Editorial pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
Innocents Abroad, Part II: A Glimpse at Chemical Education in India Norbert J. Pienta* Department of Chemistry, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, United States ABSTRACT: The pursuit of effective teaching and student learning is an activity and often a passion of the readers of this Journal, and even a brief look at the author list for a recent volume would help convince us that this is indeed an international phenomenon. Our colleagues all over the world are likely to have the same basic concerns and expectations, often manifested in the circumstances associated with the infrastructures and traditions of their institutions and location. Some observations and reflections from a recent visit to India make these points abundantly clear. KEYWORDS: General Public, Curriculum, Public Understanding / Outreach
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chemistry more popular among undergraduate students not only in India but also in the United States and across the world?) Both the Indian and international education presenters obliged the audience with information (and for workshops, the ability to personally experience certain pedagogical enhancements). Thus, we learned about POGIL6 (process-oriented, guided-inquiry learning), PLTL7 (peer-led team learning), teaching with technology in the classroom8 (i.e., screencasting, flipped instruction, social media), course redesign, problembased learning, and the role of JCE in chemical education from the international speakers and about a flipped approach in laboratories, preparing Indian teams for the International Science Olympiad, teaching periodic table properties using a set of element cards, misconceptions in thermodynamics, and kirigami models for stereochemistry and optical activity from our Indian colleagues. The best experiences come from the questions and the discussions, especially the ones in small groups during breaks and meals. One quickly realizes that “tea” is not only a beverage but an eventthese breaks were the venue for both heated discussions but also pleasant, thoughtful exchanges about similarities among educational systems, bureaucracies (i.e., your Editor’s somewhat cynical characterization of the institutions that provides the rules and guidelines), and students. Because they are often preparing students for a nationally administered test, Indian educators favorably view the U.S. system as offering much more freedom and flexibility. Unfortunately, the de facto situation is that curricula in U.S. introductory courses are mostly driven by commercially available textbooks and electronic quizzing systems that frankly are all rather homogeneous and virtually identical. Traditional lecture has a firm grasp in both countries, something that needs to yield to active learning alternatives based on a recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences metastudy9 and teaching practices recommendations10 from the National Academy of Science based on evidence presented in the Discipline-based Education Research DBER report.11 Chemical education research is in its infancy in India, yet potential Indian practitioners are poised and ready; they need encouragement from the CER community in the rest of the world, but most of all, acceptance within the
few short years ago, your Editor wrote about an outreach trip to India with a collection of ACS Journal editors-inchief and members the ACS Journals Division staff.1 Those memories include stark contrasts: brand-new high rise buildings next to shanty towns, luxury cars from the United States and Europe that were ignoring the painted lanes and “jockeying” for position with the ubiquitous autorickshaws and an occasional cow, and the masses of people everywhere: walking, waiting, or sleeping on the sidewalk, but mostly just trying to live their own lives like all of us do. These remembrances also include the warmth and hospitality of the people, the food and culture, and the need for vigilance about respective differences, like looking in the proper direction before stepping off the curb to cross the street while in horror simultaneously pulling back the editor of a flagship journal who was not. The appeal to return came from Mark Twain’s admonition about not “vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one’s lifetime”2 and the views expressed in the previous Editorial1 about establishing a dialogue between U.S. and Indian chemical educators. The latter was made possible by an invitation to participate in the International Conference on Education in Chemistry (ICEC 20143) and a series of workshops before and after the three-day event. ICEC 2014 was hosted by the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education at the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research in Mumbai.4 The Homi Bhabha Centre serves as the focal point and home for Indian activities related to the Science Olympiads, for science education research, for teacher preparation, and for outreach about science to the general public. The conference, an event of the Association of Chemistry Teachers,5 was attended primarily by college-level teachers, about half from the Mumbai area and the remainder from the rest of the country. Other international participants included esteemed chemical education colleagues Pratibha Varma-Nelson (IUPUI, U.S.A.), Rick Moog (Franklin and Marshall, U.S.A.), and Simon Lancaster (East Anglia, U.K.). A chemical education meeting is expected to have talks, discussions, panels, and workshops; this could have been like ones anyone of us has experienced at our respective regional or national venues. Two leading Indian chemists, bemoaning chemistry’s apparent, perceived secondary status to engineering, medicine, and even physics, chided and encouraged educators to help “fix” the situation. (How does one make © 2015 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
Published: March 10, 2015 399
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00101 J. Chem. Educ. 2015, 92, 399−400
Journal of Chemical Education
Editorial
(3) For information about ICEC 2014, see a description at the Association of Chemistry Teachers Web site at http://www. associationofchemistryteachers.org/icec.htm (accessed Feb 2015). (4) For information about the Homi Bhabha Centre, see http:// www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/ (accessed Feb 2015). (5) For a description of some of the ICEC events, see Simon Lancaster’s report at the RSC’s “Education-in-Chemistry-Blog” at http://www.rsc.org/blogs/eic/2015/01/international-conferenceeducation-chemistry-2014 (accessed Feb 2015). (6) For information about POGIL, see https://pogil.org/ (accessed Feb 2015). (7) For information about PLTL, see https://sites.google.com/site/ quickpltl/; for the PLTL International Society, see http://pltlis.org/ (accessed Feb 2015). (8) For a description of the application of some of these components in the U.K., see http://www.rsc.org/blogs/eic/2014/09/varietychemistry-education-conference-report (accessed Feb 2015). (9) Freeman, S.; Eddy, S. L.; McDonough, M.; Smith, M. K.; Okoroafor, N.; Jordt, H.; Wenderoth, M. P. Active Learning Increases Student Performance in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 2014, 111 (23), 8410−8415. (10) National Academies Press. Reaching Students: What Research Says about Effective Instruction in Undergraduate Science and Engineering. http://www.nap.edu/catalog/13362/discipline-basededucation-research-understanding-and-improving-learning-inundergraduate (accessed Feb 2015). (11) National Academies Press. Discipline-Based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering. http://www.nap.edu/catalog/13362/ discipline-based-education-research-understanding-and-improvinglearning-in-undergraduate (accessed Feb 2015).
scientific community (and government) in India. Besides the need to generate evidence gathered from Indian contexts via chemical education research, scholarship related to teaching and learning must also be encouraged. The primarily research institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and newer Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research are highly regarded internationally but are inadequate to educate the numbers of chemists and scientists that India will need. The role of colleges and universities in preparing chemistry majors is essential and significant, something that must be recognized by the scientific and government leadership. Support for more institutions, including increased educator salaries and more recognition of the importance of the role of science education at universities and colleges, are equally important. This is not intended to be condescending: all of these recommendations for India have analogous ones that can be made for the U.S. systems! We are all involved in helping educate students. The conversations at ICEC about students were remarkably similar to ones that occur in the United States: the attraction to chemistry is not tremendous, with numbers that decrease significantly at every educational stage, and the motivation of students in classes is a substantial challenge with several common distractions. Some Indian educators seemed somewhat surprised. Fortunately, the potential solutions are the same. Effective, evidence-based pedagogies do not preclude interesting and useful content. Also, we should continue to expand our interactions and conversations with each other. Being an “innocent abroad” makes one sensitive to the circumstances; I am indebted to Professor Savita Ladage, our host from the Homi Bhabha Centre, and her colleagues Tejas Joshi, Indrani Das, and Swapna Narvekar for the invitation, all the arrangements, and their dedication to chemistry education. We often needed help, and they served as or provided handlers, drivers, translators, technology gurus, food consultants, tour guides, advisors, and colleagues. Likewise, immersion in a series of activities over several weeks makes one appreciate the “team” and leads me to the elevated designation of “highly esteemed” to Professors Pratibha Varma-Nelson, Rick Moog, and Simon “Tweets” Lancaster.
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected]. Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the author and not necessarily the views of the ACS. Norbert J. Pienta is Professor and Director of General Chemistry at the University of Georgia, where he teaches and conducts research and scholarship about the teaching and learning of chemistry, devising methods, instruments, and analytics to characterize student learning and increase student success. He currently also serves as the editor-in-chief for the Journal of Chemical Education.
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REFERENCES
(1) Pienta, N. J. Innocents Abroad: A Journal’s Outreach to India. J. Chem. Educ. 2013, 90 (1), 1−2 DOI: 10.1021/ed300828s. (2) Twain, M. The Innocents Abroad: Or The New Pilgrims’ Progress; American Publishing Company: Hartford, CT, 1869; http://www. gutenberg.org/ebooks/3176 (accessed Feb 2015). 400
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00101 J. Chem. Educ. 2015, 92, 399−400
