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Correspondence -
LABORATORY NOTE-BOOKS IN HIGH-SCHOOL CHEMISTRY To THE EDITOR: The writer feels that some comment should be made with reference to W. G. Bower's article' concerning note-books in laboratory instruction. I am in perfect agreement with Mr. Bower's major contentions, namely that the pupil should have clearly in mind the purpose of an experiment, that the observations and results should be clearly formulated and the conclusions drawn on the basis of properly organized observations and results. However, the writer has proven, to his own satisfaction a t least, that it is not necessary to write temporary notes in the laboratory and then rewrite detailed notes after the experiment has been performed in order to give the student the proper training in scientific thinking and expression. The writer agrees that merely filling in blank spaces with one-word answers will not give proper training in scientific expression, although this method was found to give satisfactory results so far as retaining the main facts of the experiment was concerned. The tests which were given during the investigation previously reportedZ were framed so as to determine whether or not the student had reached correct conclusions on the basis of the observations made during the experiment. The results showed that those students who made temporary notes in the laboratory, had them criticized by the instructor and then wrote detailed complete notes, made only slightly better grades than those stodents who made briefer permanent notes a t the time the experiment was performed. The writer is convinced that questions can be given which will allow the student to make a satisfactory final record of the observations and results as the experiment proceeds and then reason to correct conclusions on the basis of the results obtained. In this school an experiment is given as the result of a definite problem which has arisen and must be answered. The student goes into the laboratory with a very definite idea as to the object of the experiment he is to perform. The notes required consist of a brief statement of the object of the experiment and the answers to the questions given with the directions. These questions make sure that the student records the necessary observations, results, and conclusions. Equations must be
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written and problems solved as soon as the student is ready for this type of work. It is admitted that it will often be necessary for the instructor to add questions to those given in the ordinary manual or else use his own mimeographed copies of directions and questions. When the experiment is completed the notes are examined and if correct are accepted, otherwise the student is required to correct any mistakes which may have been made. The following day a brief test is given covering the experiment. This enables the instructor to give each student a grade for the experiment and also gives him an opportunity to discover whether or not the student has actually solved the problem involved. Each student is therefore careful to see that the experiment is done to the best of his ability. The question naturally arises as to how the instructor can properly supervise the laboratory work and correct the note-hooks in one double period. Under the plan outlined i t will not be possible for the instructor to assume the role of store-room keeper. All chemicals must be readily accessible to the students so that the instructor will he free to devote his entire time to questioning and giving suggestions, but never doing the actual work for the student. The teacher soon learns which students are capable and can give the larger share of his time to those who need help and guidance. If the notes are written according to the method given they can be corrected in a very short time. The best students will finish the average experiment in approximately sixty minutes and can be given optional work or allowed to return to the class-room for further reading. The writer has never found any difficulty .in correcting all notes by the end of the period, providing too much work is not attempted. It is better to do less work and do i t well than to attempt too much and do it poorly. The statistical results which the writer obtained showed that the method outlined gave results which were on a par with the method of writing temporary and then complete h a 1 notes. In this day and age the chances are that Sally and John will have a date for the movies during the evening and the chemistry note-book will be forgotten, put aside to be done later or perhaps copied from some ambitious student who stayed home to do the work. We teachers of chemistry are often criticized because we take so much time for our subject and i t is obviously unfair to the other teachers to ask a pupil to spend two periods in a laboratory and then another hour writing up the results obtained from the two work periods. If satisfactory results can he obtained by the shorter method why should the teacher ask the student to reorganize and rewrite his material and why should the already overburdened science teacher be asked to look over practically the same work again if i t was carefully corrected the first time? The method given is complete enough to give proper training in scientific
thinking and expression but at the same time prevents the note-book from being a burden to pupil and teacher. MORRIS F. STWBS TENNESSBB WESLEYAN COLLEGE, ATHENS, TENNESSEE
T W O POINTS OF VIEW To THE EDITOR: Instead of an exothermic expression of dissent from your comments in the May number, not agreeing with my point of view as to the legitimacy of the requirement of composition ability in examinations in chemistry, it will be of more value to all concerned if I may carry the analysis of the situation a bit farther. "The ability to speak and write intelligibly of chemistry and things pertaining to it will play an appreciable part in the utility of chemical knowledge," say you in your editorial. This ability is a complex result of many factors, of which the result of instruction in chemistry is only one. Whatever portions of the resulting complex ability are due to chemical instruction are legitimate objects for consideration in evaluating results of this instruction. Thus far we are in entire agreement. But if we analyze the remaining sections of this complex ability, we find that they are neither more nor less than the very matters that are taught as "composition and rhetoric" in the four years of high school. For example, College Board 1923 examination, question 14(a), is: "Describe briefly the production of pig iron in the blast furnace, giving the composition of the ore, the flux, the slag, and the fuel." I n answering this question, in addition to the chemical information required, the pupil has to organize the material for logic and coherence. . Taking as a sample of modem texts in rhetoric the Miller-Palmer "High School English," I find that the answering of this question involves. the technics of Chapter 5, "Technique of the Paragraph;" those of Chapter 9, "Principles of Composition," in which unity, coherence, emphasis, etc., are taught; those of Chapter 10, "Description;" and a t least a portion of those in Chapter 12, "Exposition." My analysis leads me to believe, therefore, that a successful answer to this question involves nearly half a year's rhetoric instruction plus only a day or two's chemical study! Now I have purposely taken the most extreme case to illustrate the point involved; the degree to which abilities produced by instruction in English are required for answering successfully examination questions in chemistry, even if typically only a fourth or a tenth as great as in this case, is large enough to warrant our giving serious consideration to the matter. The inarticulateness of the scientist, to which you refer editorially in the April number, is therefore not a matter of science training, but of
