Chemical Education Today
Commentary
Time and Teaching by Theresa Julia Zielinski, David W. Brooks*, Kent J. Crippen, and Joe L. March
The use of computers and specialized computer programs has become an integral part of the day-to-day work of a chemist. Chemistry instructors are now faced with an interesting dilemma: Are we responsible for training our students in the use of computers in addition to teaching a conventional chemistry curriculum? Our approach has been to provide some aspects of this training within the standard curriculum. The notion of adding topics to an already overloaded curriculum has hastened our consideration of time in the context of teaching chemistry. Relying upon our experience and expertise, we share thoughts about time as a problem of curriculum and instruction. Use of Time Teachers must have excellent time-management skills. Although this is a very short article, you may choose not to read it because time is likely the most valuable professional asset you control. Reading at a rate of 300 words per minute, it will take you about 3 minutes to read the remainder of this article. You must weigh the potential merits of reading this article against other items vying for your time. Students also control their time well. Sometimes students use their time productively, other times not. The longer we teach, the more we learn that students plan to use a limited amount of their time in our classes. What instructors do with students’ time determines, to a large measure, what students learn. If students gave teachers more time, they would likely learn more (1–3). Sometimes students do not give enough time to be successful. Rarely do they give enough time to achieve excellence. Instead, they settle for good or very good performances. This speaks to the tension among content, study time, and efficiency of the pedagogical materials used. According to the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey published annually by the Higher Education Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, 60% of freshmen spent less than 5 hours per week studying in high school in 1995 (4 ). Over half of freshmen reported spending more than 11 hours per week socializing (57%) or working for pay (53%). Eighty-two percent of students surveyed at Pennsylvania State University reported spending 20 or fewer hours per week on study in 1989 (5). Harvard students showed time commitments of about 5.5 hours per course per week outside of class in courses that required no writing, but 10.8 hours in courses requiring more than 20 pages (6 ). The Harvard study devotes 5% of its text to ways faculty can get students to improve time management. Procrastination is one strategy students use successfully to control their time. Teachers typically view procrastination in a negative light. However, studies of procrastination have shown that this practice, when used as a time-management strategy, generally pays off for students (7). For example, students often report that delaying the start of a project leads to a more refined 714
understanding of both the process and product required to achieve success. As a result of overall net time savings, college seniors tend to be better procrastinators than freshmen. Ask your students, “Does procrastination pay off in my course?” Plan Instruction to Compete for Students’ Time Time is a commodity not offered freely by students. In our experience, specific instructional modifications encourage students to give of their time. These instructional modifications include testing early and often; not wasting the best students’ time in an effort to improve overall performance; and use of activities that motivate students to give of their time. Weeks are physically constrained to 168 hours, so a constant-sum game limits the activities that compete for a student’s time. Because the first test scheduled in a semester gets a disproportionately large amount of the students’ study time, we test early and often. By doing this, we take some of the time that a student might otherwise have given to mathematics or English. Many instructors have adopted minimum performance standards in an effort to coerce students into learning the content of their courses. While this strategy can be effective in some situations, we suggest exercising caution when setting such standards. Performance standards assume all students start with equal skill. This is not the case and can place an undue burden on better students. There may be some instruction that over half of a class needs and would profit from but, when this time is required of all students, morale usually suffers (8). One suggestion for excellent teaching is not to aggravate the good students while attempting to improve the learning of the poor students. Challenging projects, ones that engage students, often lead to quality learning (9). Anecdotal reports from teachers, peers, and parents indicating that students voluntarily spend very large amounts of time on open-ended and unstructured activities support the notion that students control time. Important here is the notion that students should perceive demands on their time to complete projects as meaningful work leading to deeper understanding of concepts, mastery of skills, and better grades. Undergraduate research has many such dimensions. When students engage in research, they often commit enormous amounts of time. Our opinion is that students see research as a meaningful “adult” activity that gives them entree into the world of practicing scientists. Finally, a very successful high school teacher, teaching in an “ordinary” public high school, was among a very few instructors considered demanding by students. His students routinely performed exceptionally well on the AP chemistry test. His stellar performance attracted a better job offer from a highly respected, selective private school. In the private school, students were taking three or four AP courses concurrently as compared to just one in the public school. Though stronger
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 78 No. 6 June 2001 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
Chemical Education Today
on paper, the students at the private school suffered in terms of graded performance. The lowered AP exam success was explained by the notion that four, five, or even six teachers were making significant time demands, instead of just one or two (personal communication with Brooks, D. W.; 1993). Successful teachers demand time, do not waste the time they are given, devise ways to motivate students to volunteer as much time as possible, and create activities that make learning efficient. The Larger Curriculum Question
Will the Time Needed for Expertise Increase or Decrease? According to research in the area of expertise, it takes a long time to become an expert in a profession, sport, or game (10). In becoming a medical internist, for example, a student spends seven years of study—approximately 20,000 hours after college. The number 10,000 hours is often used as a sort of benchmark for achieving expert status. Chemistry computer applications perform numerous tasks quickly, simply, expertly, and accurately. One might think, therefore, that the time required for becoming an expert would decrease as more computer technology is employed. Experience shows, however, that some classroom time must be devoted to teaching students how to use applications (11). It remains to be determined whether the total time required to learn the concepts and the computer tools will be less than that required to learn the concepts and the corresponding skills. We are obligated to include computer applications in chemistry curricula because these are the tools of our trade (12, 13). This obligation is the same as that to introduce current instrumentation. We have to assess our requirements of student time: Is time best spent learning computer programs, or learning chemistry? The balance we place on computer skills and chemistry knowledge is a difficult question. When you prepare your next syllabus, consider the time needed to achieve your goals. Estimate the time needed to learn concepts, learn computer skills, and be challenged. In human history, as tools are created with the intent of equalizing performances, they more often than not exaggerate difference in performance. Consider athletic training equipment, for example. New equipment is designed and marketed explicitly to “help the average athlete”. In reality, while the equipment does help the average athlete, the net effect is that exceptional athletes use the equipment and get even better. Using computers has increased demands on the time of both faculty and students. Faculty, for example, must manage manuscript preparation and files with the aplomb of a secretary while maintaining professional productivity. We are all doing more and doing it with greater precision than in the past. This issue is very important for those of us who design chemistry curricula. Will powerful tools decrease the time
needed to establish expertise, or will the nature of expert status be redefined so as to demand increased amounts of time in training? This, as they often say, is the $64 question. Only time will tell. Literature Cited 1. Horn, C.; Bruning, R.; Schraw, G.; Curry, E.; Katkanant, C. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 1993, 18, 464–478. 2. Penn, J.; Nedeff, V. M. J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 77, 227–231. 3. Poë, J. Presented at the 82nd Canadian Society for Chemistry Conference and Exhibition, Toronto 1999; Abstract 572; http://www.xrcc.com/csc (accessed Mar 2001). 4. Sax, L. J.; Astin, A. W.; Korn, W. S.; Mahoney, K. The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 1999; UCLA Higher Education Research Institute: Los Angeles, 1995; http://www. gseis.ucla.edu/heri/executive.htm (accessed Mar 2001). 5. Wade, B. K. A Profile of the Real World of Undergraduate Students and How They Spend Discretionary Time; Presented at the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL, 1991; ED 333776. 6. Light, R. J. Explorations with Students and Faculty about Teaching, Learning, and Student Life; The Harvard Assessment Seminars, Second Report; Harvard University: Cambridge, MA, 1992. 7. Ferrari, J. R.; Johnson, J. L.; McGown, W. G. Procrastination and Task Avoidance; Plenum: New York, 1995. 8. March, J. L.; Kolstad, E.; Moore, J. W.; Bunce, D.; Labuda, E. Resources on the Web: Who Is Using Them? Presented at the 15th Biennial Conference on Chemical Education, Clemson, SC, 1996; http://www.biochem.purdue.edu/~bcce/abstracts/ abstract_copy(6).htm (accessed Mar 2001). 9. Sauder, D.; Towns, M.; Derrick, B.; Grushow, A.; Kahlow, M.; Long, G.; Miles, D.; Shalhoub, G.; Stout, R.; Vaksman, M.; Pfeiffer, W. F.; Weaver, G.; Zielinski, T. J. Chem. Educator 2000, 5, 77–82. 10. Ericsson, K. A. In The Road to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts, Science and Games; Ericssonn, K. A., Ed.; Lawrence Erlbaum: Mahwah, NJ, 1996; pp 1–50. 11. Runge, A.; Spiegel, A.; Pytlik Z. L. M.; Dunbar, S.; Fuller, R.; Sowell, G.; Brooks, D. J. Sci. Educ. Technol. 1999, 8, 33– 44. 12. Swift, M. L.; Zielinski, T. J. Chem. Educator 1997, 2; http:// journals.springer-ny.com/chedr S 1430-4171 (97) 03124-5. 13. Zielinski, T. J.; Swift, M. L. In Using Computers in Chemistry and Chemical Education; Zielinski, T. J.; Swift, M. L., Eds.; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1997.
Theresa Julia Zielinski is in the Department of Chemistry, Medical Technology, and Physics, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ 07764; David W. Brooks and Kent J. Crippen are in the Center for Curriculum and Instruction, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588-0355;
[email protected]; Joe L. March is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294.
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