Learning Chemistry Intellectual Integrity or Mental Servility Gordon M. Barrow Royal Roads Milltary College, Victoria, BC. Canada VOS 1BO
For teacher or book to cram pupils with facts which, with little more trouble, they could discover by direct enquiry is to violate their intellectual inteerity and to cultivate mental senility. This does not mean that thi material supplied through communication of others should be meager or scanty.. .But fields within which direct observation is practicable should be carefully chosen and sacredly protected. . . . Instruction in subject matter that does not fit into an interest already stirring in the student's own experience. . .is worse than useless for intellectual purposes. In that it fails to enter into any process of reflection, it is useless; in that it remains in the mind as so much lumber and debris, it is a barrier, an obstruction in the way of effective thinking. . . Dewey, John. How We Think: ARestatement of theRelationof Reflectiue Thinking to the Educative Process; Heath, Boston, 1933.
For decades, hundreds of thousands of high school and college students have heen herded each year through an introductory chemistry course. As an introduction to science and as a fulfilline com~onentof the educational process, the typical course (7) is fraud and a sham. ~ l t h o u g hmost students manage to do what is required, few know what it all is about. I can remember that my introductory chemistry course made no sense to me and that I simply mastered some of the terminology and procedures so that I could do well on the examinations. With such a beginning-which is prohahly more typical than exceptional-one can go on to become a professional chemist. But how much more professional eniovrnent and how much ereater contribution to the ~ r o f e s sion, and to society, therewould he if the start weresound and satisfying. I t was, and still is, accepted that a t the high school or college entry stage, chemistry does not make sense. By now, the well-entrenched attitude is: introductory chemistry is taught in high schools and colleges. Students at this staee cannot learn real chemistry: - we teach them, and test them on what they can learn. Currently, science education in general and chemical eduare increasingly recognized as failing to cation in meet the needs of students, the chemical profession, and the country (2). Many of the prohlems in the chemical profession stem from the training of chemists, and therefore from the teaching-learning process in academic programs. Remedial actions are, however, often hased on matters that are peripheral to what goes on in the minds of students in the classroom and the teaching laboratory. The insights to the learning process that are provided by experienced teachers and by educational psychology are generally ignored, and the direction of reforms can all too easily fall into the hands of educational dilettantes. The prohlems and the solutions that are proposed, as a t a recent American Chemical Society meeting (2), are often expressed in terms of the social, organizational, or economic circumstances of the chemical education mocess. Government, professional, and industrial organizations have focussed attention on the oroblem and have soawned a varietv of projects aimed a t improving the situation. Concerned individuals have urged various actions. A government
a
.-
s~okesmansees h e l ~in turning- attention to women and minorities. A professional leader focuses on "pipeline" problems in academic chemistry. An industrial leader advocates restructuring the school system. A science education spokesman urges more scientific projects for elementary schools. An academic chemistry coordinator sees the problem as arising from the difficulty of the academic program that science mijors must follow. A prestigious research chemist urges reorganization of the subject to reflect the areas he or she sees in the research laboratories. All such well-meaning advocates, and the new money and projects that result, provide a helpful boost to chemical education. The long-term result can, however, he more harmful than helpful. Efforts to popularize the subject might simply entrench the approach to chemistry that has caused the ~rohlems. Modern concerns parallel those of the post-Sputnick days of the '60's that led to the Chem Study project. That suggests that i t now is particularly important tounderstand theprohlems and to embark on a path that will provide lasting improvements. The lesson of Chem Study should still be with us. That much admired project, stimulated by an earlier feeling of national emergency, is partly responsible for the ensuing decline in chemical education. The plethora of views and projects that we see today could well have equally unhappy long-term results. T o solve any problem in chemistry, including chemical education, one is well advised to understand that problem and to base solutions on this understanding. Over the years, this Journal has published many articles (3) that include insightful comments on the nature and the problems of chemical education. Althopgh common t h r e a d s run throughout such articles, these ideas are often treated as irrelevant to the teaching-learning job at hand and to the wide-ranging prohlems that result from failure of academic programs. I t might he helpful to mention just a few markers on my own path to seeing the merits in drawing from the insights from such research.
Personal Experiences Recently I have had the opportunity to teach first-year chemistryto small classes of quite good students, and to do so in both lecture and laboratory. The success that entering students had on standardized ACS chemistry examinations was striking-hut so also was their discomfort with chemistrv. T o trv . to orovide a foundation for them so thev would know what i t was all about, I gradually cut hack on the extent and detail of the material that was covered. Simple lecture demonstrations were increasingly used in order to make just a few chemicals and their reactions part of the students' experience. The more the focus was on substances and reactions that students had seen or used, the more they wereconfused. In fact, thesimplerand more understandable the material, the more difficulties the students experienced!
.
Volume 68 Number 6 June 1991
449
Some of the difficulties and frustrations of the students showed u p in lecture sessions. If a discussion was moved away from the learned definitions and principles to actual suhstances and their reactions, the usual result was a defensive, even belligerent "I don't know anything about that. It's justwhat my teacher told me-or what the textbook says." I t was made clear that i t was improper to expect chemistry to be tangled up with the world of actual substances and reactions. Similar problems occurred in lecture demonstrations. What actually happened on the lecture room bench seemed to make no direct impression. For example, early in the course when the categories of pure substances, mixtures, elements. and compounds are introduced, we focus on just a few elements andcompounds so that these will gradually become Dart of each student's reality. In lecture demonstrations, much was made of the properties of the metallic element zinc, and the nonmetallic element sulfur, of mixtures of these, of the chemical reaction that occurs on ignition, and of the properties of the zinc sulfide compound that is formed. Tvbical of student reactions was "the demonstration wanalright. but I knew from high school about mixtures, oure substances. and that sort of thine." When asked about ;he actual suhstances that I had spent so much effort to emphasize, he could only say that "You lit a fuse in something and then there was a lot of fire and smoke." Even the careful display of chemical phenomena seemed unable to move students from memorized definitions and generalities to examples of chemical reality. Similar rejections of reality occurred in the laboratory. Early in t h e course, the students do some simple experiments with ionic solutions and compounds and work from simple cations through t o more complex cationlanion species. In one lab they work with the ionic species Naf, Ca2+, Zn2+,Fez+ and Fe3+, and Cr3+ and CrOp2-lCr2072-.For example, we try toget students tovalue the observation that an initial iron hvdroxide orecioitate is transformed from areen to orange, or "rust" colored, on exposure to air. The association is made with the hydroxides of Fe2+andFe3+.Confident awareness of a few observations, such as these colors and the two different oxidation states in these iron compoundsparticularly in contrast to the colorless, single oxidation state of zinc-is of value when, for example, oxidation numbers and redox equations are studied and general features of the transition metals are organized. Most students rejected this experiment. If they wanted to know about chemicalseven such a small, carefully selected set as this-they could look them uo in some handbook! The lab should be used. -~~~~ some students told me, to measure things or prove things, not to try to get students t o learn chemical facts. The experiences I was having in class and laboratory suggested that there was some general, profound problem. I t was not simply a matter of material that was "irrelevant", "too hard", "too much", or "too mathematical". During these years, theories of learning were brought to the attention of chemists. My own thoughts turned from presenting the various topics in an orderly, understandable way-activities that I had always felt to be in the forefront of teaching-to understanding, and overcoming, the general harrier between the students and what most practicing chemists think of as chemistry. This harrier, which seems alwavs to have been with us, keeps high school and college students from enjoying the opening up of the world t h a t i s orovided hv a studv of chemistry and channels them to a hulling concern for mastering material that might appear on the next examination. To understand the eeneral acceptance of the version of introductory chemistr; that is at odds with reality, we must first recall some of the chemical education insights of the past two decades. ~
..
~
&
~
450
.
~
Journal of Chemical Education
Pertinent Ideas from Theorles of Cognltlve Development
Excellent summaries of two theories of learning have been puhlished in this Journal. Herron (4) outlined the ideas of stages of development that is central to Piaget's theory of mental development. Pertinent to chemical education is the transition from the "concrete"stage to the "formal" stage. At the concrete stage, things are accepted, or learned, for themselves. Only at the formal stage can a student make the connections that are an inteeral part of modern chemistrv. ~ o d n e r(5) reported on the "constructivism" theory of learnina. That theory holds that in real learning, as opposed to simple memorization of facts and procedures, r d i t y is constructed by the learner. The learner is an active construction worker, not astorage bin into which facets of the outside world are entered by the instruction process. The ability to carry out such constructions can be associated with Piaget's formal development stage. While writing about her experiences in teaching people to draw, Edwards (6) has treated the idea of the distinction between "left brain" and "rieht brain" activities in a wav that is surprisingly pertinent to the teaching of chemistry. ft is areued that the difficulties that many of us have in drawing is due to our inability to see. We put preconceived forms or ideas, coded by symbols or labels, in place of what is before our eyes. In order to see, she says, we must encourage activity of the creative right side of the brain and hold in check the usual dominance of the methodical, linguistic left side. The right side of the hrain is the "Eureka" side, that which deals with, and makes sense out of, a variety of signals. One can see a connection between her idea of right-side activity and both the formal development stage and the ability to make mental constructions. All three of these wavs of lookina- a t mental Drocesses recognize that a certain level of development, involvement, or activity must he reached for significant learning to occur. There is evidence that many students who undertake studies of chemistrv in high school or colleae have not progressed t o the level of mental maturity required for such studies. Furthermore, even mature students revert to concrete reasoning when they are confronted with new, foreign topics. They retreat to an acceptance of provided information rather than embarking on their own active creation. Or, finally, they put the left side of their hrain in charge so that i t can accent the words and the labels that are suo~lied.The right side of the hrain, with its potential for maki&seuse out of the varietv of sienals that are comine- its wav. oushed to .. is . the background. In mv teachine efforts I had been trvina, without suitable buildup, to do things that were inappropr&e to the development or attitudinal level of the students. Apparently the generally accepted version of introductory chimist& that mv students had been exposed to in high school-a version that is similar ro that preiented in mo; colleges-is appropriate to the develop men^ level. In view of the mental stages or attitudes that have been described, the nature and the succesd of this version of chemistry can he understood. The Mainstream Introductory Chemistry Course
Contrary to the impression created by the varied, innovative ideas puhlished injournals such as this, the introductory chemistry course, taught at the high school and again a t the college level, is unofficially standardized. The large-scale adoptions of interchangeable textbooks, with their stifling supplementary packages, attest to, and maintain, this uniformity. In this generally accepted approach, it is often said that the principles of chemistry are being emphasized. Lectures and a textbook are the principal sources of information and procedures. Lecture demonstrations are primarily for amusement. Laboratory work, often with fill-in-the-blank
t w e of renorts. are aimed a t social-tvue skills such as oreanio i;n and report writing. The course is deemed to hesuccessful if students pass the required examinations. Few students in the introductory chemistry course taught in high schools and colleges see chemistry as a science. Substances and their transformations, the proper subject matter of chemistry, are not part of the student's background and are not part of the experience provided by the course. Students memorize what the teacher and the textbook tell them and base the answers they give on what they have been told. They do calculations according t o accepted rituals. Very little of the ruurse material is based on, or even related to, anything students have seen or experienced. The chemistry course miehr better he listed in the Deuartment ot'Relie~ous Studies! The rote-learnine. mode is now so a c c e ~ t e dthat -. nrincinles . most instructors are seldom conscious of the fact that their students do not have any idea what it is all about. Satisfvine understanding of the world that the study of science should hrina has been redaced bv the mind-numhine.attention to words and symbois on paper. I t must he acknowledged that in the midst of all this there are successes and satisfactions. Many courses, often as a result of narticularlv caring or talented teachers, provide experienr& in classr~omor laboratory that advance-the intellectual and manipulative skills and the confidence of the students. In addition, many teachers, aware of their own professional development, see value in exposing students to any aspect of chemistry. They hold to the hope that, as in their own cases, understanding and appreciation will come later. Even in an uninsuired nrincjnles course. some students enjoy, and profit from; jumping the hurdles that are set up, and almost all students are nleased hv uassine the course and heing done with that which h a s been off as chemistry.
-
-
The Concreteness of the “Prlnclples-of-Chemistry" Alternatlve to Chemlsiry Given the mental development stage of many students, and the interrelations inherent in modern chemistry, i t would seem to be impossible for high school and college students to succeed in an introductory chemistry course. But, with the "principles" treatment of chemistry, they are successful! Although the need for an appropriate level or mental attitude has never been refuted, worries about the impossibility of real learning are simply set aside. We get on with the job by teaching a "principles", or sometimes a "nroblem-solvine". course. so he general soiution to the inadequate mental maturity of manv students--but not in fact in conscious response to this problem-has been to present chemistry so that students oueratina in a concrete, acceutance, or linear mode can be s;ccessf;l. The concreteness that introductory chemistry has found is, however, not in the materials and transformations of the real world. Rather, the written words and symbols serve as the concrete things that all students can deal with. The great majority of introductory high school or college general chemistry courses now lead students to see chemistrvin terms of the words and svmbols that are written in textbdoks, on the chalkboard or overhead projector, or in the student's notebook. These words and symbols are concrete entities that are manipulated by means of provided rules and nrincinles. Nothine more need he constructed. The for such tasks; the right side the brain is left side 01 can, again, be ignored. Here is an example that illustrates the concreteness of the paper chemistry that is generally taught. T o most students in an introductory course, density is d = mlV. When the word density appears on an examination question, the expression d =-m/ V is scrihbled in the m a r g i n . ~ h a expression t ijrearranged, perhaps with the aid of theassociated units, to
serve whatever purpose is a t hand. There is no need to raise ones eyes and mind from the paper on which the work is done. What is the mass of 5 mL of ethanol, for which the density at 25 OC is 0.79 gImL? Most students write d = mlV and rearrange this t o m = d X Vso that the calculation and cancelling of units gives m = (0.79 g/mL) X (5 mL) = 0.40 g. The symbols are the reality. Contrast this calculation procedure with density-based calculations that use the idea that the density of amaterial is one of the properties of the material. Density is the mass of a unit volume of the material. The now generally discarded procedure of the multiplication of the volume of the sample, 5 mL, by the mass of a unit volume of the material of the samule. . ,0.79 elmL..helm . students to think of the samole and the material of the sample. But this multiplication process makes formal demands: the treatment of symbols as concrete entities avoids these demands. Symbols also become real instead of symbolic when nonmathematical topics are treated. Think of the "cross-multiplication" procedure for writing the formulas of ionic compounds, or the patterns or boxes with which the i s , 29, 2p, etc., atomic orbital symbols are manipulated. Chemical formulas are written and chemical equations are balanced with regard to rules hut not with attention to the substances that are involved. For example, popular players in the oxidation number and redox equation games that are played in the introductory chemist& course are potassium dichromate, KzCrz07, or the dichromate ion, C r ~ 0 ~ The ~ - . fact that an aoueous solution of notassium dichromate is oranee is consiiered to he too '.ksoteric" for the advanced Sacement exam (7)! The student is not exnected to have anvthine in " mind-other than what is on paper. There are two auite . -general indications that students are experted to keep their eyes and their minds firmly on paper. r i J The factor lahel method: The factor lahel method nromotes the on-paper problem-solving attitude illustrated by the use of the formula in densitv calculations. If the lectures or the textbook use the factor-libel method with any enthusiasm, the course is probably a concrete-level, on-paper chemistry course. (ii) The periodic table: A highly annotated periodic table is often treated as a display of, rather than an organizational tool for, the chemistry of the elements. For example, if students think of the element titanium as a metal. with its ground-state electronic configuration of [ ~ r ] 4 s ~ 3 dbecause i, of its location in the neriodic table. the course is urobablv an on-paper chemistry course. Most high school and many college teachers and students are committed to this on-paper chemistry. They have learned that this is the way to assure that their students can answer the types of questions that occur on chemistry examinations. Although such teaching keeps most students from developing anLnderstanding a i d enjoyment of chemistry, i t has the merit--greatly . appreciated hv practical stu- dents and teachem-of pretty well assuring su&ess on tests and examinations. Converting students from this on-paper attitude to chemistry does not occur as a result of admonitions to "try to think" or "don't iust use formulas". The attitude is nart of the concrete stagk of mental development. Real c h k g e occurs only when a higher level of development is achieved. Without this mental attitude, no amount of cajoling, clear oresentation, logical deduction. dramatic demonstration. or the preaching of social consequences can produce the desired instructional result. Back to Real Chemistry The problems that are now recognized in chemical education and the chemistw profession are not the result of Door teaching of introductor; chemistry in high schools and-colleges. Rather, the problems arise becauseof the teaching of a Volume 68
Number 6
June 1991
451
suhstitute for chemistry, a suhstitute that is about as scientific as astrology. Students acquire scientific sounding jargon. The principles and procedures that they learn are passed to them from those who know. At best, these ideas are supported hy anecdotal, mysterious lahoratory exercises or lecture demonstration that -give students little basis for construtting their own ideas or appreciation. T o teach chemistry as a study of the real world of suhstances and their transformations, we need not wait for some mvsterious. general mental development or change to happen in our students. Rather, we can arrange our ;hemistry presentations so that the subject is not, or does not become, new and foreign. Then the formal reasoning, the active construction, or the synthesizing right-brain activity that is necessary for any honest study of chemistry can henurtured. Recognition of the need for a friendly relationship with a t least a few chemicals and their reactions will affect both lectures and lahoratory work, and the textbook and lahoratory manual that go along with them. In these principal components of the course, the personality of the lecturer and the logistics of the lahoratory would greatly influence the results. The focus here will, therefore, he on the usually minor lecture demonstration component of the introductory chemistry course. Very many excellent lecture demonstrations have been described, and many of these can he performed with no great expenditure for supplies and equipment. All that is needed is a sound principle with which to select appropriate demonstrations and to organize them into the course. Lecture Demonstrations and the Dlfflculty of Seelng Lecture demonstrations can he done for many reasons. Thev serve to entertain, and thev break the monotony of coniinuous rhalkand t a l k . ~ h ran e ~ he presented as pw.;les. and in that form thev can be used to piquc the intereits and development of the-good and eager-students. Most often, lecture demonstrations are said to he done to illustrate principles. In this application of lecture demonstrations, the subject is nudged only slightly from its base that is outside the students own experiences. Lecture demonstrations can illustrate what we need to do in all aspects of instruction to rekindle interest and competence in chemistry. They can he carried out so the chemistry they reveal becomes part of the students' own experiences. Students can he as comfortable with a few chemicals and chemical reactions as thev are with sittina down in the lecture room and opening the notebook. ~ i e this n happens, students have a chance of dealing with formal relationships. They need not retreat to concrete, linear, label-shuffling orocedures. Usina lecture demonstrations in the introductory chemistry course to make students thoroughly comfortable with a few suhstances and reactions is, however, not an easy task. Sodium is a great element to introduce through lecture demonstrations. A piece of sodium, cleaned of its rustlike coating, can he used to show its softness, its metallic luster, and its electrical conductivity. It has the physical properties of a metal. Its low melting point and low density are apparent when a piece is placed in, or on, water. Its chemical properties spring into view. I t reacts with water to produce hvdroeen and a basic solution. It burns. i.e.. reacts with oxygen. The oxide, scrapped off a piece of the parent metal or collected from the residue after burning turns red litmus blue. The oxide of sodium is a base. The wonderful reaction of sodium with chlorine illustrates the general metal-nonmetal reactions, and leads to the famil& sodium chloride comoound. Sodium has the chemical properties of a metal. ~ e c i u r edemonstrations that displayed ail this were carried out over several lecture periods. No formulas were used, and suhstances were simplydesignated, e.g., the product formed
.
452
-
Journal of Chemical Education
when sodium burned was referred to as the oxide of sodium. The intent was to make students directlv a t home with this element. They could see for themselves.- hey did not need to deoend on the observations or the authoritv of others. ~ h quiz k of the following week asked students to write about the properties and reactions of the element sodium. They all reported that it was a metal, most reported that i t exhibits the +1 oxidation state, and many went on to write that its melting point is 371.0 K, its density is 0.97 g/cm3, i t crvstallizes in the body-centered cubic structure, and so forth! Sodium was not-the substance I had been showing them. Sodium was the information on the substance, and on its atoms and ions, that was provided by the periodic tables the students had brought with them from their high school courses. They had not been able to see the carefully repeated demonstrations. The wonderful. dramatic disolavs. . . . which thev watched and enjoyed, had' not been mentally processed. Such experiences support the idea, expressed to me by many colleagues, that students cannot observe. They must be told, or have been told, what it is thev are s u o ~ o s e dto see. The phenomena in front of them must be con;&ted to words and symhols, which can he transcribed from the chalkboard to the notebook, At this stage they expect others to see, interpret, and convert what they see to words and labels. - l t i s hard to accept that students cannot see what is right before their eyes, just as it is hard to accept that students cannot understand simple, logical chemical explanations of chemical phenomena. We tend not to appreciate that a certain level of mental develooment. or mental comfort. in the particular field must he rekhed before such simple mental orocesses are oossible. The distinction between. on the one hand, observation, which is seeing that is the basis for learning, and, on the other hand, recognition, which is seeing that reveals something already understood, has long been recognized (8). The effect of the wall of labels and preconceived ideas that stand between most students and the demonstration on the lecture hall bench has been pointed out by Edwards (6). Although she is talking about a drawing class, her perception is completely appropriate to chemistry lecture demonstrations when she says". . .adult students beginning in art generally do not really see what is in front of their eyes. . .They take note of what's there, and quickly translate the perception into words and symbols mainly hased on the symbol system developed throughout childhood and on what they know about the oerceived ohiect." To avoid such failures to see, the generaliy ignored and little-developed right hrain must have a chance: "It (the rieht brain) seems to regard the thing as-it-is, a t the pr~sent-moment:..seeing thyngs for what they simply are, in all of their awesome, fascinating complexity." What Is To Be Done? Seeing is part of understanding. When the student is not ready for much mental processing nothing happens. In our lecture demonstrations we must he as conscious of the ohstacles to seeine" as in lectures we are of the obstacles to understanding. Seeing and understanding depend on the same mental develooment. The instructor must recoenize that learning depends on the development of these s k i k n o t an avoidance of a need for them. This understanding of the learning process a t this stage can guide us to a basis for helpful lecture demonstrations. Their principal object should he to provide safe, sure positions from which mental progress can he undertaken. Lecture demonstrations must, therefore, be done slowly and repeatedly. Sufficient exposure to the same chemicals and reactions-must he carried out so that casual familiarity is gained. The demonstrations must focus on the subjects, i.e., the suhstances and the transformation of the substances, not
on principles that are illustrated. The principal goal is to make afew actual suhstances and reactionsDart of that bodv of experience that can be drawn on automatically, when hieher level thoughts are processed. 'i'o make lecturi demonstratiom valuahle components o f a meanineful introduction t o rhemistry, one might think of grouping lecture demonstrations to provide "base camps" from which advances can he made into the mysteries of the chemical world. For example, think of the way in which students know-if they know a t all-the two related suhstances sodium carbonate and calcium carbonate. Most students can write the formulas that go along with these names. If the course a t that moment happened to he dealing with solubilities students mieht recoenize that the former was soluble. the latter was u u insoluble. In studies of descriptive chemistry the association with washine soda and with limestone mieht be made. But neither of th&e compounds is likely to be part of a comfortable reservoir of information that can he drawn on effortlessly. Beginning students might he able t o answer test questions about the chemistrv of these com~ounds,but this chemistry is probably not part of the students' reality. Substances and reactions, such as those related to sodium and calcium carbonate, need to be displayed, and even handled, repeatedly. Properties, and the relation of these compounds to carbon dioxide, need to he talked about, and reactions need to he carried out over a space of days or weeks. We must also be aware that some apparently simple demonstrations, like the limewater test for carhon dioxide, can he disturbing chemical mysteries. This mystery will gradually go away if the preparation of limewater and the limewater test are carried out repeatedly. This can be done in the course of studies of carhon dioxide, calcium hydroxide (lime), and calcium carbonate. It can he done again when the acidic properties of carhon dioxide are illustrated and when the bicarbonate ion is described. How can you tell when you have established a chemical hase camp, i.e., when you have brought your students to a familiarity with reality that then can he built on? Youmight, for example, do the demonstration that consists of adding a solution of calcium chloride to one of sodium hydrogen carbunatr. A white preripitate fi~rms,and agas is evolved. Your students should suspect, and he ablr toconfirm, the precipitation of calcium carbonate and rvolution of carbon dioxide. If they do so, comfortably, they are ready to proceed to the writing of a chemical equation for the process. If they have proceeded by this route, the equation, instead of being a troublesome, mysterious chore that chemistry teachers demand, will he appreciated, and even enjoyed.
The rewards for wallowing in little corners of chemistry such as this are enormous. Students acquire places to stand, firm stepping stones that let them venture into further realities and into correlating principles. Remarkably, students will find that both the orincioles and the mathematical Drocedures of chemistry ale moie easily learned when t h e i c a n he related to the familiar chemistrv of one or more lecture demonstration hase camps. Summary An alternative to the standard rote-learning, symbolic, principles course consists of familiarizing students with some small pieces of the chemical world and fostering the intellectual development and appreciation of chemistry that can grow around such hase camps. This familiarization staee. - . now eenerallv releaated to -~ r e h i e hschool levels. is seldom recognized as a necessary prerequisite to the introductorv chemistrv course eiven in hieh schools and colleees. ~amiliarization,iike discovery, has ieen swept away by'the sterile. but manweable rote-learning procedures of the now widely accepted principles course. O& in a few high schools and collezes - is this tide resisted. Lecture demonstrations, along with a suitable text and laboratory program, can help students to venture into formal reasoning and therefore into an enjoyable appreciation of real chemistry. They can do so, however, only if they are encouraged to develop and trust their own experiences with seeing or manipulating real suhstances and chemical processes.
-
Literature Cited 1. Horron, J. 0. J. Chrm. Educ. 1983, 60, 947. Drawing on the pre~eniationsof John Renner. Herran rayl " ...Learning Theory A:. . .fhi. &aching procedure can he described asinform, o ~ ~ i f andprarfire. v, The fad thei prohably in excess of 90 p a cent of the feaching-materials market adheres.. . ~ u ~ g e sthe w power of Learning Theory A . Learning Theory B: .Thaaiy B is not only conslsient with what we conaidorto bethenature oircience; hutalru it isconsistentwith what isconrideredto be the central purpose of education in general". Chrm. Eng. Neuls 1990,68,27-"Winds of Revolution Sweep through Science Educatin"". Included are exerpfs from speeches made at the 1990sprine ACS meeting held in Bosti,". Some of the article6 in this Journal that, in the course of treating various aspects of chemical education, include oarfiruiailv oertineni comment$ Herron. J. D. 1982.59. ! ,: K , a e , ~ t I , . , P I . I%?,% I : I h-.t -c + H I ~ . ' L V , > - s H ~ C1 1C .\ lY%4: ! l9+:,3' . a. I , # I ' c g I ! I : .:.dll..I !q.:, , ! ..%.s..,~F,, 11 I, 1%*9,4 SY,: k r, ~ l ~ , ~ .I$.%, ' . ,C~ , '.>. Lylhcoft. J. 1990.67.248: Sawrev, B.A. 1990.67.258, J, Chem.Educ, 1975,52, 146, ~ ~ G. M. dJ . "hem. ~ E ~ "~c 1986.63.873. . ~ . Edwards,B. Drawing on the R n h l S ~ d ofthe r Rmin; Tarchor: Los Anpeler. m79:and Ilromine an the Altirl Within: Simon and Schuster: New York. 1986. Ta,,H, L,J,Ch em.Educ. 1990,67, 21, oewey.& HOW we ~ h i ~ ~k :~ ~~ to hr t,983. :~ ~ .
..
2. 3.
,
A,
6.
, 8.
Call for Nominations for the Third Brasted Memorial Award The Brasted Memorial Award was established to honor the efforts of Robert Brasted to improve the teaching of chemistry around the world. The award is given on alternate years to an individual from another country who has been influential in the improvement ofchemical education internationally. The 1992recipient will deliver the Third Brasted Memorial Lecture at the ACS Chemical Education Division's Biennial Conference on Chemical Education in Davis, California. The primary criterion for eligibility for the award is significant contribution to the advancement ofchemicaleducation internationally. The nominee must not be a citizen or a resident ofthe Unites States, but the nominator (and seconder, if any) may be from any country. Anyone wishing to nominate an eligible person should send a nominating letter (in English),not to exceed two, single-spaced, typewritten pages in length, that describes the candidate's contributionsto chemical educatian internationally. A curriculum vitae, seconding letter, and other supporting documentation may he attached to the nominating document, but these are optional. The nominating documents should he sent to the Chair of the Division ofChemiea1Education's Committee on International Activities, Loretta L. Jones, 103 Chemistry Annex, Box A-2, University of Illinois, 601 S. Mathews, Urbana, IL 61801, in time toreach her by December 31,1992. She will forward all nominating documents to the Brasted Award Subcommittee of the DIVCHEDICIA. The award recipient's name will he announced by April 18,1992. -
-
Volume 68 Number 6
-
June 1991
-
453
