Robert W. Bibeau
Wayland High School Wayland, Massachusetts
Programmed High School ChemistryIt's Working!
1s it possible to teach all levels of high school chemistry students, generals, college-bounds, and honors, in the same room a t the same time? Why bother trying? I n order to answer the questions, you have to ask yourself whether or not it is culturally sound in terms of the future of the United States of America to segregate students into peasants, workers, and aristocrats. Segregating students into classifications is building into the teaching system one of the worst types of ghetto philosophies; the bright student should be considered to be someone apart from the main stream of life, the poor student should be forever banished to fight for survival among the damned. The end result of artifically classifying students is the practical requirement that ability-groups be scheduled as such, creating problems in scheduling that all too frequently result in a second-best opportunity for all levels of ability. One solution to the problems arising from segregating ability groups is being tried a t Wayland High School. All chemistry students are being offered the same program; they are instructed to proceed at their own optimum rate, self-testing when they feel they know the material being learned and deciding for themselves, to some extent, the content of the chemistry course they want to take. A student response to this inuovation in chemistry instruction was produced that can best be described as unbelievable. Success of the program, measured by the degree of student and staff support for the system, hinges upon the student's decision-making machinery. The student develops his own daily lesson plan, records his own progress in a report from which his grades will be determined, credits himself with his own attendance in class, and learns how to instruct himself in chemistry. Of course, the teacher-consultant is always present to help with the really tough problems, concepts, generalizations, and to supervise laboratory work. The program, initially offered to 65 college-bound juniors part way through the third quarter of the 196970 school year, is now instructing 220 chemistry students, the entire enrollment in chemistry, consisting of some sophomores, lots of juniors, a few seniors, and crossing ability-group lines, mixing generals, college bounds, and honors groups in one instructional pot. The program features a flexibility that allows a general to move into college-bound work if an aptitude for this level of experience is discovered in the student. A few college-bounds drop back to a lower level of expectancy, the brights from each group quickly outdistance their peers, no longer restrained by the fetters of "shooting for the middle" in lesson planning. How the Program Operates. A student, qualifies for 822
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Journal of Chemical Education
a lesson. He follows the lesson, performing whatever laboratory work is required therein when it is optimum for him to perform the work. Completion of the program is accomplished only when the student, now r e lieved of the pressure of deadlines, informs the teacher that he is ready to be tested on the lesson content. He tests himself, corrects the test from a test master, records his achievement in the progress report, and asks for the next lesson. As the program evolved, advantages appeared from all directions. One of the most important advantages is the continuity of instruction a student receives. After a period of absence, a day, a week, a month, the student no longer asks, "What did I miss? Do I have to make up the lab?" He simply takes up where he left off, a tremendous advantage to students who want to take advantage of elective office, sports, and all of the other extracurricular activities available in a modern high school. How is the quality of programmed instruction stacking up to conventional instructional methods? The question can best be answered by describing a typical sequence of instruction. Available to each student is a programmed sequence in acids, bases, and salts. The titles of the available programs are as follows Eleotrolytes Acid-base reactions with metals Neutralization Counting H + and OH-ions (molarity) aam-equivalent Countine H+ and OH-ions (normality and weigh& of aoids and bases) Counting H + and OH- ions; pH and K, Hydrolysis of salts; the Brgnsted theory Anhydrides
A student wishing to become competent enough to answer all the items on the college board achievement test in chemistry that pertain to pH and K,, for example would be issued a qualitative experience in introductory pH, complete all of the required work intended to introduce him to the meaning of the range of pH numbers, test himself, then proceed to the next lesson. Lesson #2 in the sequence introduces him to the idea of logarithms in chemistry. However, the coefficient of the exponential numbers involved is always Development of the unity, for example, 1 X concept of pH is accompanied by an introduction to the idea that there is an ionization constant for water The student then applies the simple called K,. logarithm solution of problems involving H + and OHion concentrations and the ion-product for water. Completion of the lesson, and an 80 or better on the test qualifies him to proceed to the next lesson; the same type of material, is covered but involves logarithms requiring use of a table of common logarithms
because the coefficients are no longer "one," and the p H numbers contain decimals. Many of the students try very hard to complete the third lesson involving logs because they waut to work the applied experience, motivated by a desire to use the pH meter for counting H + and OH- ions, a privilege extended only to the best. Though the applied experience involves nothing more than ion counting using logs, another lesson is planned in which the student will apply his skill with the pH meter in order to determine the degree of ionization of an HB-type acid. A similar sequence of instruction is followed in developing facility in the use of the terms molarity and normality, the mole and the gram-equivalent weight. The student is qualitatively introduced to the neutralization process in one lesson, taught how to use it to determine the molarity of acid and base solutions, and if he qualifies by scoring 80 or better on this test, is allowed to proceed to normality and the gram-equivalent weight. Measurement of success in the program is still being conducted via a check-point test system (teacher-administered, teacher-scored) that validates the student's record when indicated achievement agrees with that recorded by the student in his progress report.
A disagreement in the quality of achievement recorded in the progress report and that indicated by the checkpoint test results in a student-instructor conference intended to discover the nature of the factors contributing to the discrepancy. Fifteen weeks of programmed instruction in chemistry a t Wayland High School has accumulated evidence that indicates that the method is sound, the learning of good quality, and the performance by the student in a testing situation as good as or better than the same student would have performed in the conventional instructional situation. It should be of interest to fund-short chemistry teachers everywhere, plagued with lesson-planning in an evironment of constant interruptions, that the program was introduced in Wayland High School onethird the way through the third quarter, with existing facilities, the existing schedule, and no budget for the purpose. The generals are working, the college-bounds are working, the honors types are working, the teachers are worlting, the program's working, and it's a refreshing discovery to learn that a t least eighty per cent of a random sampling of teen-agers can still recognize a real opportunity when they see one, and act in accord with their appreciation.
Volume 47, Number 1 2 , December 1 9 7 0
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