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STUDENT ASSISTANTS IN THE HIGH-SCHOOL LABORATORY GLENN A. LEHMANN Wyandotte High School, Kansas City, Kansas
THZ BEGINNING teacher of high-school chemistry soon realizes that there are more details in operating the laboratory than one person can handle well. Faced with this fact, I called on students to help. This involved much explaining before each task and checking up later. In many cases i t would have been easier to do it alone. The next step was the selection of two students from each of the five classes. They were chosen from those who had time and a desire to help and who were recommended as capable and dependable. These students were assigned to work in the storeroom when their class bad a laboratory period, issuing equipment and special supplies as needed. The preparation table there permitted them to do most of the experiments as scheduled. Each of the five pairs also selected one afternoon in the week to stay after school to help in the laboratory and with some clerical tasks, and also to complete the experimental work. It was then possible for the instructor to call a meetmg of these ten students and to go over with them in a few minutes the duties which formerly took a long time to discuss with them individually. A list of daily tasks Tas posted. It included sxeeping the storerooms, cleaning sinks, checking water and gas outlets, straightening and filling reagent bottles, cleaning soiled equipment, helping set up demonstration apparatus for the next day, straightening chairs, pulling window shades, recording test scores, etc. Since most of these tasks were repeated daily, the students soon remembered what to do and the instructor was relieved of much detail. After 1.5 years this plan is still in oueration. As books were acquired and needed attention, a girl librarian was appointed. She kept the shelves in order,' repaired books, and once daily went over the check-out cards, posting the names of those having books overdue. Another group of details mas thus taken from the instructor. The students have enjoyed doing this work; they have done it well. They have been allowed extra credit points for it which has helped make i t attractive, although most would have done it without credit. After this plan had operated for several years, the
chemistry enrollment shifted from mainly seniors to juniors. Several former assistants expressed regrets that they could not take chemistry and help in the laboratory. Their remarks suggested an additional help plan. Five to seven students, who have ranked well in chemistry the preceding year and who preferably have been assistants, are .chosen as senior chemistry assistants. From among these, a t least one assistant who knows the laboratory routine is available in each hour. Their duties are divided into two groups. When regular laboratory classes are in session, they help check apparatus set-ups, observe students a t work, make suggestions to prevent dangerous procedures, sign workbooks where approval of certain experiments and weighings are required, see that students leave desk, sink, and floor clean a t the end of the hour, check keyboards, etc. During the regular class discussion periods, these senior assistants work on elementary qualitative analysis They have used J. 0. Frank's "Qualitative Analysis" with success, following it with very little hdlp. They have time during the year to run a known and an nnknown on each of the five groups and one or two general unknowns over all five groups. Occasionally one or more has time to work on negative radicals or even on the use of the analytical balance. For this work they receive a year's school credit. But no one serves as an assistant if it prevents his taking physics. This plan permits the instructor more time to deal with students individually, to note their laboratory procedures, and to check experiment reports as they work. After-school laboratory make-up is supervised satisfactorily by pupil assistants while the instructor devotes his time to helping students with problems and supervising make-up tests. Those students who are assistants learn more chemistry and have an opportunity to develop initiative and leadership. Personal contacts between students and teacher are such that friendliness is increased. The success of this student assistant plan is pattly responsible, no doubt, for the steady growth of our department, for a more wholesome attitude among its students, and for its adoption by several other teachers in the school.
