over the past decade or two have had as a primary objective taking the student away from the teacher. It is obvious that the teacher must have assumed a responsibility in producing the extra class materials. Many of these I have used and still use, some I have developed and used and have discarded. The meer fact that we gather at these American Chemical Society meetings to listen to one another infers that we feel that a great deal can be transmitted on a one to one basis-even where one of the o m s infers a class however large. I am convinced that a meat votential lies in manv of the devices that can helpVthe ;nderprepared, including students of minoritv. erouvs - . of uncertain high school or college instruction and as well those we &ink of as heing the socalled "slow learners." I hold fast to the philosophy that the heart and soul of the educational process is in the teacher's exvertise heinn communicated ~ersonallvrather than mecha&cslly. certain students are more facile than others in learnina through personal communication, others will need thLsupplekekal perhaps mechanical help that should either be available or could he developed. I have worked with many of you and have observed Sou in your own institutions interacting with students. The greatest crime that could he committed against chemical education would he to prevent you from classroom contact whether the classes he large or small. I hold no theological nor evangelism union card, hut (in part) because of a parental background and home atmosphere, I am not unaware of the scriptures. There was a Man, One whom no one has very successfully emulated, who a couple of millenia ago apparently taught very effectively and convincingly to "large classes" with an impressive, to many unbelievable, set of "gimmicks" hut totally without our "innovative" mechanical devices.
