EDITORIAL pubs.acs.org/jchemeduc
What a School Year! Laura E. Slocum*,† and Erica K. Jacobsen‡ † ‡
University High School of Indiana, Carmel, Indiana 46032, United States The Dalles, Oregon 97058, United States ABSTRACT: This Especially for High School Teachers article summarizes the curriculum changes that one of the authors made in her first-year chemistry course and the impact it had on the teachers and students. Articles from the September 2011 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education are also highlighted, including several articles that use everyday materials such as beads, marbles, and yo-yos to illustrate chemistry concepts. KEYWORDS: High School/Introductory Chemistry, Curriculum, Hands-On Learning/Manipulatives, Inquiry-Based/Discovery Learning, Professional Development FEATURE: Especially for High School Teachers
A
s you may recall from my December 2010 editorial, I was at a major crossroads at the beginning of the last school year.1 Three weeks before school started, I had attended a week-long workshop, “Modeling Instruction in High School Chemistry” and I really wanted to change how I was teaching my first-year chemistry course.2 However, I had several questions that had to be addressed very quickly. First, “How many changes could I reasonably make to my curriculum this year?”, but even more importantly, “Would my chemistry teaching colleague, who had not attended the workshop, be comfortable making these same changes to his curriculum?” We decided to make the changes for the first unit and see how our students did from there. Our underlying thought was always, “We can just go back to the way we used to teach if this does not seem to be working.” I even wrote this in my personal journal the evening we made the decision to change our curriculum for unit one. At the end of the school year, I was exhausted and felt like I had just walked through my first year of teaching again, but at the same time, I was so glad that we never turned away from the Modeling curriculum all year. As we used this method, we monitored each student’s progress, as we always do throughout the year. I also tracked the students’ problem-solving skills and errors much more closely this year. We did more guided-inquiry handson activities and laboratories. All postactivity or postlab discussions ended with the students sharing what ideas and thoughts they had learned. Each of the instructors used Socratic questioning to move these discussions forward. The other big change that using the Modeling curriculum brought to my classroom was that I could not say “neutron”, “proton”, or “electron” until about mid-March. This was the hardest part of teaching this way for me, especially as traditionally the introduction of these particles comes in the early part of my chemistry course. The Modeling curriculum follows a chronological timeline, starting in the 1600s and walking in the footsteps of the scientists Copyright r 2011 American Chemical Society and Division of Chemical Education, Inc.
as they made their discoveries. Of course, we used much cooler technology to do some of the experiments of the early scientists, such as Boyle, Charles, and Gay-Lussac. My students used Vernier LabPros and gas pressure sensors, for example. We also studied extensively about energy and the role it plays in particle movement and properties. By the time we had moved to the later part of the 1800s to early 1900s, the students, in small groups, became the scientists of that time period. They each researched a scientist’s work, life, and discovery, and then gave a presentation on their scientist. As they gave their presentation, it was the students that finally introduced us to the words “neutron”, “proton”, and “electron”. Thus, I could not use these words earlier in the course because these particles were not yet known during the time periods we were studying. I learned so much about my students and myself this year. Overall the students appeared to like this method of instruction. Why do we think this is so? The students say, “I like to talk about what I know.” “I feel more comfortable asking questions.” “I love the labs and activities.” This transition has not been a simple one for my colleague and I, and we were really curious about how our students would do on the ACS First-Year Chemistry Exam, as we have had our students take this as part of their final exam for the past 10 years. Our students overall did about the same; however, they did slightly better on the problemsolving questions than they had in past years. So now what? My colleague and I like what we are seeing in our students! We are moving forward in Modeling! In fact, the whole country seems to be doing this in various places. Here in Indiana, there were multiple sites for Modeling workshops this past summer. In fact, that is how I spent my summer, teaching 39 high school science teachers in central Indiana the one-week chemistry and two-week advanced chemistry modeling currricula. Published: July 15, 2011 1201
dx.doi.org/10.1021/ed2004388 | J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88, 1201–1202
Journal of Chemical Education
Figure 1. An example of a bead model used to represent the ionization of a strong monoprotic acid. See Putti, A. JCE Classroom Activity #109: My Acid Can Beat Up Your Acid! J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88; DOI: 10.1021/ed100849b.
EDITORIAL
What this first brings to my mind are materials that chemistry makes possible, such as Tyvek house wrap, high-tech bicycle frames that contain carbon nanotubes, or even sparklers used on the Fourth of July. However, as I browsed through some of the September 2011 articles that were already available in the Articles ASAP (As Soon As Publishable) section on the Journal of Chemical Education Web site (http://pubs.acs.org/toc/jceda8/ 0/0), I noticed an interesting juxtaposition of graphics and their associated articles relating to everyday materials themselves that can be used to help explain chemistry topics. For example, Putti uses colored pony beads to create models of strong and weak acids (Figure 1) (DOI: 10.1021/ed100849b), while Collins uses marbles and spherical magnets (Figure 2) in a unit cell laboratory (DOI: 10.1021/ed200019r), and Van Horn describes the use of both ribbons and a yo-yo to model DNA structure and supercoiling (DOI: 10.1021/ed100887p). Rather than the chemistry of materials, they are materials for chemistry.
’ PRECOLLEGE CHEMISTRY FEATURED ARTICLES Coleman, W. F. Correction to Molecular Models of Natural Acid Base Indicators. J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88; DOI: 10.1021/ ed200365c. Putti, A. JCE Classroom Activity #109: My Acid Can Beat Up Your Acid! J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88; DOI: 10.1021/ed100849b.
’ AUTHOR INFORMATION Corresponding Author
*E-mail:
[email protected].
’ REFERENCES Figure 2. Spherical magnets are used to show a simple cubic stacking arrangement. See Collins, D. C. A Unit Cell Laboratory Experiment: Marbles, Magnets, and Stacking Arrangements. J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88; DOI: 10.1021/ed200019r.
(1) Slocum, L. E.; Jacobsen, E. K. Predictions and Explanations. J. Chem. Educ. 2010, 87, 1282–1283. (2) Modeling Instruction in High School Physics, Chemistry, Physical Science, and Biology. http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling-HS.html (accessed Jul 2011).
As I read Paul Jasien’s article, “What Do You Mean That ‘Strong’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Powerful’?” (DOI: 10.1021/ed100744x), I was once again reminded of why this past year was so meaningful for me as a teacher. I do often feel like I am teaching a foreign language class, but I am speaking English. My students continue to use wrong words and describe concepts inappropriately from a “chemist’s” perspective. However, this year was a little different for me; they still learned the vocabulary, but how they learned it changed. They defined ideas and concepts for themselves and then we came to consensus as a group, from their perspective, after working through their data and observations, very much like the scientists that came before them. Thank you for reminding us, as teachers and chemists, how powerful words are and how difficult it is for students to get lost in them. It is articles like Jasien’s that help me appreciate the value of JCE—it not only teaches me chemistry, it also teaches me about my students.
’ ERICA’S TAKE ON THE ISSUE The American Chemical Society’s theme for the third quarter of the International Year of Chemistry focuses on materials. 1202
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