Kiron C. Bordoloi and Nancy L. Holley' University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky 40208
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Use of TPE Materials in High School Chemistry Instruction
The purpose of this paper is to describe the use of a selected lumber of activities from the Tecbnology-People-Environnent (TPE) curriculum in Chemistry-I classes a t Jefferson.own High school, Louisville, Kentucky. T P E is a National kience Foundation suoported curriculum designed to im]rove t he technological I&rary of iecondary school students. n this suhiect area, some'l'l'l? materials were used, unaltered; towever, it was necessary to modify some of them to correlate with the required curriculum guides. The overall philosophy of TPE, to learn as a result of acivity and its interpretation as a prime source of information, s "good education" for average or gifted students a s well a s o r academically unsuccessful students for which T P E was riginally intended (I). The theoretical basis for science edtcation based on personal experience and including values, IS an intemal part of the oroeram mav he understood as aDIlication of work of piag& (2-4) in cognitive development. Piaget's work led him to establish levels of cognitive derelopment through which each individual passes in sequence. 'iaget found that most people, by the age of 12, are capable ~fFormal Operations o; are ablk to engage in abstract ream i n g and apply unifying principles of science ton variety of .ituations. Recetit studies reveal that only half' of the freshmen .allege students enrnlled in chemistry areahle to work effer.ivel; with abstract concepts (5-6). Even conscientious stulents must frequently resort to memorization without unlerstandine in order to nass the course of studv. These stulents havekeen tested and shown to operate at"a level which 'iaeet called Concrete Ooerations. It is essential for these tuients to learn through experiences with tangible materials f thev are to develop new mental structures. ~ a f n e clarification s activities are included in all sections ~fthe T P E program. The significance of this approach is a rovocative style of presentation. Each section of T P E is a nini-course designed to be used as an individual package or I part of the totai program. Eachmini-course be& andends vith a values clarification activity. Values clarification is a trategy to help students identify personal values and then o act upon them. In this pronam the approach is used as a tarting-point for furthe;de;elopment~to encourage stulents to gather information, ask questions, or act upon their Iwn ideas. Most of the T P E activities are designed to be completed in I sinele class neriod. Irreeular attendance natterns of manv ton-academically oriented students make the sequential ipproach to learning almost impossible. With single-period ictivities the probability of student success in an activity is ,nhanced if it does not d e ~ e n dtoo much on what went on the lay before. Students whb attend class regularly also profit tecause thev get a more varied experience. The stud& activity sheets are designed to be used one a t I time. This allows students to focus their attention on one heet a t a time. Folders are provided so that finished activities an be kept to provide the student as well as the teacher with nformatkn about what is being learned.
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For further information on TPE, please write to: Dr. E. J. Piel, Executive Director, ECCP, College of Engineering,SUNY at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, N. Y. 11794. 1 Presently a teacher at Atherton High School, Louisville, Ky. '64 I Journal of Chemical Education
The T P E curriculum extensively utilizes games, puzzles, stories, and simulation as starting points for classroom discussion and individualized problem-solving. Some T P E activities illustrate the value of symbols, charts, graphs, and model svstems. All these communication devices are inherent in the practice of science and are an integral part of its content. Certainlv. .. this orovides an alternative for instruction based primarily on verbal cummunication. A s a m ~ l 01'86 e ('hemistw-l students in three class sections took part in T P E activities. For each section of the course of studv. students received guide sheets which contained an overiiew of the section, an outline of concepts to develop, and a list of behavorial objectives with the related activities. I n order to clarify the context in which T P E activities were used, relevant sections of the guide sheets were included. The four activities mentioned helow were used in the first section of' work in the schtwl year, General Introduction to Chemistry. There were three main goals for this section. They are: 1) T o develop a class environment which reflects scientific attitudes and values, 2) To apply logical problem-solving techniques for collection, organization, and interpretation of laboratorv data. and 3) T o nrovide onnortunitv for students todevelop skill in the use ofiaboratoGequipm&t and obtain a background of common experiences on which to build. Aetiuitv I: Personal uolues The activity centers around n large group discussion oi 1 1 W h a t is a value? 2, Which u f t l w followinc derisions involre a orrronnl , , a h choice of a marriage partner choice of occupation choice of vacation choice of college to attend 3) What values might he involved? 4) How would you rank the decisionsin (2) as to importance? Why does not everyone rank them the same? 5) Why is there no right answer? 6) What are some decisions that you make that are not affected by your values? This activity took ten minutes for the students to complete. A vnluei Continuum w a s used which inwrlved the six pwntsl uhh h ~Lntificdevelopment depends-Truth, freedom. Skrprirism. Oric~nnlitv.Ordrr, and Commun~rnt~on. I%ch student indtrated im a scale ofbne to five "Where I stand" on each of these values. The scales included examoles of behavior reoresentine each extreme of to students and they compared their own positions with those of the outstanding scientists. Activity 2: Nine Sticks The activity is designed to teach logical thinking. The activity is a game for two students to play. The rules of the game are Model: A pile of nine sticks, 2 students. Criteria (Goals) To have your opponent pick up the last object. Constraints Each player must pick up either 1.2, or 3 objects (Limits) at a time. Optimization Find a method so that you can always win. This activity clarified the importance of discovering patterns for solution of problems. Many games have algorithms (step by step procedures) which lead to their solution.
Activity 3:Number Cube
The activityconsists of a cubic box of two feet 00 each edge, color coded for even or odd numbers which were painted on each side. The bottom of the cube is not visible. Students are required to examine the box, collect data, state possible questions and problems, make hypotheses to resolve the problems or answer questions. During discussion,the student recognizesthat he cannot be sure that his answer iscorrect if he cannot see the bottom of the box. He realizes that scientists some time have to hypothesize and huild models. Activity 4: The Name Cube This activity is slightly more complex than the Activity 3. Each side
of the box is color coded, number coded in two places, and name coded. The students go through the same processes as they did with the Number Cube and come up with multiple prohahle answers, limited only by their self-imposed constraints. The students conclude that they often find multiple answers for the same problem. The values derived from the inclusion of the above activities were quite obvious during the entire course of study. Relevant to conflicting theories about atomic structure and bonding, everybody remembered the Name Cube and the multiple answers possible for each question. The activity on Nine Sticks reminded them of the step-by-step procedure (algorithms) one has to follow in order to arrive a t a solution. The students were able to apply what they had learned to their laboratory experiments. When the students did not get the same results from an experiment, they accepted the difference and attempted to analyze the reason for the difference. The following activity was used as part of an introduction to the unit on "Measurement and Math Skills." The T P E activity is called: "Measurement." The purpose of the activity is to show that standardized measurements are necessary in our society for proper communication. The students can experience rather than verbalize the three expected outcomes of this unit: 1) Units are arbitrary, 2) Units must always he used with numbers, and 3) Fundamental units are used for reproducible results. This activity was followed by the usual comparison of metric units with the English units and the laboratory skill in reading the results to significant figures. The activity, "Flow Charting" was used as part of a pre-lab session for a four-day laboratory activity. A flow chart is a pictorial representation of instructions for performing a task. The lab work involved the conversion of copper from its metallic state through three different compounds and hack to copper metal again. Students were required to write a flow chart for this laboratory sequence. The entire pre-lab process, including the flow chart, helped students appreciate the step-by-step instructions one has to follow in order to arrive at a solution. In the section on Nuclear Chemistry, the students used the activity: "Radioactive Decay." The activity proceeds as follows 1) Put 100 washers in a box with their iron sides up. 2) Shaking the box will stand for the passing of I year. 3 ) Shake the box, and then take out the washers with their white side up (one side of the washers is sprayed with white paint). 4) Count the iron washers left in the box, and put the number on
a table. 5) Shake the box again, take out the white washers, and count the iron washers left in the box. Put the number in the table. 6) Repeat until all the washers have been removed from the box. After the completion of the count, the students plot the data on a graph with radioactive atoms (no. of washers with iron side up) against the number of years (procedure 2). The students were surprised to find that the shape of the graph is an exponential decay. This T P E activity provided a mechanism
for students to easily understand the concept of radioactive decay and half-life. ?'he mathematical treatment that followed was easier for the students as a result of this activity. There are many more activities which one can-use in a chemistry class. We list some of them. Activity on Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth could be used to help students understand the rate-determining step in chemical change. The activity on Blind men and the Elephant (alternative to the Black Box experiment) could he used during the study of Parts of the Atom and How We Know These Thines. 1twill not be out of place to use the mi&ourse on Technology-Environment for the students who like challenge and who complete their class assignments ahead of time. This unit serves as a brief introduction of how technology interacts with both natural and man-made environments. I t starts out by lookine at the causes for oollution and shows that technology .~ is only one component of the pollution problem. The addition of this material provided for students opportunities to engage in activities requiring logical thinking as prescribed hv . Piaget - (5). The investigations involved the use of tangible material and consisted of experiments which allowed the students to control variables, collect data, and draw conclusion based on their data. The teacher was able to recognize various levels of student thinking and observe the broad range and diversity of intellectual development of the students. The detailed results of the implementation of the TPE curriculum in other schools in this area have been presented elsewhere (7). As stated ~reviouslv. .. the chemistrv class where T P E activities were used to supplement the text (81, consisted of 86 students from both 10th and 11th grade. The intellectual range of the students was anywhere from above average to slow learners. The course is intended to he a college preparatory course. Although the developers of the T P E curriculum oriainallv intended the program for the students who have heen ac~demicallyunsu&e&ful, the program has now been used successfully for all age groups. The Jeffersontown Curriculum Coordinator and the County Science Supervisor both strongly approved the course of study and the methods being used. They encouraged the practice and continuation of methods which promote student particioation and the use of activitv as a orime source of informa;on. These individuals expressed enthusiasm about the use of Values Clarification as an integral part of instruction. In summary, T P E does provide a chemistry teacher additional material for use in chemistry class. The activity-centered approach is suitable for students with reading and writing difficulties. Such a student can usually overcome this handicap by looking a t a picture. "It takes no imagination to see that the possibilities of using models to provide meaning to abstract c&epts in chemistry are very large. What seems to take imagination is for the instructor (who is certain to he formal in his thinking) to appreciate that it is worth the time and effort to play with halls and sticks and to have students do likewise (5)." ~
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Literature Cited 11) ECCP. 'TeehnoI~gy-Pwple-Ennmmnnt" Sfaf. Uniretity of New York at Stony Bmok Presa. 1973, p. 2. 12) Flavell. J. H., "The Davelopmentsl P s y c h o l w of Jean Piaget," D. Van Nostrand, Princ4ton.J. J., l%3. in Childmn." ITlomlotor Cook, M.), Inter(31 Piaget,Jesn,"TheOriginsoflntelligenc~ national University PEB%New Y a k , 1952. (1) Ginsburg, H.. and Opper, S.. "Piapot's Theory of I n ~ l l ~ t u Development: al An Intraduetion." Prentieo-Hall Inc., Englewwd Cliffs, N. J.. 1969. (5) Hennn, J.D.,J.CHEM. EDUC.,52,14611975). I61 Beistel. 0. W. J. CHEM. EDUC..52,151 (1975). (7) Bordoloi. K. C., Purdy, J. W., "TPE-A High School Science Coume for the Underachievers." paper ta bp presented a t 1977 IEEE Southeat Con. Williamsburg, VA, April, 1377. A h , ~ ~ p v b l i e h eM.S. d thesisof Purdy. An article under preparstian. (8) M e t d f e , H. C.. Williams, J. E., and CastXa.J. F..''Mod
