in this issue Soon Summer will be over... While the heat of August is upon us it is sometimes hard to believe that fa11 classes are just around the corner. The hammock and ice tea seem a far more rational choice than thedeskand curriculum planner. Nevertheless it is time to start thinking ofcreative ways toenhance both the amtent and pedagogy of upcoming courses. This issue of the .lourno1 contains manv artlcles that can insoire such creativitv. and it comes in a"format that is hammock-friendly. Introductory courses at the freshman and sophomore level p)se lo@stical challenges because of their sire and the unfi~miliantvof the students with the subiect matter. Harpp (page 659) addresses this first problem with an overview of the snecial oroblems of bie classes and offers some common sense solutions. The major problem he sees is the perpetuation of the "student as secretaly" approach to the formal lecture. By distributing lecture notes ahead of time. he frees his students to concentrate on ideas instead of note-taldng and himself to present the material in less ri?zid formats. 'Thesecond problem with introductory courses, the basically unsophisticated knowledge and thought patterns of the incoming students, produces many misunderstandings about the basic concepts of chemistrv-misunderstandings that can lead to complete breakdowns in communicati6n as the student progresses. Figuring out these problems and fmding more effective ways of conveying theconcepts are the subject of several articles in this issue. Krishnan and Howe (oaee 653) have devised an instrument for de.. termining how well students understand the mole concept. They discuss how the instrument was developed as a guide to teachers who would like to develop further instruments of this type. Then they illustrate the use of the instrument to diagnose student problems and help teachers redesign their instructional strategy. Avogadro's number is another concept difficult for beginning students, and Goh, Subramaniam, and Chia (page 656) offer a new evaluation approachthat shouldgi;e students a more direct feeling for the value of this number. Large numbers themselves are difficult to associate with any real mental images; Meloan, Meloan, and Meloan (page 658) have prod&cd a teaching aid that demonstrat& clearly one pan per million. IJsinga clcar plasticglobe and a million candy s ~ n n k l e sthr authors challenge students to find the one biack sphere in the container. The chemistry curriculum has many different customers and the design of a successful class will reflect the interests of the majority of students. In this month's View from My Classroom, Bonneau (page 651)relates how she incorporated a tonic of concern in the student's own wmmunitv into her ~h&d!om curriculum. There was intense disc&sion of the siting of a low-level nuclear waste dump in her school's county,>nd she introduced a nuclear ehkmistry unit that allowed the class to prepare a study guide on radioactivity and low-level waste. The guide was used by the whole school for a debate, and the students actually par-
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628
Journal of Chemical Education
ticipated in the community decision-making process in unexpected ways. Through this adaptation of the curriculum, her students learned not only the importance of understanding the science underlying an issue, but also how decisions get made in the real world. At the other end of the degree spectrum, Harrison (page 659) has adapted the senior research course in the physical science curriculum in an equally effective, if less spectacular, way Since her school and students emphasize the pragmatic values of a science degree, the capstone course is career-oriented, with segments not only of research but also of literature searching and technical writing and speaking. Many issues prompt creative teachers to reconstruct the laboratory courses and experiments-changing student needs, the shifts in current research interests, development of new instrumentation and methods, to name a few. Dissatisfaction with the traditional cookbook format of undergraduate laboratories have inspired teachers to develop courses more nearly paralleling the scientific research approach. The most extensive effort is reported by Ditzler and Ricci (page 685) who have developed a discovery-based curriculum for the first two years of laboratories. They have not o d y produced experiments but an entire pedagogical structure for those using the Discover Chemistry approach. Amenta andMosbo (page 661)have also used the research paradigm for their second semester of organic chemistry. The focal point is group multistep synthetic problems that are based on departmental research projects and involve upper-level chemistry majors as mentor. Students present their work orally and in journal-format group papers at the end of the course. The new approach has been successful in many areas such as developing strong inter-group cooperation and increasing student interest in synthetic chemistry research. It is not always feasible to reorganize a laboratory course, completely, certainly not in time for the upcoming semester. However, there are many ideas in this isue for relevant, interesting that could be introduced -experiments . into the fall course even at this *oint. Two articles discuss interesting chemistw that could be adanted creativelv into the lab inurnany ways at many levels.ka1 (page 6f9) reviews the many interesting properties ofgelatin that make it an effective reagent for many applications. Cutright, Rynearson, and Markwell (page 682) point to the use of fruit anthrocyanins as colorful acid-base sensors. Several more advanckd experiments utilizing interesting chemical phenomena are provided in detail: Crystal Momholow &d pattern formation by Rastogi, D ~ S and , ~har&i (page 6941, Rare Earth Iron Garnets: Their Synthesis and Magnetic Properties by Geselbracht, Cappellari, Ellis, Rzeznik. and Johnson (naee 696). and B-CvclodextrinInclusion (lomplcxes w~th'lOhlnt.by D&, ~ a r ~ a s - ~ a c a . and Garcia-Mora (oaee Sob! All of these cxuerlments relate to topics of current research interest anh should give advanced students a realistic paradigm of the world of chemistry they will enter as professionals.
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