provocative opinion The Computer Has No Clothes John C. Salzsieder Phillips University,lOO S. University Ave., Enid, OK 73701
Let us look more closely at what is being done with computers in the name of science education. Much of what is being done not only doesn't teach anyone anything, but computer-simulated experiments actually are doing great harm. The advent of timesharing in the 1960's and later micmcomputers in the 1970's raised big expectations for computers in education. There was heady talk of terminals at every desk and computers in every dorm mom. Some colleges began requiring every freshman to possess micmcomputer hardware. There were even discussions of the necessity for the classroom teacher. Although computers are now making a big impact in education, the applications are not what many were hoping for 20 years ago. When heuristic programs proved too difficult to write, drill and practice programs became the major contributions to education. Computers can do drill and practice very well. If the programs make good use of feedback and branching, they even offer some advantages over books that use the same concept. I was once a believer myself. In 1975 I embraced the new technology and my new profession as a college teacher with the Gthusiasm of a f;esh PhD. ~icmcomputers,pedagogy, and even faculty committees were all new andexciting.I set myself to the writing of computer programs to help with the teaching of chemistry. There was great intellectual challenge and satisfaction in writing these programs. I was only momentarily taken aback when a reactionary, crusty, old colleague asked me exactly what it was that my clever program was teaching. ARer all, weren't presentations at Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) meetings and requests for reprints proof enough of my program's value? No! The Blind Embrace of Computer-Simulated Experiments
What I fmd alarming today is the blind embrace of computer-simulated experiments. Now I am the reactionary, crusty, old professor. What exactly is it that these pro-
grams are supposed to teach? What weaknesses in science education do they actually reinforce? The problem is that although our students have been exposed to more information than previous generations could have dreamed of, it has come to them by way of a video screen. Young people today have grown up in an artificial world, full of electronic sounds, synthetic smells, neon lights, plastic plants, and robotic animals. Science, on the other hand, strives to explain real phenomena in a real world. It is anchored in careful obsemations and measurements of these phenomena. Scientists look at thines. We also touch thines. listen to thines. - . smell things, and>n occasion--even taste things. One place where the problem shows up is in students who have no intuitive sense of mechanical physics. They have had no experience with wrenches, hatchets, or slingshots. Consequently, they have no intuition for torque, momentum, or enerm. All vhvsics is abstract symbols on paper ta them witKno co&ction to anything Gal around them. (Student-athletes have more mechanical experience and noticeahly better mechanical insight.) Chemistry, which is more abstract to b e ~ with, n . is approached as if it .. were just nonsense syllables-to memorize. Part of the reason for their lack of experience, of course, is that today's machinery is very reliable. Today's students haven't needed to know how to fix a car to get to where they are going. They haven't fixed flat tires, filed bad points, or added water to batteries. Limited Real World Experience
When the students come to us with limited real world experience, what do we do? We simulate experiments with imagery on a cathode ray tube. They have watched everyone from Jacques Cousteau to Arnold Schwarzenegger on television. When they see science experiments on video, do they truly know what is real and what isn't? If students "do" science experiments on video displays, they will con-
Volume 70 Number 4 April 1993
299
tinue to believe that science is abstract and lacks meaning in their nonvideo lives. It is our job to remove some of the mystery from the world. People don't understand why the sun "wmes up in the east", much less bow a television set works. They don't understand light bulbs, nuclear power, toxic waste, br vacuum cleaners. so when a TV character violates countless laws of scien&, they accept it. When all things are equally myskrious, all things are equally helievablr. We must keeo science laboratories workine with taneible obiects. When you simulate experiments, sou don't spill things, you don't feel density, and you don't smell anything. The onlv senses used are sinht - and bearinn, -. but the sights and sounds are sanitary, electronic, and decidedly not "real!' Video is not all bad. Some Droerams (includine home video games) can improve problem-solving skills. But when physics displays a projectile's path accuratelv. the student still does not feel the weight. the inertia, or the impulse. Even though the titrationu&orks"in a chemistry program, the student may not knoui that the pH electrode is a glass tube a few inches long with liquid in it. The titrater &ay never know that stopco~kscan be hard to control or sometimes leak. Tbev mieht never exderience a lab partner slopping titrant in& th& flask whiie filling a buret. Yes, computerized experiments save money, but if they don't teach anything about real science, why do experiments at all? What are our teaching objectives? ~
-
.
-
a
300
Journal of Chemical Education
~
-
-
Yes, we can simulate complex, time-consuming experiments using equipment not normally available to students and quickly get good "results." But is there value in leaming about equipment tuning, accidental gross errors, and the care that is required to get meaninghl data from a real world? Would students even recognize the real equipment if they saw it? My generation described silver chloride as a pale, green gas. Will the next generation describe a microsyringe as a line drawing? What about the Real World?
We need to be vigilant and continually ask ourselves why we do the thines that we do in the classroom and in the laboratory. There is a sinister tendency in human nature. The more work a teacher has put into preparing a handout, a demonstration, or a computer program, the more likely the teacher will use it. ...and use it. ...and use it. Workine hard to write a wmputkr program (orpaying a lot of money for it), does not prove that the program has value. Let us keep our science experiments real and remove some of the mystery from the world. If experiencing the real world were not fun and exciting, none of us would be studying science in the first place. If students come to us without scientific intuition, let us give them some before they leave us. Computers are marvelous tools, but they do not provide the best solution to every problem. A good classroom demonstration of this fact is to nick UD an old microcomputer and drive a nail with it. Use computer proerams if thev can teach somethine at least as well as a low &h method, but "first, do no harm".
-
