In the Classroom
Science Success Strategies: An Interdisciplinary Course for Improving Science and Mathematics Education Stephen A. Angel and Donna E. LaLonde Departments of Chemistry and Mathematics and Statistics, Washburn University, Topeka, KS 66621
At one pole, the scientific culture really is a culture, not only in an intellectual but also in an anthropological sense. That is, its members need not, and of course often do not, always completely understand each other; biologists more often than not have a pretty hazy idea of contemporary physics; but there are common attitudes, common standards and patterns of behavior, common approaches and assumptions. This goes surprisingly wide and deep. It cuts across other mental patterns, such as those of religion or politics or class. C. P. Snow (1)
This paper describes the development and implementation of an interdisciplinary course entitled Science Success Strategies (SSS). We created this course on the basis of our experiences working with students in freshmen chemistry and introductory mathematics courses, which formed the belief that a substantive improvement in preparatory science and mathematics education transpires when (i) culture, (ii) academic success, and (iii) content are addressed in an interdisciplinary course. Research suggests that the learning styles of girls and women may be in conflict with the traditional styles of these disciplines, and this conflict discourages the assimilation of girls and women into the predominant culture of the discipline (2, 3). Although our ideas have been influenced by this research, our teaching experiences at a metropolitan university and our own academic experiences have led us to feel that this is not solely an issue of gender and must be addressed for both men and women. There is also literature addressing related issues of remedial and preparatory science and mathematics education (4, 5) and a complementary literature considering the successful orientation and inculcation of students into a university learning community (6 ). These areas of research, our teaching experiences, and our own academic experiences are the intellectual underpinnings of work that will be discussed in this paper. The Culture As successful college and university faculty, were we always good students? For most of us, success and individual satisfaction came upon adapting to the culture of and obtaining membership in the scientific community. Those of us who were successful as undergraduates seemed ready to learn the rules of the community and to be able to implement them to our advantage. Assuming that natural inclination does not totally account for this early success, can the teaching and learning of early success strategies be improved? We believe an essential component of success is adapting to the style of the dominant culture even if this requires a shift of one’s innate style (7 ). This is not a judgment on the value of alternative learning styles, but a belief that early success demands understanding and acclimating to the dominant style. There
is a wealth of new perspectives that can be cultivated into mathematics and the physical sciences, which will generate a larger scientifically literate population and a source of new ideas. The doors into math and science for these prospective novel students need to be opened in the home, in K–12, and, if not sooner, at college (8). The disciplines of science and mathematics have traditionally catered to individuals with self-confidence and some ability for self-promotion. This culture is easily misunderstood and difficult for the novice to penetrate (9). If these character traits are seen as prerequisites for entry into the culture, many people will not even attempt exploration of the disciplines. Therefore, it is a critical part of any preparatory class to address this perception. Academic Success A body of literature supports the contention that strategies for academic success can be taught (6, 10). Our institution, like many others across the country, offers a college success course. Using ACT scores, high-school records, department placement test scores, and “best guesses” of our academic advising staff, we identify students who may benefit from this course and encourage their participation in it. The primary goal of this experience is to help students cultivate general academic survival skills such as time management, note taking, and preparing for and taking exams. These skills are not domain specific but seem to be a necessary component of the successful student’s stockpile. They are, however, not sufficient to ensure academic success. We believe that the successful student needs an “attitude”. Our definition of attitude is evolving, but an essential component is intellectual passion. A successful student must make an emotional commitment to learning that is reinforced by both success and failure. The successful student needs good written and oral communication skills, must be an effective note taker, and must have a sufficiently well-organized day so as to have time available to study and complete homework assignments. These skills allow for a modicum of academic achievement, but without intellectual passion, this achievement will be shallow and not adequate to sustain study in mathematics or science. As of this writing, our university has open enrollment, and the only prerequisite for the first semester of freshman chemistry is concurrent enrollment in college algebra. Therefore, the chemistry department has adopted suggested pedagogical techniques to assist students with the demands of college chemistry (2). The first-semester freshmen chemistry lecture class consistently has fewer than 100 students; professors teach recitations and labs with a maximum enrollment of 25; student teaching assistants are assigned to the class; a chemistry club and support group for women in science is active; professors and students are involved with undergraduate research; activities are carried out with local high school
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 75 No. 11 November 1998 • Journal of Chemical Education
1437
In the Classroom
students and their teachers; and collaboration exists between the student community and commercial laboratories. Still, in the absence of significant qualifying standards, an average of only 65 ± 3% of students enrolled in first-semester freshman chemistry passed this course with a grade of D or better during the last three years. Of these original first-semester enrollees, 48 ± 3% completed the second semester with a passing grade during the same time period. This means that for the past three years, one-half of the students enrolled in first-semester college chemistry either withdrew or failed while attempting to complete two semesters of freshman chemistry.
Table 1. Outline of SSS Course Day Activity 1
2
Course Content As research partners and faculty members in a Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, we spend a significant amount of time discussing teaching and learning, and it was not difficult to reach a consensus on the domain-specific impediments to student success. We were able to develop a list of skills that we felt were vital for success in freshman chemistry. Most of these skills were presented in introductory mathematics classes, but many students were not able to transfer skills between classes. Our experiences confirmed the literature findings that beginning mathematics and science students need a framework for their knowledge (11). This framework gives them “permission” to use the cognitive and domain skills developed in a mathematics course in a chemistry course. The successful student must be able to (i) utilize the properties of the operations of the real numbers, (ii) set up and solve linear and quadratic equations, (iii) solve problems involving exponential functions and common and natural logarithms, (iv) make reasonable estimations, (v) understand and utilize dimensional analysis, (vi) understand the nature of measurement, rounding, and significant figures, (vii) use scientific notation, and (viii) interpret and construct graphs of simple functions. Mastery of these objectives will not sustain study in mathematics and science (12). To ensure the development of abstract thinking skills and a substantive scientific and mathematical problem solving ability, students must be exposed to a variety of problem scenarios and laboratory experiences (13).
3
1438
Introductions
1, 2
Science and math metaphors
1, 2
Discussion on developing problem-solving skills; small group work on problem solving Discussion on dimensional analysis Homework 1: Problems using dimensional analysis; cooking; portfolio Discussion on dimensional analysis using recipes and introducing measurements
2, 3, 4 8
3, 8
Small group work and board work: dimensional analysis
2, 4
Practice laboratory: mass, area, volume, temperature Homework 2: Dimensional analysis problems; laborator y data analysis; homework 1 corrections; portfolio Quiz 1: Dimensional analysis Discussion on precision; metric system; base 10; scientific notation; significant figures; rounding Board work and small group work Review laboratory measurements
3, 4, 5
8 2, 4, 8 8, 9
Laboratory experiment 1: Densities of solids and liquids Review homework 1 problem areas Homework 3: Problems on precision, significant figures, scientific notation, metric system; experiment 1; homework 2 and quiz 1 corrections; portfolio 4
5
8, 9
Discussion: graphing and data analysis of linear functions
8
Small group work Introduction to the graphics calculator Small group work using graphics calculators Laboratory experiment 2: Temperature vs trapped air Review quiz 1 and homework 2 problem areas Homework 4: Creating and understanding graphs; experiment 2; homework 3 and experiment 1 corrections; portfolio Quiz 2: Measurements; precision; metric system; base 10; scientific notation; significant figures; rounding Discussion on algebra: identifying, isolating, and solving for a variable Small group work solving for one variable using the ideal gas law
4, 8 8 4, 5, 8 8, 9
8 3, 8
Laboratory experiment 3: Absorption vs concentration
6
The Course We developed a course called Science Success Strategies (SSS), which we hope will address the very real problem of low success of students in freshman chemistry at our undergraduate university. The course is two credit hours, interdisciplinary, and cross listed in the course catalog under both mathematics and chemistry. SSS was piloted during a winter intersession, which includes the weeks between the end of the fall semester and the beginning of the spring semester. Although we did inform our colleagues about the course, we did very little formal recruiting of students. As a result, the students who enrolled in the pilot offering were not from the population we had hoped to reach: rather than preparing for further study in the discipline, they were trying to satisfy a general education requirement. However, we did learn from the pilot offering and made some modifications based on this experience. We offered the course for a second time during the summer
Objective No.
7
Review experiment 1 and homework 3 problem areas Homework 5: Ideal gas law problems; experiment 3; homework 4 and quiz 2 corrections; portfolio Introduction to chemical equations Board work: dimensional analysis using chemical equations Laboratory 4: Calculator Based Lab (CBL) Review quiz 2, homework 4, experiment 2 problem areas Homework 6: Dimensional analysis problems; laborator y 4; experiment 3, homework 5, quiz 2 corrections; portfolio Quiz 3: Gas laws; dimensional analysis with chemical equations; graphs and data analysis Lecture on "The Atom" with student mock exams Review lecture notes and exam Summarize essential skills and habits Available resources
8, 9
8 2, 4, 8 8, 9
9 1, 8, 9 1–9 4, 5, 7
Note: Each “day” included four hours of classroom/laboratory activity. The objective numbers correspond to those listed in the text under the heading “The Course”. The evaluation criteria and the course objectives they are designed to meet are as follows: Weight____Criterion__________________________Objective No. 30% Assigned homework 7, 8, 9 20% Learning journal 1, 6, 7, 9 20% Laboratory exercises 4, 5, 8 15% Attendance and active participation 3, 4, 6 15% Quizzes 7, 8, 9
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 75 No. 11 November 1998 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
In the Classroom
semester and formalized our recruiting process by mailing letters to all the students who had pre-enrolled in upcoming introductory chemistry courses. Once we established the rationale for the course, we were able to construct a set of nine course objectives and design curriculum to meet these objectives. Four objectives that address the theme of culture and community were: 1. To facilitate communication and explicit discussion of student perception of the discipline, 2. To dissuade categorization of themselves and others based on an erroneous evaluation of ability, 3. To build confidence in their general problem solving ability and to link this generic ability to problem solving within the discipline, and 4. To foster the ability to be productive in collaborative work.
We identified three objectives to deal with the theme of general academic success. Those were: 5. To develop the ability for discovery and independent learning, 6. To reward sincere student passion regardless of ability, and 7. To cultivate the development and reward the ongoing use of successful study and learning skills.
Finally, the two objectives identified to meet the content theme were: 8. To develop an ability to identify and utilize the appropriate mathematical tools in scientific problem solving, and 9. To develop and encourage accurate, ongoing self assessment of content knowledge.
In Table 1, we present a course outline and indicate course activities designed to meet the nine objectives. An essential component, which addresses all of the objectives, is that SSS was co-taught by a member of the mathematics department and a member of the chemistry department. This collaborative teaching relationship allowed us to model the behavior and skills we wanted our students to embrace. We were also able to model different but equally successful learning styles and to make explicit the connections between the disciplines. Also, during each four-hour class, we utilized a mix of discussion, group work, board work and laboratory work to address both different learning styles as well as attention spans. Data Students enrolled in this course were given the 1989 California Chemistry Diagnostic Test (CCDT) to assess their prior introduction to chemistry and, secondarily, their mathematical skills. The CCDT is offered by the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Education Exams Institute. Schools in California found a good correlation between this diagnostic and how students performed in freshman general chemistry (14). Of the 38 CCDT chemistry questions, the average number of correct answers from students originally enrolled in SSS was 18; however, the scores ranged from 33 to 12. Measured abilities in mathematics ranged from perfect scores to three of seven correct answers. The demonstrated skills of students in class supported these test results. By the end of the course, however, our perception of individual abilities to succeed in freshman chemistry was
Figure 1. California Chemistry Diagnostic Test scores are plotted as a function of percentage in a first-semester chemistry course. Course percentages determined student course grades: 100–90%, A; 89–80%, B; 79–70%, C; 69–60%, D.
not directly related to these demonstrated skills. As a result of our interactions with students, we formed qualitative assessments based on student attributes such as consistent work, interest and desire to understand presented material, and selfconfidence. The result was that these subjective factors created better predictors, across the class, of student success in freshman chemistry than the diagnostic test and initial quantified measurements of skills, such as graded homework and quizzes. To highlight this observation, the remainder of this section will classify the results of student success as either quantitative or qualitative assessment.
Quantitative Questioning whether the learning characteristics of the students in SSS could be generalized, we compared the outcomes of the fall 1996 first-semester freshman chemistry students with a variety of measurements frequently used to quantify student potential in chemistry. This freshman chemistry class had an enrollment of 85 students two weeks into the semester. Sixty-five students, or 76% of the class, earned a passing grade of D (60%) or better. The other 20 students either received a failing grade or withdrew from the course. Overall, the class performed better than classes from the prior three years. The freshman chemistry students were given the 1993 California Chemistry Diagnostic Test during the first week of class. Figure 1 plots the CCDT score as a function of course assessment for those students who earned a passing grade. Unlike for the California schools, there is only a weak correlation between the CCDT and course performance. The slope is 0.23 with one standard deviation of ± 0.08 and a correlation of .35. When the average CCDT score (15 ± 6) of students earning less than 70% is compared to the average CCDT score (20 ± 5) of students who earned greater than 80%, the means are statistically different (see Table 2). However, the deviations of these means and the spread of scores presented in Figure 1 suggest that a relationship between an individual CCDT score and chemistry performance is not valid: the CCDT is not a predictor of success for this class in firstsemester chemistry. Similarly, math ACT scores, science ACT scores, and college math grades were compared to the percentage grade of students in this first-semester freshman chemistry class. Table 2 reflects that the correlation between the ACT scores
JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu • Vol. 75 No. 11 November 1998 • Journal of Chemical Education
1439
In the Classroom Table 2. Relationship between Freshman Chemistry Score and Quantitative Diagnostic Scores 1st Semester Freshman Chemistry Scoreb Quantitative Diagnostic Measure
Slope ± SD
CCDT Math ACT
a
Graph
