Chemical Education Today
Response to Commentary
Gordon Barrow identifies most students as more interested in “information management,” wanting “to learn to deal with the information and procedures, and the technology and the people, of modern chemistry.” He contrasts them with a much smaller group who prefer to “know the subject as their own” and suggests that “Helping students build their own private, individual understanding of chemistry is not central to the projects of the initiative.” The distinction is useful, but it may not do justice to either group of students. Most students in introductory chemistry classes will not be chemistry majors, and many will not be science majors. However, they will often seek and gain a deeper personal understanding of chemistry when it is presented as intellectually challenging and relevant to them rather than as a large set of abstract concepts and procedures to be mastered on their own primarily for an exam or to prepare for the next course. Those who may have an intrinsic interest in constructing their own individual understanding of chemistry (by implication, those more likely to become chemistry majors) are often also motivated by a desire to understand how things work, how chemistry can be used, and “how to succeed in the complex world they find themselves in”. Our challenge is to convince all students taking our courses that chemistry is interesting and useful, and that it is best learned when each student actively constructs her or his own “private, individual understanding” by working collaboratively with other students and with instructors to do so. Our goal is to enable all students to experience the investigative process of doing science, in addition to “managing the results of others”, so that they understand what science is as well as what it can and cannot do. Brock Spencer ChemLinks Coalition Beloit College Beloit, WI 53511
vvv We believe that the Workshop Chemistry Project is in the best traditions of science and chemistry. Science progresses by experiment, creativity, discussion, debate, and consensus. Our basic theoretical position is that students can strengthen their understanding of chemistry by expressing and debating scientific ideas with their peers, just as we do. This is what a peer-led workshop is meant to accomplish. Unfortunately, there is a tradition of exclusion in science as well. This is a tradition we are not interested in perpetuating. In the Workshop Chemistry Project, we do not presume to divide students into “masters” and “artisans” or the “mainstream” and “minority” before they even enter our courses. We find that students of all backgrounds will have the ability to grow and excel in the Workshop environment. Workshop Chemistry reserves a special place of honor and recognition for students who have excelled in the course, and who wish to share their “private” understanding with
others, and yes, learn from others. These students are asked to be Workshop leaders—guides and mentors to small groups of six to eight that meet each week to learn chemistry through group discussion and problem solving. The Workshop leaders are among our most talented and brightest students. Through their leadership experience, they gain a deeper understanding of chemistry, and they develop greater poise and confidence. With more than 6,000 students and 700 workshop leaders enrolled in Workshop courses during the last 2.5 years, we have a growing body of evidence that the guidance, support, and encouragement that students obtain in peer-led workshops improves their attitude toward the study of science and their understanding of chemistry. We invite others who are interested in testing this method in their own local context to please contact us. (http://www.scisun.ccny.cuny.edu/ ~chemwksp) David K. Gosser Jr. Department of Chemistry The City University of New York, City College New York, NY 10031
vvv The main problem in learning science and the problem that the NSF Systemic Change initiative seeks to address is that the world has changed, but science courses have not. We have passed from the Industrial Age through the Information Age, and we are now uneasily confronting the Bio Age. In a time of rapid, unrelenting change in society and in science, science instruction in general and chemistry instruction in particular are locked in a form generated early in the 20th century and designed to serve the Industrial Age. In learning science, three areas hold the key: language, experience, and models. Traditional chemistry courses, especially in our large research universities, put little emphasis on writing about chemistry. Traditional chemistry courses give students very little experience in the science. Students are not given data to sort, classify, and interpret; students are given algorithms and paradigms. Traditional chemistry courses place almost no emphasis on student creation of intellectual models; models are presented for students to memorize. Assessment in traditional courses focuses on rote memory and the ability to do exercises, not problems. NSF was right to attack a failing system with a broad-ranging initiative. In the Molecular Science Curriculum project, we have devoted considerable effort to assessing student learning in the traditional courses. The results are devastating: After five quarters of chemistry, 87% of the students cannot make a meaningful statement about the term aliphatic. They cannot even give an example. More than 50% cannot define or give an example of aromatic. Almost half do not distinguish the structural formula for cyclohexane from that of benzene. Chemistry spawned two disciplines that are larger, and which society deems more important than chemistry: biochemistry and environmental science. If one examines research
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 76 No. 2 February 1999 • Journal of Chemical Education
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Chemical Education Today
Response to Commentary activity in major research departments, the research that chemists are doing is largely molecular life science, environmental science, and materials science. But the chemistry courses reflect the history of the subject, not the current thrusts. Why? In a world of rapid, unrelenting change, in a time of lightning-fast communications and remote collaboration, change dictates change. We are responding to that challenge. Orville L. Chapman Molecular Science Curriculum Project Department of Chemistry University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569
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Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 76 No. 2 February 1999 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
