------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 08:40:05 -0400 From: "Harry E. Pence" Subject: Re: Assessment of Technology in the Classroom Tim Pickering suggests, in part, >From some of the postings that have already appeared, I am beginning to >discern an interesting new trend in some of the rhetoric used to >"justify" the use of technology in the classroom. The approach turns >the assessment issue on it head. It runs something like this - the >students/class that used the new technology didn't DO ANY WORSE than the >students/classes taught by the standard method,.......... I suspect that Tim's comment may be aimed in part at my earlier post, which means that I didn't make my point very well. Let me try an analogy. Suppose that someone had done an assessment of transportation methods at the turn of the century. The early autos were slow, unreliable, smelly, and uncomfortable. Horses were obviously much better. So why aren't we still using horses? Transportation by horse was a well developed technology. Major improvements were clearly not going to happen, whereas the automobile did appear to offer potential for significant improvements. Enough people were willing to invest their efforts to make these improvements come to pass. Technology mediated instruction is at the same place now relative to traditional lecture. It is still too early to determine if multimedia, etc. will produce significant change for the better, but as long as some of us feel that the possibility is there, and since we don't appear to be doing our students any harm, it's worth while to explore and find out the capabilities of the new methods. Cars may well have turned out to be a mixed blessing, but just think of how much organic waste would clog the streets of our major cities now if we were still using horses. Of course, this argument is moot, since anyone who really believes in assessment should have given up on traditional lecture and shifted to cooperative learning by now. ;-) Cordially, Harry ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | Harry E. Pence INTERNET: PENCEHE@ONEONTA.EDU | | Professor of Chemistry PHONE: 607-436-3179 | | SUNY Oneonta OFFICE: 607-436-3193 | | Oneonta, NY 13820 FAX: 607-436-2654 | | http://snyoneab.oneonta.edu/~pencehe/ | | \\\//// | | (0 0) | |_______________OOO__(oo)__OOO____________________________| ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 09:38:34 -0400 From: "Timothy L. Pickering" Subject: Re: Assessment of Technology in the Classroom Harry Pence writes: > It is still too early to determine if multimedia, >etc. will produce significant change for the better, but as long as some >of us feel that the possibility is there, and since we don't appear to be >doing our students any harm, it's worth while to explore and find out the >capabilities of the new methods. I have no problem up to this point. It is what happens next that worries me. My concern, and disappointment, is the inevitable band-wagon effect we seem to get for any new technology that is applied to education. It wasn't very long ago that computers in the classroom were going to revolutionize pre-college education. (What are schools doing with all those old Apple II's?) Before that it was the laser disk interactive, before that video tapes, before that television, etc. Why is it we have to focus on technology as the vehicle to improve education? The fact is, humans are natural learning machines. You can't stop a child from learning! They can learn because of , but they will also learn IN SPITE OF if the information is important enough to the learner. I would like the focus to be on improving education using what can be demonstrated to work, whether or not the latests technology is involved. I think Harry may share some my feelings on this point judged by the following comment: >Of course, this argument is moot, since anyone who really believes in >assessment should have given up on traditional lecture and shifted to >cooperative learning by now. ;-) Let me close (for now) with an illustration from my institution. A special fund has been established to allow faculty to explore the use of new technologies in the classroom. Faculty can apply to this fund on a competitive basis to obtain support to develop instructional materials based on multimedia, distance learning, and other forms of new technology. This is an apparently laudable goal. My question is, why don't we have a fund that supports improved classroom outcomes that use low technology methods, e.g. cooperative learning? So I get concerned when the assessment argument for justifying new technology becomes "no harm, no foul". We should hold to a more rigorous standard than this, especially in view of the enormous resource requirements, both human and capital, that are necessary to introduce new technology. I am convinced there are equally effective approaches that can be adopted at much lower overall cost, but they don't have the glamor of the "bleeding edge". By all means, let's use technology where it works, but let's be rigorous about the evaluation process. Tim Pickering Virginia Tech ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 11:36:33 -0500 From: "Dr. Red Chasteen" Subject: Re: Assessment of Technology in the Classroom Sorry to carry on Paper 1 discussion; my server was down yesterday afternoon so I have to catch up today.... >What are schools doing with all those old Apple II's?> from Tim >Pickering After using them to teach students---who are NOW programming the compter software we use today--they were junked just like film strips that taught past students about "nutrition" or "government" were junked. On another point: I think that ideally only teaching methods that are always the most effective should be used, but HEY! that standard is seldom used for lots of ways we presently teach so why are we applying it to multimedia? One of Tim's other points: >....we are asked to adopt what I would >call a "laissez faire" attitude toward the use of new technology that runs >along the following lines - whenever the instructor has the desire, >motivation, resources, etc. to introduce new technology, he should be >permitted to do so because it doesn't do any harm to the students. I find >this development quite fascinating and will be interested to see how it >evolves. This completely ignores our needs (as teachers) to be challenged and to continue to teach the 13th Instrumental Analysis course in 11 years in an interesting (to the students AND us) ways. I may teach with machines but I am not one. chm_tgc@shsu.edu Dr. Thomas G. Chasteen, Graduate Advisor Associate Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Sam Houston State University Huntsville, Texas 77341-2117 USA 409) 294-1533 phone 409) 294-1585 fax All the Masters theses completed in my research group are available as on-line Adobe Acrobat Documents viewable with the free Acrobat Reader. Interested? Check out: http://www.shsu.edu/~chm_tgc/theses/abstracts.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 14:10:04 -0400 From: Linda Sweeting Subject: Re: All the papers I've been lurking so far but am interested in teh question of whether our use of technology helps students learn. I have the gut feeling that anything we do that gives the students the information that we are acetively involved in helping them learn, not just passing on canned information, makes a difference. I don't know whether it is my enthusiasm or the students' recognition that I too am working hard on this joint project, but I find that whatever I do, it works best when it is crude and under development; when I consider it finished, the magic is somewhat reduced (it doesn't go away completely). What I am working onnow is very labor-intensive and didn't help very many students this past semester, but should help next semester - putting organic chemistry on my web site. You can check out the half-finished version at www.towson.edu/~sweeting - but don't download it (see message in intro) - I don't want anyone else selling my hard work. *************************** Dr. Linda M. Sweeting Department of Chemistry Towson State University Baltimore, MD 21204 sweeting@midget.towson.edu http://www.towson.edu/~sweeting (410)-830-3113 *************************** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 13:46:32 -0500 From: Marcy Towns <00mhtowns@BSU.EDU> Subject: Re: All the papers I've also been lurking and have a question in reference to Linda's last comment. Is making content available education? How do we know that it (websites etc.) helps students learn? What do we observe that indicates that it helps students learn? For people buying into a constructivist view of learning, using the repository approach runs counter to their teaching philosophy. Comments? Marcy Towns Marcy Hamby Towns Ball State University Cooper Hall Muncie, IN 47306 765-285-8075 765-285-2351 (FAX) 00mhtowns@bsu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 15:18:35 -0400 From: scott donnelly Subject: Paper 2 - sjd "ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY" >From what I've read thus far during this conference it seems that others like myself have a tough time determining what assessment strategies to use and what to assess in regards to student learning. I have a gut feeling that as chemical educators we are trying to teach too much material and have students learn too much material in too short a time period. For example, is it equally important for general chemistry students to know how to balance redox reactions in acidic and basic solutions using the half-reaction method than for them to know how to use the standard reduction table for decision-making? Does balancing a redox reaction require the same brain power as using the standard reduction table to decide from what metal a car's water pump should be made knowing that it is in turn connected to the engine block? The latter requires more critical thinking than the former because it involves integrating concepts. So why do we assess the former if the intended goal is to have students come out better thinkers? Or is that the goal? Ultimately, instructors need to decide if they wish to teach science literacy, science appreciation, or a healthy combination of the two. Once this is decided then assessment will become less cumbersome but still a pain. Scott D. ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Scott Donnelly Professor of Chemistry Arizona Western College Yuma, AZ 85366-0929 email: aw_donnelly@awc.cc.az.us phone: 520 344 7590 I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking. -Albert Einstein ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 15:19:24 -0400 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: Re: Paper 2 - tjz "ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY" It seems to me that, in line with what Scott wrote below, clear goals are really necessary. Lack of goals may lead to just teaching what has always been taught in the way that it always has been done only now with hi tech. What is the goal? How does the goal change over a college career, over a professional career. How do the goals change for different student groups. Are there multiple goals? What is the role of the ACS exam institute in setting and assessing goals and objectivews? What is the role of standardized exams in setting and assessing goals and objectives of a curriculum? Theresa Theresa Julia Zielinski Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Niagara University Niagara University, NY 14109 theresaz@localnet.com http://www.niagara.edu/~tjz/ 716-639-0762 (H - voice, voice mail and fax) 716-286-8257 (O - voice and voice mail) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 14:49:26 -0500 From: sc18 Subject: Re: All the papers One of the problems in physical sciences adopting the constructionist, a post-epistomological viewpoint, is that we must be constrained by the canon of reproducibility. For us, there exists knowledge which must be mastered before we can procede to construction of knowledge. I find Polanyi's treatment both more complete and more scientififcally sound than that of our post-epistemological friends in the constructionist camp. It is true that we construct knowledge, but our constructions are submitted to canons of reproducibility also. Sincerely, Ken Fountain ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 16:07:04 -0400 From: "Harry E. Pence" Subject: Re: tjz paper 2 Re: Assessment of Technology in the Classroom Let me see if I can reply to both Theresa and Tim in the same message without creating too much confusion. First, I strongly agree with Theresa about the need for clearly defined educational goals when designing courses and presenting (that is, in the broadest sense - including cooperative methods) material. I've been moving towards this for some time, but recently I was given a real shocker that has accelerated this movement. I was talking to a woman who studies student strategies for coping with college classes. She explained that early in the semester, students will determine what grade they want and invest enough time to obtain that grade. If you improve the instruction in the course, she suggests that this gives the students excess time, which is no longer needed to produce the desired grade. The students may invest this time in one of three ways, to improve the grade in the course where the improved learning methods were employed, to improve the grade in another course, or for what she described as "social activities." I found this to be extremely depressing, but I reassured myself that she was probably wrong. More recently, I met another chap who evaluates student learning strategies and asked him if he tought there was any truth to this theory. He laughed, and responded, "Of course there is! We just don't want to believe it!" This leads me to a response to Tim. I strongly believe that the only way that most technology will work is if we combine it with active learning methods. Personally, I'm partial to using cooperative learning in my lecures with presentation software, but I can also see that there are many other variations, such as Theresa's pchem class, that can also be extremely effective. I think that in the next decade the most interesting educational work will involve learning how to combine active learning methods with technology to produce a new type of learning environment. Shortly after I began to use multimedia and cooperative learning in my general chemistry class, I was invited to speak at a conference on multimedia. I protested that I had just started and couldn't have much to say to people who had been doing this for decades. The conference consisted mainly of people reporting that most of the multimedia projects had failed. My paper was a hit because I was using cooperative learning, and many hoped that this would be the essential component that would make multimedia successful. Thus, I started in the game with a keen awareness that multimedia alone was not necessarily going to be a panacea. As I often say in the papers I present, "Technology is easy; pedagogy is hard!" The other problem is, to pick up on the assessment theme, that students can answer many of the traditional types of questions without really understanding the concepts. The work done in physics suggests that when students are faced with a problem, many of them respond by going through the equations that they know, in almost random order, until either they run out of time or else hit upon the right equation. Good students can remember more equations and process faster, so they get better grades. We need to develop assessment tools that will really test what we claim to teach. In the current system, I fear that improved understanding of the concepts will not necessarily be reflected in higher scores. Even worse, students who spend their time learning concepts may not be as well prepared to take multiple choice exams as those who just memorize equations. Hopefully I have responded to Theresa and Tim, as well as raising some questions about assessment, both assessing teaching methods and also assessing student learning. I suspect that I have also propounded more heresy than the market will bear, so with apologies to any that I have offended, I will sign off for the time being. Cordially, Harry ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | Harry E. Pence INTERNET: PENCEHE@ONEONTA.EDU | | Professor of Chemistry PHONE: 607-436-3179 | | SUNY Oneonta OFFICE: 607-436-3193 | | Oneonta, NY 13820 FAX: 607-436-2654 | | http://snyoneab.oneonta.edu/~pencehe/ | | \\\//// | | (0 0) | |_______________OOO__(oo)__OOO____________________________| ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 16:33:18 +0100 From: Dwaine Eubanks Subject: Re: Paper 2 - sjd "ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY" Scott's comments hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to assess critical thinking effectively; and the tendency is to do the easy thing--asking students to solve "plug-and-chug" problems. I. Dwaine Eubanks Director, ACS DivCHED Examinations Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry Clemson University Clemson SC 29634-1913 eubanki@clemson.edu Voice: 864-656-1394 FAX: 864-656-1250 http://chemistry.clemson.edu/ChemDocs/eubanksd.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 16:43:03 +0100 From: Dwaine Eubanks Subject: Re: Paper 2 - tjz "ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY" In the US, which has no mandated national exams, goals and objectives are driven more from the curriculum side than from the assessment side. The objective of assessment, including ACS Exams, has been to provide valid instruments for assessing the curriculum goals. As new curricula with different goals (e.g., ChemCom at the high school level, Chemistry in Context for non-science majors in college, and the soon-to-be, main-line general chemistry text, Chemistry in a Biological Context) are released, new-style exams are being generated. Also, as increasing numbers of instructors are focusing on conceptual understanding as being at least as important as algorithmic understanding, the content and framing of questions is very definitely changing. I view the job of the Exams Institute as being one of encouraging the development of new assessment strategies for new curricula. I. Dwaine Eubanks Director, ACS DivCHED Examinations Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry Clemson University Clemson SC 29634-1913 eubanki@clemson.edu Voice: 864-656-1394 FAX: 864-656-1250 http://chemistry.clemson.edu/ChemDocs/eubanksd.html ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 17:32:00 -0400 From: scott donnelly Subject: Re: Paper 2 - sjd "ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY" There are many assessment strategies out there for the picking. Some are better than others depending on the criteria used for evaluation. There is one strategy though that is rarely used in America- the oral exam. I gave a paper at the ACS National Meeting in San Fran this past April about my experiences administering oral exams to gen chem students (~18 total). Even with 18 students it was very time consuming, but part of that was due to my not knowing what I was doing. It was my first shot at it and found that very few have tried it as well. The oral exam, given in April, was a one-on-one 30 minute session between me, the student, and the chalkboard. Each student was asked 2 questions about the periodic table, 2 conceptual questions, and 1 calculation question. Students had no idea what the questions were beforehand. It's obvious which students had taken the time to learn the material and which did not. It was probably the most accurate and trustworthy assessment technique I have used. I would use it more but there is a limit unfortunately to the number of students that a faculty can devote such time to. I encourage those faculty though who teach upper division courses that have no more than 6-10 students to give oral exams. Lastly, student performance is not entirely dependent on instructor performance. In fact, I'd argue that less than 25% of student performance depends on the instructor. Until we get rid of the political correctness idea that every student is a winner regardless of effort, etc. then we will continue to blame ourselves for their failures in learning. This is hogwash. A good indicator that gives faculty an idea of student attitude is to ask them this very simple question (on a separate sheet of paper and no-name required): How many hours did you spend daily (up to the second day BEFORE the exam date) studying for this exam? Staying up 24 hours working problems two days before the exam does not constitute an hour per day (24 days between exams)!! Also, studying does not include reading notes, but rather working end-of-the chapter problems. The results are revealing. Scott D. ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Scott Donnelly Professor of Chemistry Arizona Western College Yuma, AZ 85366-0929 email: aw_donnelly@awc.cc.az.us phone: 520 344 7590 I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking. -Albert Einstein ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 15:45:15 MDT From: Reed Howald Subject: assessment It is relatively easy to decide whether someone has a particular piece of information or not. We can all construct exams that will do this. And we can impart information by computer, textbook, lecture, and measureably better with cooperative education. Students do remember better what they used in a learning group than what they read or hear. One should not expect new technology for presentation to make a dramatic difference here. Knowledge construction is much harder to assess. By the nature of this kind of learning, different students learn different things at different rates. This does not mean that we lack assessment - we can see what our students accomplish over a lifetime. And where it is critical we have not deviated from the first teaching method that worked, apprenticeship. No current university has moved to granting the Ph.D. degree for book learning without the experience of actually working with a major professor. The one on one encounter facilitates both learning and offers a reasonably accurate way of identifying better and worse students. Fortunately face to face student teacher contact is not essential for education, or our 300 student lecture room experiment would have collapsed years ago. And we can do remarkably well substituting student - student interaction, using cooperative learning groups. And one on one learning will not be lost in the new age of computers and internet information. Some people are missing the opportunity to discuss papers face to face in this conference. And CHEMCONF will not replace the bienniel chemistry education conferences. But this discussion here and now is not just between two individuals, with maybe three people near enough to overhear. We have over 800 eavesdroppers. And it doesn't stop there, the records of this conference will be archived and will be accessed by robots searching text files. The CHEMED-L list is now yielding hits from people searching old archives. It is dangerous to post anything you are unwilling to discuss with eager students months or years later. There is something important here in relieving the sense of being alone as an individual interested in the teaching of science. It comes across even in a strictly text mode, and it will not be lost if we add pictures, data lists, computer programs (possibly in JAVA), or even video and animations. There is another assessment technique available to us. We can observe what is going on in our own minds. Yes I was strongly tempted to skip paper 2 when it did not appear in NETSCAPE. I expected the proctor in our computer rooms to be able to direct me to a computer which had ACROBAT READER installed as a plug in. She couldn't. She could show me how to get it from the internet, and install it. But I had to load paper #2 onto a floppy disk, exit from NETSCAPE, and finally after an hour of work start AR32E30.EXE and view the paper. Reading the paper was not worth all the effort it took, but participating in this discussion is certainly valuable to me. The experiment on computers in the schools is actually succeeding. True the APPLE IIe's are practically gone, but that would not have happened if they had not been replaced with something better. It is true that I am still using Word Perfect 5.0 on a 286 computer. And I like the brightness of the computer screen, visible easily by 20 students in a bright room far more than any projection system yet available in my classrooms. I do have to use larger letters and design my own font, but it works. And it is faster and easier than making overhead transparencies. I encourage anyone out there lurking to contribute their ideas to this discussion. And don't be discouraged by the messages of undeliverable mail. This is to be expected with over 800 subscribers. Just relax, assured that the message will get through to almost all of us. Sincerely, Reed Howald uchrh@earth.oscs.montana.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 14:51:20 -0700 From: Kirk McMichael Subject: Paper 2 KM Assessment of Labs in Knowledge Development Dwaine Eubanks has dealt effectively with many important points. One which seems particularly timely to me has to do with the importance of labs. At least around here, there is increasing interest (pressure from administrators, legislators) in moving towards an asynchronous distance learning model. This means a packaged course offered whenever, whereever. The reasons are almost entirely financial and the thrust is "marketing." However we may respond from either high principle or base self-interest, the issue isn't likely to go away soon. Particularly in chemistry, one of sub-issues begins to move from "how do we do labs in this model" to "why do we do labs anyway." Given that labs are expensive and "efficiency" (read "don't spend money") is the current great hope, we are going to be under increasing pressure to justify our faith in labs. For almost all of our students, the issue of technique development is not central (most students aren't chemistry majors); rather the question is whether the lab time and expense serves the overall goals of the course. What carryover is there from specfic lab activities to the concepts and skills we hope to see developing in the course as a whole? If we take our course exams as an operational definition of what we expect our students to learn, then the question may be "does doing a specfic lab result in improved results on particular question(s) on an exam?" My hunch is that we'd be hard put to respond to that question with an answer based on well developed data. Of course, this assumes that we have well understood learning objectives for our labs and that they are tied firmly into those for the course as a whole. As others have commented, that may not always be the case. In any event, I have a couple of specific questions: 1. Are there studies which address the value of labs in the context of broader learning objectives? 2. Do the laboratory assessment activities of the Examinations Institute (described by Dwaine) provide some means of addressing these issues? Thanks for your patience. ................................................................ Kirk McMichael kmc@wsu.edu Department of Chemistry Office (509) 335-3363 Washington State University FAX (509) 335-8867 PO Box 644630 Home (509) 332-2224 Pullman, WA 99164-4630 USA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 17:10:13 -0500 From: Peter Lykos Subject: Re: Paper 2 - tjz "ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY" As a member of the ACS/CPT during an interesting time when we conceived of and saw created an augmentation of the guidelines for an approvable BS/A extended to embrace interdisciplinary degree programs, we generated descriptions of courses by way of a guide to those motivated to design and to submit to CPT proposed BSChem with emphasis in ____. Seems to me that learning objectives - whether grouped into specific courses or distributed as concepts somewhere in the overall curriculum - as laid out by the official ACS 'accrediting' body, should be part of a discussion of assessment. Peter Lykos ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 21:02:18 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 2 - DR: Some Unanswered Questions In his article Dwaine Eubanks asked three questions of the Conference Participants: 1. Is specific attention to assessing conceptual understanding something we should be spending time on, and if so do we (the chemistry education community) have any idea about how to do the job? 2. Should laboratory knowledge be separately assessed from knowledge gained in the classroom; and, if so, how? 3. Is it reasonable and appropriate for us to incorporate more material on how chemistry is done in our introductory chemistry classes; and, if so, what do we drop from the course? It seems to me these are important question for chemistry educators and the Examinations Institute. So far none of you participants have really responded to these questions. Let's have some discussion please! Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University Potsdam, NY ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 22:10:46 -0400 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: tjz-student choices-assessment Harry, you wrote today "if you improve the instruction in the course, she suggests that this gives the students excess time, which is no longer needed to produce the desired grade. The students may invest this time in one of three ways, to improve the grade in the course where the improved learning methods were employed, to improve the grade in another course, or for what she described as "social activities." I found this to be extremely depressing, but I reassured myself that she was probably wrong." I don't find the behavior of students to be at all depressing. they are only human and I can too admit to using time freed by efficiencies in some sectors of my work for 'social activities' in my life. In fact my students often remind me that there is more to life than pchem. Nevertheless I keep up the pressure and try to squeeze one more moment of study out of them for my favorite subject. I some times tell them that if they are efficient in their work, come prepared, and work hard they may be able to go outside and enjoy a moment of sunshine and fresh air, when it's not snowing. When it snows the go to play ping-pong. You know the old saying, healthy mind in a healthy body. I guess I am very conscious of the role of assessment now that I am working on one of the exam committees. It is interesting to know how the system works and the amount of effort that goes into creating the questions, assessing their value in the overall curriculum, trying to bring a balanced set of questions to the design of an exam, trying to make the exam more modern and interpretive (less regurgitation and plug and chug), editing questions to make the stem and distractors as good as possible, and last but most important working with a group of outstanding colleagues to accomplish the task. Committee members all do this on a volunteer basis in exchange for lunch and dinner. They pay their own way or get some travel monies from their schools. I have learned much from this work and appreciate the standardized exams more than before. Designing a good exam is much harder than one imagines at first. Theresa Theresa Julia Zielinski Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Niagara University Niagara University, NY 14109 theresaz@localnet.com http://www.niagara.edu/~tjz/ 716-639-0762 (H - voice, voice mail and fax) 716-286-8257 (O - voice and voice mail) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 22:35:10 -0400 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: Re: Paper 2 - DR: Some Unanswered Questions On Wed, 11 Jun 1997, Donald Rosenthal wrote: > In his article Dwaine Eubanks asked three questions of the Conference > Participants: > > 1. Is specific attention to assessing conceptual understanding something we > should be spending time on, and if so do we (the chemistry education > community) have any idea about how to do the job? Yes! As I stated earlier, assesment is really a multipurpose tool. Assesment is our best effort at measuring. It also motivates and defines what students will try to learn. (What they expect to be on the test and will relate to grades. I think that the ACS Examinations are a very good effort but they can only be as good as our understanding of cognition and our concepts of what is important. An example of this is the correlation with other standardized exams. The DAT (Dental Apptitude Test) has a separate section on organic chemistry (the MCAT does not). My limited data show absolutely no correlation between DAT organic percentiles and the percentiles on the ACS organic exam. I have had about 6 predental students who have scored 38-42nd percentile on the ACS organic exam who have scored 80th - 98th percentile on the DAT organic. (Yes I have trained a few dentists.) It is not clear why there would be a lack of correlation. I can only guess that they are not measuring the same thing. I cannot imagine how or why they are different. Considerable improvements are being made. Nothing is ever perfect. > > 2. Should laboratory knowledge be separately assessed from knowledge gained in > the classroom; and, if so, how? > It is a desirable option. Since labs vary so much in equipment etc, a large survey would be required to determine what the standards should be. Probably computer simulations could be used to do this kind of testing in a reproducible and economic way. It is obviously going to be a long time before everyone has comparable physical facilities. > 3. Is it reasonable and appropriate for us to incorporate more material on > how chemistry is done in our introductory chemistry classes; and, if so, > what do we drop from the course? Currently the list of things we are supposed to cover is so long that it would be hard to add anything else. Perhaps this could be incorporated into laboratory work or outside papers. /* Richard */ #include - - ____ | | _ | | Organic Chemistry / \ |_| | | || CAI Programming / \ | | / \ || Pizza / \ / \ | | _||_ Star Trek (_________) (_____) |______| _/____\_ Doberman Pinschers --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Richard Pendarvis, Ph.D. 3001 W. College Road | | Associate Professor of Chemistry Ocala, FL 32608 | | Central Florida Community College EMAIL: afn02809@afn.org | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 09:30:24 -0400 From: Stacey Lowery Bretz Subject: SLB: Re: Paper 2 - DR: Some Unanswered Questions >In his article Dwaine Eubanks asked three questions of the Conference >Participants: > >1. Is specific attention to assessing conceptual understanding something we > should be spending time on, and if so do we (the chemistry education > community) have any idea about how to do the job? > >2. Should laboratory knowledge be separately assessed from knowledge gained in > the classroom; and, if so, how? > With regards to both of these questions, the answer is a resounding yes! As to the how aspect, I find that the work done by Joe Novak and Bob Gowin on concept maps and vee diagrams, respectively, gets to the core of giving teachers insight into students conceptual understanding, or lack thereof. Each semester I have students construct a concept map for each of the three midterms. The maps consist of 10 concepts I choose and then at least 10 more of their own choosing. They are due 72 hours before the exam (providing the added benefit of making students study more than just the night before). For the final exam, students must draw a map of 50 concepts (all their own choosing) to represent their view on the course. This is also accompanied by a reflective essay. Time and again, students report that the most difficult part of the entire experience is in finding the proper linking words. However, once they conquer that challenge (with varying degrees of success), they realize they have logged some serious, and valuable, study time. I have a paper in preparation on this, but I'd refer those of you interested to "Learning How to Learn" by J.D. Novak and D.B. Gowin, 1984, Cambridge University Press. Likewise, for getting into the students' thoughts on laboratory learning, the vee diagram is an excellent assessment tool. Students must articulate the clear connections between the theory, principles, and concepts which dictate the data and data transformations they make given a particular focus question. Lastly, they must also articulate the value of their claims and results. The vee diagram does an excellent job of calling attention to the frequent disjoint between theory and methods, in other words, having students realize what data must be collected and why, and what its ultimate value is to chemistry. Having said this, both of these are relatively time-consuming to grade (about 3-5 minutes each), certainly in comparison to multiple-choice exam. At the moment, though, I know of no better way to "see into" the minds of my students. What concepts can they readily connect? What concepts do they find most troublesome? Do they really understand what they're doing in lab and its limitations? I'd be interested to hear how others assess these things. Stacey <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Stacey Lowery Bretz ph: (313) 593-5157 Assistant Professor of Chemistry fax: (313) 593-4937 University of Michigan-Dearborn email: slbretz@umich.edu Department of Natural Sciences 4901 Evergreen Road Dearborn, MI 48128-1491 "Education boils down to acquiring the desire, confidence, and courage to question the answers." --Louis Schmier Random Thoughts: The Humanity of Teaching ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 09:43:36 -0500 From: George Long Subject: GRL: Re: SLB: Re: Paper 2 - DR: Some Unanswered Questions >Each semester I have students construct a concept map for each of the three >midterms. The maps consist of 10 concepts I choose and then at least 10 >more of their own choosing. They are due 72 hours before the exam >(providing the added benefit of making students study more than just the >night before). > Tell me more, I'm curious as to the variety of correct answers, do you see a great variation in what the students create ? Also, you must show the students concept maps at some point before they do them. How closely do they follow the style that you used in explaining the Concept map ? >For the final exam, students must draw a map of 50 concepts (all their own >choosing) to represent their view on the course. This is also accompanied >by a reflective essay. Time and again, students report that the most >difficult part of the entire experience is in finding the proper linking >words. However, once they conquer that challenge (with varying degrees of >success), they realize they have logged some serious, and valuable, study >time. How do the student grades on the CM compare to their ability to solve problems. I guess I'm concerned with how doing a concept map relates to a students ability to do chemistry ? I know it is difficult (if not impossible) to say for sure, but do you have any evedence that the students who do best on the CM's are also the best chemists ?? Are CM's any better predictor of this than the standard Multiple choice exam ?? **************************************************************************** George R Long, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana, PA 15705 grlong@grove.iup.edu, http://www.iup.edu/~grlong/ Technology has made the world a neighborhood, now it is up to us to make it a brotherhood - Dr. M.L. King **************************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 09:52:33 -0500 From: "Joanne L. Stewart" Subject: Re: Paper 2 - tjz "ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY" Peter Lykos said: >Seems to me that learning objectives - whether grouped into specific >courses or distributed as concepts somewhere in the overall curriculum - >as laid out by the official ACS 'accrediting' body, should be part of a >discussion of assessment. I agree that the role of the ACS/CPT should be considered. CPT currently maps out a broad range of learning objectives (see http://www.acs.org/cpt/guide.htm#Scope_and_Organization_of_the_Chemistry for lots of information on CPT). Departments are allowed, at least in writing, flexibility in determining the best way to meet the goals. The learning objectives include both chemistry content (organic, inorganic, etc.) and "process" (communication skills, data analysis, information searching etc.). Unfortunately, probably due to the complexity of approving so many different programs across the country, the approval process seems to reduce to "bean counting." I don't mean that the beans aren't important to count because they are (How many hours do professors teach? What classes are offered? What books and journals are available?). The emphasis of the evaluation process seems to focus primarily on facilities and chemistry content. I would like to see CPT take a more active role in looking at the "process" part of doing science. For more details of what I mean see the "Thinking Like a Scientist" part of the "Tool Kit" at http://chemlinks.beloit.edu/modules/toolkit.html). Most faculty include activities to help students build these skills in their courses, but I think that few departments look at their curriculum in a more global and developmental way with regard to these skills. CPT could play a strong role in encouraging departments to do this. What do others think? Does your department do this? Joanne Stewart Joanne L. Stewart Department of Chemistry Hope College Holland, MI 49422-9000 phone: 616-395-7634 fax: 616-395-7118 email: stewart@hope.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 08:55:57 -0500 From: Marcy Towns <00mhtowns@BSU.EDU> Subject: Technology & Paper 2 Some Unanswered Questions One last thought about the earlier technology remarks. Good pedagogy does indeed come before technology. The value of technology to student learning is proportional to the need for that technology in achieving an objective or goal. >In his article Dwaine Eubanks asked three questions of the Conference >Participants: > >1. Is specific attention to assessing conceptual understanding something we > should be spending time on, and if so do we (the chemistry education > community) have any idea about how to do the job? YES!! I have used journaling in my physical chemistry course to assess conceptual understanding (or lack there of). I usually ask students to compare or contrast two concepts, or to link concepts, equations, and graphs. Reading the journals allows me to see into their minds (briefly I'll admit), but I have found I get much better feedback in the journals than I do in class or on exams or quizzes. Part of the reason is that every student must respond. Another aspect is that I can readily discover what the students understand well and have connected together properly, and what they have not! > >2. Should laboratory knowledge be separately assessed from knowledge gained in > the classroom; and, if so, how? Yes, I have used VEE diagrams and have found them to be a very useful way to see if the students connect the concepts, theories, and principles we cover in lecture to the measurements, observations, and analysis that come out of their laboratory experience. Marcy. > Marcy Hamby Towns Ball State University Cooper Hall Muncie, IN 47306 765-285-8075 765-285-2351 (FAX) 00mhtowns@bsu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 10:02:08 +0100 From: Dwaine Eubanks Subject: Re: Paper 2 KM Assessment of Labs in Knowledge Development Kirk McMichael posed two important questions in dealing with lab assessment. "1. Are there studies which address the value of labs in the context of broader learning objectives?" In response to the first question: I am not aware of any statistically-based studies which show that students have demonstrable knowledge gains which can be directly linked to their laboratory experiences. The problem with studies where specific instructional elements are included or withheld is that the students receiving more attention will almost always do better. And if there is a substitute activity, such as lectures on what would have happened in lab if we had done a lab--those students will out-perform the students receiving laboratory instruction IF THE EXAM IS HEAVILY SLANTED TOWARD RECALL OR APPLICATION OF FACTUAL KNOWLEDGE. That point has been forcefully demonstrated with high school AP chemistry exams, where laboratory experience has been shown to be unnecessary to score well on the exams. The importance of laboratory in the instructional process is an article of faith among chemistry educators, and many administrators--high school through university--see the laboratory as a place to cut costs. (Some even suggest substituting VIRTUAL labs for the real thing, so they can still show them as laboratories in reports to the ACS Committee on Professional Training.) A well-constructed and broadly reported study would be very useful. Perhaps such a study is already out there, and I just don't know about it. "2. Do the laboratory assessment activities of the Examinations Institute (described by Dwaine) provide some means of addressing these issues?" The Small-Scale Laboratory Assessment Activities book, which Bob Silberman from SUNY Cortland put together while on sabbatical at the Exams Institute, is, I think, unique in its approach to lab assessment. For each activity, a task is set for students, and they are given a list of equipment and chemicals that they can use. No directions are provided. Students must devise their own approach to solving the problem presented, and there are typically several viable approaches. The scoring suggestions focus more on how the student approaches the problem than to the actual results. If we believe that the proper role of laboratory is to empower our students to use their chemistry knowledge to design investigations to interrogate nature, then I think there is a place for these kinds of laboratory activities in our instructional repertoire. I. Dwaine Eubanks Director, ACS DivCHED Examinations Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry Clemson University Clemson SC 29634-1913 eubanki@clemson.edu Voice: 864-656-1394 FAX: 864-656-1250 http://chemistry.clemson.edu/ChemDocs/eubanksd.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 09:07:30 -0500 From: "Bondeson, Steve" Subject: Paper 2--SRB What to assess? Brief responses to two of Dwaine's important questions. > 1. Is specific attention to assessing conceptual understanding something > we should be spending time on, and if so do we (the chemistry education > community) have any idea about how to do the job? We should throw MOST of our energy at assessing conceptual understanding. If we don't have a good handle on how we're going to measure progress, we probably won't make any. At UWSP, we do yearly assessment by written exams, oral interviews, and informal discussions with our majors. It is easy to uncover what our students understand at the conceptual level and we also build a spirit of cooperation with our students. It takes significant time indeed, but students and staff alike agree that it is a valuable investment. > 2. Should laboratory knowledge be separately assessed from knowledge > gained in the classroom; and, if so, how? If laboratory is done right, we don't have to separately assess it. By this I mean that lab, "lecture", and discussion should all be the same course--you don't learn anything in lecture that's not part and parcel of the laboratory and vice versa. By establishing separate assessment, we further divorce the lecture and lab. We should be moving to more integration rather than categorization of our curricula. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 10:11:42 +0100 From: Dwaine Eubanks Subject: Re: Paper 2 - tjz "ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY" CPT's Undergraduate Professional Education in Chemistry: Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures does not include learning objectives. If CPT has developed a list of specific learning objectives for undergraduate chemistry majors, it would be useful for all of us to see that list. By the way, lest any subscribers to this conference not fully understand CPT's role: CPT does not ACCREDIT programs. It APPROVES programs. That is a very important distinction. -------------------------------------- >As a member of the ACS/CPT during an interesting time when we conceived of >and saw created an augmentation of the guidelines for an approvable BS/A >extended to embrace interdisciplinary degree programs, we generated >descriptions of courses by way of a guide to those motivated to design and >to submit to CPT proposed BSChem with emphasis in ____. > >Seems to me that learning objectives - whether grouped into specific >courses or distributed as concepts somewhere in the overall curriculum - >as laid out by the official ACS 'accrediting' body, should be part of a >discussion of assessment. > >Peter Lykos I. Dwaine Eubanks Director, ACS DivCHED Examinations Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry Clemson University Clemson SC 29634-1913 eubanki@clemson.edu Voice: 864-656-1394 FAX: 864-656-1250 http://chemistry.clemson.edu/ChemDocs/eubanksd.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 10:26:37 -0400 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Paper 2 - DR: Some Unanswered Questions Donald Rosenthal raised these questions >In his article Dwaine Eubanks asked three questions of the Conference >Participants: > >1. Is specific attention to assessing conceptual understanding something we > should be spending time on, and if so do we (the chemistry education > community) have any idea about how to do the job? > Until a student has to integrate their own work into the larger body of chemistry there is no foolproof way. If a fourth year thesis project is well designed and not simply crank turning, and if the supervisor doesn't write the thesis for the student, perhaps at that stage we can say soemthing about how well the student has developed a conceptual understanding. I've seen no effective way of answering this question on a piece by piece basis, since it is the integration of a whole series of concepts that constitues being a chemist. (See also the introduction to Lavoisier's "Elements of Chemistry" the first "modern" chemistry text, written 200 years ago --- to paraphrase since my copy of the third edition is at home, "if you master this book, you will know the nomenclature of the subject and the manipulation of the apparatus, but expect to put in four years of diligent study if you wish to be a chemist." >2. Should laboratory knowledge be separately assessed from knowledge gained in > the classroom; and, if so, how? Laboratory knowledge in terms of the manipulation of apparatus (see above) and use of instrumentation can be assessed by practical lab exams, marking the quality of lab work (as opposed to lab reports -- the former being much more difficult), but there should be no distincition made between a reaction done in a lab and one done in class. There should be no distinction in the examinination of chemical knowlege based on the source of its acquisition. (I don't know how many exams I did well in based on what I learned in my summer jobs in a paper mill research lab vs what I actually learned in class). If you actually evaluate ability to carry out lab work, you can often identify the buddding theoretician or instrument oriented physical chemist at an early stage. Some people have a green thumb for synthesis even if they are weak conceptually and other brilliant students are all thumbs. I remember demonstrating labs as a grad student, and a student who dropped 500 ml of hot conc. permanganate solution of my foot, and the one who tried to remove a three necked flask without unclamping the condenser & sep funnel and wondered why it broke, both became professors of theoretical chemsitry. > >3. Is it reasonable and appropriate for us to incorporate more material on > how chemistry is done in our introductory chemistry classes; and, if so, > what do we drop from the course? > There is no easy answer on what to drop -- but as I have facetiously said to several colleagues arguing for the essential nature of their favourite topic,-- if someone identifies a single topic that is inviolate - that is probably what should be dropped in 95% of the examples. Jack Martin Miller Professor of Chemistry Adjunct Professor of Computer Science Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, L2S 3A1. Phone (905) 688 5550, ext 3402 FAX (905) 682 9020 e-mail jmiller@sandcastle.cosc.brocku.ca http://chemiris.labs.brocku.ca/~chemweb/faculty/miller/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 09:27:07 -0500 From: Marcy Towns <00mhtowns@BSU.EDU> Subject: Re: SLB: Paper 2 - DR: Some Unanswered Questions Stacey wrote: >With regards to both of these questions, the answer is a resounding yes! >As to the how aspect, I find that the work done by Joe Novak and Bob Gowin >on concept maps and vee diagrams, respectively, gets to the core of giving >teachers insight into students conceptual understanding, or lack thereof. I am not sure what course Stacey's students are enrolled in, but I have used Vee diagrams in physical chemistry with success. (Her final paragraph nicely summarizes the strengths of Vee diagramming.) Besides "Learning How To Learn", another good reference is Mary Nakhleh's recent article in JCE (sorry I can't find the reference). She refers to Barb Tessier's research on general chemistry students using Vee diagrams. Prior to learning how to do Vee diagrams the students admitted that they did not construct a better understanding of chemical concepts from actually doing the labs. One of the students in the study stated: "A lot of it is just regurgitation. You know, collect the data, plug it in, hope you get ther right numbers and hand it in and get your grades." After learning how to construct vee diagrams these students felt as though the vee digram had increased their understanding of the material involved in the laboratory. As one student said: "It [Vee] definitely makes you think about it. Cause, I mean, you can't just go through and be like, la-de-dah. I kinda know what I'm doing today." Barb concludes that the students were able to meaningfully connect the procedural and conceptual issues of a particular lab using vee diagrams, and that the students found this to be a valuable activity. > >Each semester I have students construct a concept map for each of the three >midterms. The maps consist of 10 concepts I choose and then at least 10 >more of their own choosing. They are due 72 hours before the exam >(providing the added benefit of making students study more than just the >night before). > I have tried concept mapping in small groups and found that it works well. I use cooperative learning in my course, and my students remain in the same groups the entire semester. To do the concept maping in a group I gave the students 4-6 concepts as a starter and had them write the concepts on small post-its. As a group they had to build a concept map using these concepts and inserting others as needed. I found that the discussions which ensued in the groups were wonderful and very rich. The students spent a lot of time trying to determine how different concepts related to each other, how they were related, and what other concepts did they need to add. As a cautionary note: I think this activity worked well because the students knew each other well and trusted each other. It takes a good deal of trust among peers to question someone's statements, remove post-its, gently tell another student "no, that's not right", etc. If the student's didn't already know and trust each other this activity would not have gone as well. Also, if one tries this activity, 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper are too small. Three or four sheets taped together would work better--the students would have more room to move their post-its, write connecting words, add post-its, etc. > >Likewise, for getting into the students' thoughts on laboratory learning, >the vee diagram is an excellent assessment tool. Students must articulate >the clear connections between the theory, principles, and concepts which >dictate the data and data transformations they make given a particular >focus question. Lastly, they must also articulate the value of their >claims and results. The vee diagram does an excellent job of calling >attention to the frequent disjoint between theory and methods, in other >words, having students realize what data must be collected and why, and >what its ultimate value is to chemistry. The above paragraph nicely summarizes vee diagramming!! Marcy. > Marcy Hamby Towns Ball State University Cooper Hall Muncie, IN 47306 765-285-8075 765-285-2351 (FAX) 00mhtowns@bsu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 16:04:00 +0000 From: Tim Brosnan Subject: Re: SLB: Re: Paper 2 - DR: Some Unanswered Questions Dwaine Eubanks asked: >1. Is specific attention to assessing conceptual understanding something we > should be spending time on, and if so do we (the chemistry education > community) have any idea about how to do the job? I fully agree that 'understanding students understandings' is something we should spend time on - although not so much in FINAL examinations where it can have little effect on learning - but in 'through the course' FORMATIVE assessment where it can have a feedback effect on our teaching and the student's learning. Regarding Stacey Lowery Bret's reply, that concept maps and vee diagrams > are relatively time-consuming to grade >(about 3-5 minutes each) Maybe we are talking about different things or I have misunderstood, but I find it interesting that taking 3 minutes to assess each student is considered 'time-consuming'. I also find it astonishing and totally admirable that someone can fully grasp the understanding inherent in a 50 (or even 10) item concept map in that time. Thinking about the second question set: >2. Should laboratory knowledge be separately assessed from knowledge gained in > the classroom; and, if so, how? I have much sympathy with Steve Bondeson's view on this regarding integrating laboratory and 'lecture' (broadly defined) but must disagree with his statement that >you don't learn anything in lecture that's not part and parcel >of the laboratory and vice versa. Perhaps the key to achieving integration is to articulate why students are doing each piece of laboratory work. The literature suggests (at least) three reasons: a. To illustrate scientific concepts b. To gain experience of using laboratory equipment and techniques c. To gain experience of planning and performing whole investigations. And surely the latter two of these can only be learnt in the laboratory. There is also plentiful evidence that if you assess student's abilities to do (b) and (c) by written tests you get different results that if you assess them by practical activities. Tim Tim Brosnan Science and Technology Group Institute of Education University of London 20 Bedford Way London WC1H 0AL U.K. t.brosnan@ioe.ac.uk http://www.ioe.ac.uk/hgm/tb.html Tel: +44 (0)171 612 6779 Fax: +44 (0)171 612 6792 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:02:38 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 2 - DR: Questions about using ACS Examinations Let me ask two questions: 1. Do you use ACS Examinations in Your Courses? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 2. If so, why? and If not, why don't you? ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Let me answer these two questions. 1. For the most part, I did not use ACS Examinations. I remember we did use them once to help the Examinations Institute establish norms. They have occassionally been used at Clarkson as part of our graduate placement exams. 2. Why not? - Generally, I don't like multiple choice questions and dislike multiple choice examinations even more. I have used multiple choice questions more frequently in teaching General Chemistry courses than in teaching analytical chemistry courses. Usually, I believe I can prepare examinations which better test the concepts which I consider important. I usually dealt with ten to forty students. However, I will admit that ACS tests do provide an opportunity to compare your students and your courses with national norms. This can be useful. Also, using such exams can save time in preparing exams and the grading of such exams is easier. With appropriate software the instructor obtains information on student performance. The instructor can easily determine what he was successful in teaching his students and where he (and they) were not successful. This can be useful in helping instructors revise and change the content of their course. However, I have some problems about including topics simply because they are on the standardized examination. Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699 315-265-9242 ROSEN@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:18:02 -0400 From: Stacey Lowery Bretz Subject: SLB - more on concept maps George Long wrote: >Tell me more, I'm curious as to the variety of correct answers, do you see a >great variation in what the students create ? Also, you must show the students >concept maps at some point before they do them. How closely do they >follow the style that you used in explaining the Concept map ? Along the lines of Marcy Towns recent post, I provide the students with an article on concept mapping and a concept map about concept maps. The second class of the semester (in my general chemistry sequence), I show the students how to make a map from 6-12 words and then give them the opportunity to make a group map, including examples to make their ideas clear. I hang sheets of newsprint around the lecture hall, give each cooperative learning group a stack of post-its and markers, and let them go at it. Admittedly, it can be a bit chaotic for 150 students doing this at one, but as I circulate, the debates they have about the semantic differences between elements, compounds, atoms, molecules is really quite stimulating. When is the last time you heard two students debating whether N2 is a compound or not? Then, at the end of lecture, I take the papers down, write my comments on them, and re-hang them before next class. Students look at them as they come into class. I spend about 5 minutes at the beginning going over the most common misconceptions and the most innovative linking words. The maps are then moved to the gchem lab where students can look at the wide variety of their classmates' efforts. As for George's second point: >How do the student grades on the CM compare to their ability to solve >problems. I guess I'm concerned with how doing a concept map relates to a >students ability to do chemistry ? I know it is difficult (if not >impossible) to say for >sure, but do you have any evedence that the >students who do best on the CM's are >also the best chemists ?? Are CM's >any better predictor of this than the standard >Multiple choice exam ?? This is an interesting question. I have not looked for correlation coefficients,etc., but perhaps I will. Thanks for the idea. My gut reaction at this moment is that I would expect to see something similar to Mary Nakhleh's categorization of high/low concpetual and high/low algorithmic (J.Chem. Ed., 70, 1991, p. 190). That is to say, there are few students with high conceptual understanding who cannot also perform well on more standard "problem-solving" (and I use that word cautiously) tasks. On the other hand, there are a notable number of students who can "solve problems" fairly well who are incapable of expressing the connections between concepts and ideas in the form of a concept map. They are painfully aware of this, and often I hear "chemistry classes shouldn't require students to do this stuff -- concept maps are for writing classes and the like, not hard science." I think this latter group is roughly isomorphic with Sheila Tobias' "third tier" -- that is, the group of students who are in our classes because they've done well with algorithmic, plug-in-chug type science. It's no wonder to me that they balk when I ask them to articulate a more meaningful level of knowledge, and, here's the real sticking point for them: to take on some significant, and admittedly unfamiliar, responsibility for constructing their own knowledge. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Stacey Lowery Bretz ph: (313) 593-5157 Assistant Professor of Chemistry fax: (313) 593-4937 University of Michigan-Dearborn email: slbretz@umich.edu Department of Natural Sciences 4901 Evergreen Road Dearborn, MI 48128-1491 "Education boils down to acquiring the desire, confidence, and courage to question the answers." --Louis Schmier Random Thoughts: The Humanity of Teaching ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:35:41 -0400 From: Brian Tissue Subject: Re: Paper 2 - BT: Questions about using ACS Examinations >Let me ask two questions: > >1. Do you use ACS Examinations in Your Courses? > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >2. If so, why? and If not, why don't you? > ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I tried the Instrumental Methods exam as a final exam for senior-level Instrumental Analysis one year but I no longer use it. I now try to develop final-exam questions that are open ended, or that contain multiple concepts and techniques to test the students' understanding. The students also did not like the standard exam because it was much broader in coverage than the course. I think the Instrumental Methods exam would be useful as part of a series of senior exit exams to assess our whole curriculum (which we do not now do). Brian ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 10:35:51 -0500 From: Gary Wiggins Subject: Re: Paper 2 - tjz "ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY" The "Course Suggestions as Appendices to the 1983 CPT Guidelines" attempt to provide suggestions for planning courses in many of the main areas of the chemical curricula. Although, to my knowledge, they weren't reissued with later Guidelines, several of them do include learning objectives. The latest CPT guidelines can be found at: http://www.acs.org/cpt/guide.htm Gary Wiggins, Indiana University Chemistry Library On Thu, 12 Jun 1997, Dwaine Eubanks wrote: > CPT's Undergraduate Professional Education in Chemistry: > Guidelines and Evaluation Procedures does not include learning > objectives. If CPT has developed a list of specific learning objectives > for undergraduate chemistry majors, it would be useful for all of us to > see that list. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:41:29 +0100 From: Dwaine Eubanks Subject: Re: Paper 2 - tjz "ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY" I'm familiar with the CPT Web site, but I still can't find anything that I would describe as learning objectives. Can someone show me where CPT has such a list? With respect to CPT becoming involved at the nuts-and-bolts level of science process and detailed science content, such initiatives would represent a major shift in the responibilities of CPT. Until now, CPT has had only a casual connection to the ACS Division of Chemical Education (which publishes the Journal of Chemical Education, ACS Exams, organizes the Biennial Conferences, and is the parent body for this on-line conference), the ACS Education Division (the ACS staff division in Washington DC), or to the ACS Society Committee on Education (the ACS education governance body). Getting CPT involved at the suggested level would, it seems to me, require close coordination and cooperation with all of the other ACS education bodies. The end result might be well worth the effort! I. Dwaine Eubanks Director, ACS DivCHED Examinations Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry Clemson University Clemson SC 29634-1913 eubanki@clemson.edu Voice: 864-656-1394 FAX: 864-656-1250 http://chemistry.clemson.edu/ChemDocs/eubanksd.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:32:30 -0400 From: Debbie Sauder Subject: paper 2-dgs:Assessment > 1. Is specific attention to assessing conceptual understanding something > we should be spending time on, and if so do we (the chemistry education > community) have any idea about how to do the job? We should throw MOST of our energy at assessing conceptual understanding. If we don't have a good handle on how we're going to measure progress, we probably won't make any. At UWSP, we do yearly assessment by written exams, oral interviews, and informal discussions with our majors. It is easy to uncover what our students understand at the conceptual level and we also build a spirit of cooperation with our students. It takes significant time indeed, but students and staff alike agree that it is a valuable investment. > 2. Should laboratory knowledge be separately assessed from knowledge > gained in the classroom; and, if so, how? If laboratory is done right, we don't have to separately assess it. By this I mean that lab, "lecture", and discussion should all be the same course--you don't learn anything in lecture that's not part and parcel of the laboratory and vice versa. By establishing separate assessment, we further divorce the lecture and lab. We should be moving to more integration rather than categorization of our curricula. ************************************************************** Deborah Sauder sauder@nimue.hood.edu Chemistry (301)696-3678 Hood College 401 Rosemont Ave. Frederick MD 21701 "It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well." -Rene Descartes ************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:47:57 +0000 From: DeGennaro-Al Subject: Re: SLB - more on concept maps As a high school teacher, I absolutely concur with these remarks on the value of concept maps. Specifically,..... >Tell me more, I'm curious as to the variety of correct answers, do you see a >great variation in what the students create ? Also, you must show the students >concept maps at some point before they do them. How closely do they >follow the style that you used in explaining the Concept map ? I have found it very helpful to prepare a concept map in front of the class on a subject unrelated to chemistry. This eliminates the anxiety of the subject matter, at least. I do not think making a concept map about concept maps is a good idea, any more than explaining French grammar in French is a good idea. I have used the Baltimore Orioles, the 1996 Presidential Campaign, and whatever TV show characters the kids are talking about. This gives an opportunity to emphasize that there are many correct answers, that the number of relationships is a rough gauge of total understanding, and that novices can learn by watching, debating, and listening to others make concept maps. I do not spend a great deal of time "grading" them. This would be a terribly tedious task. you can assess understanding and even grant credit just by circulating around the room and eavesdropping. As to the correlations with test scores.....do we really need this? Concept maps create a situation that forces dialogue between students, accomodates the artistic students, and forces the arrogant to justify connections that they see as "obvious". This has to help. Al DeGennaro Westminster HS, MD aldegenn@sun-link.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 10:48:53 -0500 From: Peter Lykos Subject: Re: Paper 2 - tjz "ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY" Regarding CPT's range of activities and interests please note that in my referenced note I was careful to distinguish between approval and accreditation. Practically speaking, I doubt that the college/univ administrations appreciate or care about the distinction. In addition to the guidelines, CPT has a collection of objectives - course by course - for several courses. In addition to the usual collection of chemistry courses, I believe that was prompted by the appearance of BS in Chem polarizations with new sets of concepts subsumed under EnvChem, MaterialsChem, Biochem, etc, for which the ACS does not, to the best of my knowledge, have any 'standard' exams. Peter Lykos ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:57:24 -0400 From: Debbie Sauder Subject: paper 2:dgs assessment Sorry all for the non-message last time. I would also like to respond to: > 1. Is specific attention to assessing conceptual understanding something > we should be spending time on, and if so do we (the chemistry education > community) have any idea about how to do the job? AND > 2. Should laboratory knowledge be separately assessed from knowledge > gained in the classroom; and, if so, how? Our institution has taught general chemistry as an "integrated" lab-lecture course for 4 years now. As a liberal arts college, where very few students go on to take any more science we have two main goals in general chem- imparting some conceptual knowledge of science and changing prevailing "anti-science" attitudes. We have not done a good job of assessing the "scientific content" results- and are working on that. However, we attempt to stress conceptual understanding in our quizzes and exams (I was gratified to see that the ACS "concept exam" looked a lot like our exams from the past few years!) Attitudinal surveys which we have conducted show that students leaving our classes have a much more positive opinion of science and how scientist conduct their work than comparable groups of students at other institutions (this should be in preparation for publication- but I don't want to stick our external assessor's neck out right now). The integrated presentation renders question 2 above, moot. We DO not separate lecture, demonstrations and lab- they are part of a whole- as is true in REAL chemistry, eh? In this age of instant fact retrieval, there is less need then ever to impart isolated facts to students. The best thing we can do is provide a conceptual framework which allows them to ask appropriate questions when they are faced with a scientific situation they don't understand , and some tools that will allow them to evaluate the responses they get. ds ************************************************************** Deborah Sauder sauder@nimue.hood.edu Chemistry (301)696-3678 Hood College 401 Rosemont Ave. Frederick MD 21701 "It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well." -Rene Descartes ************************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 11:25:29 -0500 From: "Bondeson, Steve" Subject: Re: Paper 2 - SRB, Assess what? I would like to suggest that the central item to assess in any course is a student's development in critical thinking. For a current project on curriculum development here at UWSP, we use a working definition of CT that has been modified from Joanne Kurfiss (Critical Thinking: Theory, Research, Practice, and Possibilities. ASHE-ERIC, 1988) : critical thinking is a rational response to questions that cannot be answered definitively and for which all the relevant information may not be available. Critical thinkers form 1) conclusions and 2) justifications for those conclusions. This is true whether they are devising an experiment, analyzing a spectrum, or applying an algorithm to a problem, etc. Hence, CT becomes somewhat synonymous with "conceptual understanding." We are currently developing CT assessment instruments that we will use in conjunction with content tests. There will never be a single tool that will assess student progress, IMHO. We need to think in terms of several ways to assess, each giving us a different picture of our students' thinking. I would appreciate hearing of any CT assessment tools that you are aware of, especially if you have firsthand experience with their efficacy. >>>Steve<<< ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 13:05:54 -0400 From: Bert Ramsay Subject: Re: SLB - more on concept maps What are we assessing? It seems to me that if we did not spend so much time on examinations asking students to calculate something, you'd have more time to spend on assessing conceptual understanding. Consider the % of questions, and % of time (which will be greater) needed to get an answer - in a typical exam in introductory chemistry devoted to asking the students to calculate something. From the quotation provided below by Dr Bretz, I think it is clear to most students where they have to spend their time to be successful in the exams: be able to solve algorithmic problems. It has also seemed to me that this overemphasis on computational skills continues well beyond their understanding of the concept needed to complete the computation. Perhaps Dwaine has done an analysis of the breakdown of concept vs. computational questions on the ACS exams (for introductory chemistry) that might confirm or dispute my position? Bert Ramsay, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, E. Michigan University. ==== My random thought on Schmier's statement below: " Who among our students has the time or opportunity, much less the desire, confidence, or courage to question the answers - when most of the time is spent on answering the questions?" > "Education boils down to acquiring the desire, confidence, and courage to > question the answers." > --Louis Schmier > Random Thoughts: The Humanity of Teaching ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 13:12:37 -0400 From: Brian Tissue Subject: Re: Paper 2 - BT, department audit Joanne Stewart wrote: >I would like to see CPT take a more active role in looking at the "process" >part of doing science. For more details of what I mean see the "Thinking >Like a Scientist" part of the "Tool Kit" at >http://chemlinks.beloit.edu/modules/toolkit.html). Most faculty include >activities to help students build these skills in their courses, but I think >that few departments look at their curriculum in a more global and >developmental way with regard to these skills. CPT could play a strong role >in encouraging departments to do this. > >What do others think? Does your department do this? To broaden this thread even more, how many departments regularly review the content and goals of their chemistry curriculum? Several people have touched on defining the goals and objectives of courses and labs to guide assessment. Is anyone doing such analysis with regard to how the content of a course fits into the overall curriculum? I remember Sheila Tobias speaking at the 1994 BCCE about a department-wide audit. One of her points was that everyone in a department has to take responsibility for the quality of the program (if I remember her talk wrong someone please correct me). To me this implies that all faculty members must participate in a discussion of the content and goals of all courses. I see lack of coordination between courses as a major problem in helping students develop both higher-order thinking and practical skills. When should students learn how to keep a professional lab notebook, to use spreadsheet, or to be able to critically evaluate chemical information. An article that I can't find right now suggested that we often expect students to go through several phases of cognitive development in their senior year. Has anyone had any experience in bringing a whole department together for such discussions? Brian *************************************************************** Prof. Brian M. Tissue phone: (540) 231-3786 Department of Chemistry FAX: (540) 231-3255 Virginia Tech e-mail: tissue@vt.edu Blacksburg, VA 24061-0212 http://www.chem.vt.edu/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 13:21:58 +0100 From: Dwaine Eubanks Subject: Re: Paper 2 - SRB, Assess what? The report from Steve Bondeson that he and his colleages are currently developing critical thinking assessment instruments that they will use in conjunction with content tests is an important contribution to this discussion. I certainly hope that he (and others) who are developing such instruments will share their experiences with the chemical education community. I. Dwaine Eubanks Director, ACS DivCHED Examinations Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry Clemson University Clemson SC 29634-1913 eubanki@clemson.edu Voice: 864-656-1394 FAX: 864-656-1250 http://chemistry.clemson.edu/ChemDocs/eubanksd.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 12:40:39 -0500 From: "Dr. Red Chasteen" Subject: Re: Paper 2 - TGC, department audit In a "commuting" aside to Brian's comment, which read: >To me this implies that all faculty members must >participate in a discussion of the content and goals of all courses. I see >lack of coordination between courses as a major problem in helping students >develop both higher-order thinking and practical skills. Our student population is highly mobile and many/most(?) don't get their entire chemistry degree all from our department. This will mean that a well-thought out cohesive chemistry program (and all SHOULD be such) may still not get a chance to benefit our students since they will take freshman chemistry one place, organic another, and then maybe only PChem and beyond from us. This is in practice a great difficulty for us since lower division skills that we emphasize end up not realized to many of our upper division students because they took their lower division courses elsewhere. (And I guess our "leavers" may penalize departments at other schools similarly). chm_tgc@shsu.edu Dr. Thomas G. Chasteen, Graduate Advisor Associate Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Sam Houston State University Huntsville, Texas 77341-2117 USA 409) 294-1533 phone 409) 294-1585 fax There are some interesting analytical chemistry based QuickTime movies at: http://www.shsu.edu/~chm_tgc/sounds/sound.html Can't handle QuickTime? There are GIF Animations on the same Web Page. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 12:50:28 CST From: "James A. Carroll" Subject: P2 - JAC: On BT use of ACS Examinations To > >1. Do you use ACS Examinations in Your Courses? > >2. If so, why? and If not, why don't you? Brian Tissue responded > ... The students also did not like the standard exam because it > was much broader in coverage than the course. I have used this and other ACS examinations. Especially with Instrumental and Inorganic examinations I emphasize to students that the exams cover topics we have not, that courses are designed differently but should give comparable overall sophistication. For each question unfamiliar to us, there should be question my classes answer more easily or more proficiently because we have practiced that skill more. I believe it; results with my students at two schools seem to bear this out; most importantly perhaps, students buy this idea. > I think the Instrumental Methods exam would be useful as part of a > series of senior exit exams to assess our whole curriculum (which > we do not now do). I'm responding to discourage this use of the ACS Exams. With the urging of the assessment consultants hired by the administration, we do use an exit exam as one part of our program assessment. This subject area exam is designed to assess the whole curriculum, and is presumed to do a better job than a collection of ACS exams, which instructors are free to use for their own objectives as each desires. (Or not use if the exam is inconsistent with their course objectives - poorly written for them.) Use of a broad chemistry exam avoids the trap of a muffin-tin view of the students' education, viewing curriculum modifications as if each course stood alone. Jim Carroll Phone (402) 554-3639 Chemistry Department Dept (402) 554-2651 University of Nebraska at Omaha FAX (402) 554-3888 Omaha, NE 68182-0109 jcarroll@unomaha.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 14:55:36 +0100 From: Dwaine Eubanks Subject: Re: SLB - more on concept maps In response to Bert Ramsay's query about conceptual vs. computational questions on ACS exams: The General Chemistry (Conceptual) exam is intended to be ALL conceptual questions, although there are those who will disagree. Other exams, particularly the first term general chemistry exam, have a significant percentage of conceptual questions. The special exams that were done for the New Traditions project deliberately have paired conceptual and algorithmic questions, so an answer to Bert's question about how students do on conceptual items as opposed to algorithmic items may be forthcoming (at least for Wisconsin students). Diane Bunce of Catholic University is doing that research. These research exams are available from the Exams Institute (SP97A and SP97B) for those who may be interested. ------------------------------------------------ > What are we assessing? > It seems to me that if we did not spend so much time on examinations >asking students to calculate something, you'd have more time to spend on >assessing conceptual understanding. > Consider the % of questions, and % of time (which will be greater) >needed to get an answer - in a typical exam in introductory chemistry >devoted to asking the students to calculate something. From the quotation >provided below by Dr Bretz, I think it is clear to most students where they >have to spend their time to be successful in the exams: be able to solve >algorithmic problems. It has also seemed to me that this overemphasis on >computational skills continues well beyond their understanding of the >concept needed to complete the computation. > Perhaps Dwaine has done an analysis of the breakdown of concept vs. >computational questions on the ACS exams (for introductory chemistry) that >might confirm or dispute my position? > Bert Ramsay, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, E. Michigan University. I. Dwaine Eubanks Director, ACS DivCHED Examinations Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry Clemson University Clemson SC 29634-1913 eubanki@clemson.edu Voice: 864-656-1394 FAX: 864-656-1250 http://chemistry.clemson.edu/ChemDocs/eubanksd.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 14:59:56 -0400 From: lferrier Subject: Re: Paper 2 assessment On Tuesday, June 11, Scott Donnelly wrote: >It's obvious which students had taken the time to >learn the material and which did not >Lastly, student performance is not entirely dependent on instructor >performance. In fact, I'd argue that less than 25% of student performance >depends on the instructor. I agree with these statements. Teachers need to strive to be effective communicators and so forth, but there is still a commitment which students need to make. Linda Ferrier University of Connecticut, Torrington Branch ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 15:14:42 -0400 From: Michael Chejlava Subject: Reply to various comments MJC Paper 2 Assessment As mentioned by several people, students are human and will do only the minimum needed to get a grade. This means that the goal of the lab is to get done as quickly as possible. The goal of tests is to get the "Right" answers. This leads to an assessment problem, since I have yet to find a way to do assessment that is "cram proof". Even free response answers yield rote answers, since our students demand that they be given example tests. I give in to this since the fraternities have files and I have to at least level the playing field. What I then see is students simply memorizing responses to the example test and using these reponses to the test questions that are closest to the examples. For example in a recent Instrumental test the example test had a question " Describe 3 common HPLC detectors, show how they work, what they detect and their relative sensitivities." On the actual test "GC" was substituted for HPLC and about 3/4 of the students gave very good descriptions of HPLC detectors. They either didn't read the question or didn't know any GC detectors. Has anyone found a way to make "cram proof" assessment tools? It seems to me that the most important thing that we can do is to motiate students into returning to their childhood state of bing natural learners. This condition has been lost to so many due to parental and peer pressures and has been beat out of them by an educational system which stresses getting the "right answer" to the rote questions. If the use of technology can help this I am all for it. Techniques that I have used to some success is cooperative learning and the writing of my own lab experiments that are less cookbookish and deal with real-world substances such as anti-freeze, peanut brittle and vegetable pigments. Still if anyone has found methods that work with low-motivation nonmajors, please let me know. Also,I have a practical question. Does anyone have a good way of organizing the 100+ e-mail messages. I am using Netsape for e-mail. After the final log files come out I plan to use Ask Sam, a free form database program to search the discussions and separate out different discussion threads, but right now it is a mess. -- Michael Chejlava Department of Chemistry & Environmental Science Lake Superior State University Sault Sainte Marie, MI ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 14:50:29 -0500 From: G L Carlson Subject: Re: Paper 2 - BT, department audit LC agreement Brian Tissue wrote >> .. To me this implies that all faculty members must participate in a discussion of the content and goals of all courses. I see lack of coordination between courses as a major problem in helping students develop both higher-order thinking and practical skills. When should students learn how to keep a professional lab notebook, to use spreadsheet, or to be able to critically evaluate chemical information...<< In our department, I see this as a major obstacle to curriculum reform. Interest in sweeping revision seems to be minimal, and general discussions about what we might do to alter things are few. Comments like "Well, it works pretty well right now" and "I don't believe in (fill in your favorite innovation in integration" because..." I think a certain amount of top-down buy-in is necessary for this type of over-arching reform to take place. One voice in the wilderness is lost. Lynn Carlson Department of Chemistry University of Wisconsin-Parkside Box 2000 Kenosha, Wisconsin 53141 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 16:09:59 -0400 From: "Carl H. Snyder" Subject: Paper 2 - CHS: Vee diagrams I'm not familiar with vee diagrams and would like to learn a little about them. An AltaVista search turned up only http://coe.tnstate.edu/www_root/www_coe/explorers/vee.html which doesn't help much. After looking at that site I still don't know what they are, how they are constructed, or how they are used. Can any explain concisely (and with as few technical terms as possible) what they are and how they are used, or offer a Web site or other readily available reference? I would ask that the information be sent directly to me, but since there might be others in the same situation a *brief* posting might be useful. Carl H. Snyder Internet: CSNYDER@miami.edu Chemistry Department Phone: (305)-284-2174 University of Miami FAX: (305)-284-4571 Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA http://www.miami.edu/chm/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 15:19:09 -0500 From: G L Carlson Subject: paper 2 LC comments on 3 posed questions Professor Eubanks has posed three interesting and very specific questions about assessment in chemistry. I'll give personal answers to those three questions, in the hope that others will add their views. I am not an expert on assessment, and this fact has kept me from jumping into the discussion so far, but perhaps there are other timid lurkers out there who will add to this. >>1. Is specific attention to assessing conceptual understanding something we should be spending time on, and if so, do we ... have any idea about how to do the job?<< Yes, unless our sole contribution to higher learning as teachers is to pour miscellaneous facts into empty vessels, conceptual understanding is an important part of what we should be doing. In the past, conceptual understanding has been only an implicit part of what we taught: if we took care of the facts, the students would make their own connections and conceptual leaps without explicit help, developing naturally as they progressed through the curriculum. Assessment of this kind of development, I believe, has been minimal. I think it's possible to assess conceptual development by, for example, describing a general *new* situation which the student has the tools to understand and asking the student to construct an answer or answers--on paper, orally, or in a lab situation. I try to do this inan organic chemistry laboratory course with exam questions that require the students to take several ideas from different experiments as well as from previous chemistry courses to arrive at a solution. Usually these questions work well enough so that about 30% of the students get full credit; however I usually get student comments at the end of the semester that exams were unfair, since they "covered" material not specifically discussed in class. (Total students in any one semester, about 30) >>Should laboratory knowledge be separately assessed from knowledge gained in the classroom; and, if so, how?<< Yes, definitely. Assess it. Separately from regular lecture classes. How? That's much harder to decide. It will depend largely on the goals and objectives for the individual class that you (presumably) have thought out very carefully. In an upper division class, where you have a set of committed students, you might use hands-on lab experiments where students are given a question to answer and must decide for themselves how to tackle it. If hands-on lab work for assessment doesn't seem practical, perhaps just asking them to develop a protocol for tackling the question is sufficient. In either case, the point is to make the *student* decide how to solve the question. I am assuming here that the teaching of a specific skill can be considered a pass-no-pass situation, and it is what you want to do with it (again, conceptual) that is being tested. I find the same question for general chem and pre-nursing classes (which I am also involved in) somewhat more difficult to address. Especially in the pre-nursing classes, demonstrating manipulative skills in chemistry problems seems hard to justify. Yet I find that most of our goals in these classes seem to stress these micro-skills, and avoid the broader, conceptual skills concerned in how to approach real-life type problems. This points to a need at our university to review these goals soon... >>Is it reasonable and appropriate for us to incorporate more material on how chemistry is done in our introductory chemistry classes, and if so, what do we drop?<< I think I've answered this question to my own satifaction in the previous paragraph. Yes, include more "how" information but include it in the laboratory, where students get to do something with their hands, and answer questions by collecting data. Discard some of the cookbook experiments which they don't remember anyway, in favor of inquiry based labs. Even in general chem, the skills you expect them to bring to the next course are few in number. Concentrate on using them to address a problem for which they develop their own directions. Perhaps the problem is directly related to lecture material, perhaps it is totally different. This comment seems to have become unreasonably long. Let me close by noting that in spite of my interest in "conceptual" understanding, I don't find anything wrong with traditional lectures that impart information. In order to see further, our students are going to have to stand on the shoulders of the giants that preceded them, and I don't see a lot of need for them to re-invent the wheel in every class. But any technique that develops their ability to take that next step is worth a try, and that's why I'm following this entire conference with great interest. Lynn Carlson Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Parkside Box 2000 Kenosha, WI 53141-2000 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 13:24:18 -0700 From: Kirk McMichael Subject: Re: Paper 2 - CHS: Vee diagrams Carl H. Snyder wrote: > > I'm not familiar with vee diagrams and would like to learn a little about > them. An AltaVista search turned up only > http://coe.tnstate.edu/www_root/www_coe/explorers/vee.html > which doesn't help much. After looking at that site I still don't know > what they are, how they are constructed, or how they are used. > > Can any explain concisely (and with as few technical terms as possible) > what they are and how they are used, or offer a Web site or other readily > available reference? I would ask that the information be sent directly to > me, but since there might be others in the same situation a *brief* posting > might be useful. > Carl: I was curious about the same thing, so I followed up on Marcy Town's recent post and used the JChemEd web index at to see what Mary Nakhleh had written. Her paper in JChemEd 71, 1994 (the March issue) discusses both V-diagrams and concept maps. I've only begun to look at it, but it looks like the place to start. Hope this helps ................................................................ Kirk McMichael kmc@wsu.edu Department of Chemistry Office (509) 335-3363 Washington State University FAX (509) 335-8867 PO Box 644630 Home (509) 332-2224 Pullman, WA 99164-4630 USA ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 13:43:07 -0700 From: Barbara Murray Subject: Re: Paper 2 - CHS: Vee diagrams Carl H. Snyder wrote: > > I'm not familiar with vee diagrams and would like to learn a little > about them. An AltaVista search turned up only > http://coe.tnstate.edu/www_root/www_coe/explorers/vee.html > which doesn't help much. After looking at that site I still don't know > what they are, how they are constructed, or how they are used. > > Can any explain concisely (and with as few technical terms as possible) > what they are and how they are used, or offer a Web site or other > readily available reference? I was waiting 'til I read all the messages to see if anyone explained vee diagrams since I have never heard of them. So I'm glad I'm not alone. Please do post to the list! On another topic, we teach our second semester of general chemistry as a lab based course with no lectures at all. The students work in groups on several project labs in the semester. We have been trying to figure out a way to assess whether they are learning more than the old traditional lectures taught them. We do use the ACS general chemistry exam and have for several years, but the results are inconclusive. Any ideas? All this talk about assessment is fascinating but no one seems to know _how_ to assess whether the students are learning. I teach organic chemistry and want to put more technology and multimedia in my class, but _how_ does one really assess whether the students are learning more? Better? Enjoying it more? Learning more thinking skills? We, I think, can all agree that assessment is good, but _how_, other than hour exams, does one assess progress? -- *********************************************************************** Barbara Murray bmurray@uor.edu Chemistry Department 909-793-2121 ext 2374 University of Redlands FAX 909-793-2029 1200 E Colton, PO Box 3080 Redlands, CA 92373-0999 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 16:48:10 +0100 From: Dwaine Eubanks Subject: Re: P2 - JAC: On BT use of ACS Examinations I agree with Jim Carroll that it is not appropriate to give a series of ACS end-of-course exams (instrumental, inorganic, organic, or whatever) as part of exit exams for undergraduate chemistry majors. Each of these exams tests detailed knowledge, whereas exit assessment should be much broader in coverage. The ACS Exams Institute does not have an exit exam for chemistry, nor do we intend to produce one. Talk about a devisive issue! ----------------------------------------------- >To >> >1. Do you use ACS Examinations in Your Courses? >> >2. If so, why? and If not, why don't you? >Brian Tissue responded >> ... The students also did not like the standard exam because it >> was much broader in coverage than the course. > >I have used this and other ACS examinations. Especially with >Instrumental and Inorganic examinations I emphasize to students that >the exams cover topics we have not, that courses are designed >differently but should give comparable overall sophistication. For >each question unfamiliar to us, there should be question my classes >answer more easily or more proficiently because we have practiced >that skill more. I believe it; results with my students at two >schools seem to bear this out; most importantly perhaps, students buy >this idea. > >> I think the Instrumental Methods exam would be useful as part of a >> series of senior exit exams to assess our whole curriculum (which >> we do not now do). > >I'm responding to discourage this use of the ACS Exams. With the >urging of the assessment consultants hired by the administration, we >do use an exit exam as one part of our program assessment. This >subject area exam is designed to assess the whole curriculum, and is >presumed to do a better job than a collection of ACS exams, which >instructors are free to use for their own objectives as each desires. >(Or not use if the exam is inconsistent with their course objectives >- poorly written for them.) Use of a broad chemistry exam avoids >the trap of a muffin-tin view of the students' education, viewing >curriculum modifications as if each course stood alone. > >Jim Carroll Phone (402) 554-3639 >Chemistry Department Dept (402) 554-2651 >University of Nebraska at Omaha FAX (402) 554-3888 >Omaha, NE 68182-0109 jcarroll@unomaha.edu I. Dwaine Eubanks Director, ACS DivCHED Examinations Institute Professor, Department of Chemistry Clemson University Clemson SC 29634-1913 eubanki@clemson.edu Voice: 864-656-1394 FAX: 864-656-1250 http://chemistry.clemson.edu/ChemDocs/eubanksd.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 13:49:22 -0700 From: Trent Nordmeyer Subject: Paper 2 - Comment on Standardized Testing Donald Rosenthal wrote: > ....For the most part, I did not use ACS Examinations. > I remember we did use them once to help the Examinations Institute > establish norms. > They have occassionally been used at Clarkson as part of our graduate > placement exams. Why not? - > Generally, I don't like multiple choice questions and dislike > multiple choice examinations even more. > I have used multiple choice questions more frequently in teaching > General Chemistry courses than in teaching analytical chemistry courses. > Usually, I believe I can prepare examinations which better test > the concepts which I consider important. > I usually dealt with ten to forty students. > However, I will admit that ACS tests do provide an opportunity > to compare your students and your courses with national norms. > This can be useful. I would like to expound on something Donald hit on, namely, that fact the he prefers writing exams that better test those concepts which are important to him as an individual scientist. I agree. It seems that every chemist has developed differently given the experiences he/she has encountered and has a different view of what is important in chemistry. Some teachers did well as students on classwork, others excelled in the lab or both. Therefore, part of the problem of standardizing assessment is that each teacher has his/her own idea of what it means to be a chemist and tends to judge each student on how well they match their own standards. It seems that there is no right or wrong in different approaches just differences with certain advantages/disadvantages. The point I'm trying to make is that there is a lot of diversity among the knowledge/experience we possess as a body of chemists and I feel the important thing as teachers is to provide a representation of what the field of chemistry is. Perhaps, standardized testing inherently limits the expression of this diversity. Another potential concern is that the new generation of scientists may only acquire a certain set of knowledge/skills which could ultimately limit scientific progress through omission of other knowledge/skills. I understand the concern that there is just too much material to present in a modern chemistry course, but there is an answer. Teach it all. But don't teach it all to one class. Everyone teach what is important to him/her. The outcome will be that the new generation of scientists as a whole will possess those ideas needed to propagate scientific discovery. I think part of the beauty of science is that we use so many different approaches to reach the same answer. We are not just perpetuating scientific facts but methods by which scientific facts are discovered. I realize there is only one method, the "scientific method" but there are many different approaches to problem solving that are consistent with this method. Disclaimer: Being a newcomer to the field of teaching, I have not formulated any answers as of yet as to how best assess student performance. Go easy on me. Trent Nordmeyer Postdoc/Appearing soon at: University of Wisconsin-Stout Menomonie, WI 54751 tenordme@uci.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 17:18:36 -0400 From: John Woolcock Subject: Re: paper 2 LC comments on 3 posed questions Lynn Carlson repsonded to one of the question posed by Prof. Eubanks: >>Should laboratory knowledge be separately assessed from knowledge gained in the classroom; and, if so, how?<< >Yes, definitely. Assess it. Separately from regular lecture classes. >How? That's much harder to decide. It will depend largely on the goals and >objectives for the individual class that you (presumably) have thought out >very carefully. Unless your institution has adopted a new curriculum model recently it is unlikely that the goals and objectives for a lab course have been reviewed, let alone thought out recently. At our institution the goals and objectives for labs in our introductory course has not been reviewed in at least 15 or more years. My favorite reference on the topic of goals for lab courses is the late Miles Pickering's "What Goes On In Students' Heads in Lab.", JCE: 1987, p. 521. I going to get it out again re-read it and see if I can decide what my goals and objectives are for my lab courses! *************************************** John Woolcock Chemistry Dept. Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana, PA 15705 Email: woolcock@grove.iup.edu Phone: (412) 357-4828 FAX: (412) 357-5700 http://www.iup.edu/ch *************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 17:13:30 -0400 From: David Parker Subject: Organize your messages in Netscape Michael Chejlava wrote: > > ...I have a practical question. Does anyone have a good way of > organizing the 100+ e-mail messages. I am using Netscape for e-mail. Making sub-folders in Netscape Mail is a pain. Here goes: 1. In Win95 using Explore or My Computer, find your Netscape folder. Find the Mail folder within that has a file called "Inbox.snm" in it. Many arrangements of sub-folders exist so you'll have to hunt or just "Find" the "inbox.snm" file. Mine was in \Netscape\user\myname\mail !! 2. Single click on the Mail folder, under File click New, and make a folder and name it Conf97. 3. Single click on the Conf97 folder, under file click New, but this time slide down the menu that opens to "Text Document" to open a new file. Rename it Paper 1 or whatever you like. It will complain about no extension -- ignore it as usual. 4. Repeat step 3 until you have as many files as you want. I opened enough for the four papers. 5. Load a fresh Mail Viewer from Netscape Browser and viola, you have a Conf97 folder with a + box next to it. Open it to see Papers 1-4. Drag and drop messages in place as their subject line tells you. Note! Mail lives in files, not as files in folders. Odd, no? Just try to drag a message into your new Conf97 FOLDER and it will puke out. "Conf97" is a Windows FOLDER, "Paper 1" is a FILE. Remember that "inbox.snm" is a single file that holds all of your delivered mail. Time to drag out that Macintosh and see how it SHOULD have been done. -- Dr. David Parker Tidewater Community College Chesapeake, VA 23320 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 17:15:29 -0400 From: "Dr. Wendy Elcesser" Subject: Re: paper 2 LC comments on 3 posed questions At 03:19 PM 6/12/97 -0500, Lynn Carlson wrote: > >I think it's possible to assess conceptual development by, for example, >describing a general *new* situation which the student has the tools to >understand and asking the student to construct an answer or answers--on >paper, >orally, or in a lab situation. I try to do this inan organic chemistry >laboratory course with exam questions that require the students to take >several >ideas from different experiments as well as from previous chemistry >courses to >arrive at a solution. Usually these questions work well enough so that >about >30% of the students get full credit; however I usually get student >comments at >the end of the semester that exams were unfair, since they "covered" >material >not specifically discussed in class. (Total students in any one semester, >about >30) > I try to capitalize on what students _already_ know (or rather already _should_ know) from previous courses in my senior-level Advanced Inorganic Chemistry course. As I am often disappointed by what students carry from course to course, in order to force some, albeit vague, recollections from P-Chem or Quant (or even Gen Chem), I have the students first answer directed questions which answers we then use to "start" the discussion of the advanced topic (e.g., acid-base chemistry, molecular orbital theory). This way the material is really "covered" and the exams are "fair." The coverage is minimal and serves as a reminder that they cannot forget concepts they already have encountered in the curriculum. I have to sacrifice some time to this sort of review process, but I believe the students are finally realizing that the chemistry curriculum isn't as compartmentalized as they have believed (or, perhaps, has been practiced by our department). How can we better integrate the undergraduate curriculum? Wendy Lou Elcesser Department of Chemistry Indiana University of Pennsylvania 900 Maple Street Indiana, PA 15701 endyw@grove.iup.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 15:30:51 -0700 From: Barbara Murray Subject: Re: P2 - JAC: On BT use of ACS Examinations James A. Carroll wrote: > > With the > urging of the assessment consultants hired by the administration, we > do use an exit exam as one part of our program assessment. This > subject area exam is designed to assess the whole curriculum, and is > presumed to do a better job than a collection of ACS exams, which > instructors are free to use for their own objectives as each desires. Did your department create your exit exam? If not, where did you get it? We have been using the chemistry GRE as a sort of exit exam, but the results have been disappointing. Does anyone else out there use some sort of overall exam for their graduating seniors? *********************************************************************** Barbara Murray bmurray@uor.edu Chemistry Department 909-793-2121 ext 2374 University of Redlands FAX 909-793-2029 1200 E Colton, PO Box 3080 Redlands, CA 92373-0999 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 15:50:18 -0700 From: Stephen James Hawkes Subject: Re: Paper 2 - Comment on Standardized Testing Two comments. It is hard to test higher level objectives with multiple choice questions, but it can be done. It makes multiple testing feasible and allows the use of Personalised System of Instruction (PSI) with large classes. It is not standardised testing that limits the expression of diversity,but the standard curriculum of introductory chemistry which is stabilised by the need to sell textbooks, and the conservatism of chemistry teachers. The curriculum contains dramatic errors, and much useless material, and omits material that students would find useful. Part of the problem is the belief expressed here that teachers teach what they consider important. We need to teach what students will find valuable. This is hard to establish, and I have spent years figuring it out and expect to spend more. What a specific teacher considers is important is usually the material the teacher learned at the same point in his/her education. Stephen Hawkes ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Paper 2 - Comment on Standardized Testing Author: Trent Nordmeyer at Internet_Gateway Date: 6/12/97 1:49 PM Donald Rosenthal wrote: > ....For the most part, I did not use ACS Examinations. > I remember we did use them once to help the Examinations Institute > establish norms. > They have occassionally been used at Clarkson as part of our graduate > placement exams. Why not? - > Generally, I don't like multiple choice questions and dislike > multiple choice examinations even more. > I have used multiple choice questions more frequently in teaching > General Chemistry courses than in teaching analytical chemistry courses. > Usually, I believe I can prepare examinations which better test > the concepts which I consider important. > I usually dealt with ten to forty students. > However, I will admit that ACS tests do provide an opportunity > to compare your students and your courses with national norms. > This can be useful. I would like to expound on something Donald hit on, namely, that fact the he prefers writing exams that better test those concepts which are important to him as an individual scientist. I agree. It seems that every chemist has developed differently given the experiences he/she has encountered and has a different view of what is important in chemistry. Some teachers did well as students on classwork, others excelled in the lab or both. Therefore, part of the problem of standardizing assessment is that each teacher has his/her own idea of what it means to be a chemist and tends to judge each student on how well they match their own standards. It seems that there is no right or wrong in different approaches just differences with certain advantages/disadvantages. The point I'm trying to make is that there is a lot of diversity among the knowledge/experience we possess as a body of chemists and I feel the important thing as teachers is to provide a representation of what the field of chemistry is. Perhaps, standardized testing inherently limits the expression of this diversity. Another potential concern is that the new generation of scientists may only acquire a certain set of knowledge/skills which could ultimately limit scientific progress through omission of other knowledge/skills. I understand the concern that there is just too much material to present in a modern chemistry course, but there is an answer. Teach it all. But don't teach it all to one class. Everyone teach what is important to him/her. The outcome will be that the new generation of scientists as a whole will possess those ideas needed to propagate scientific discovery. I think part of the beauty of science is that we use so many different approaches to reach the same answer. We are not just perpetuating scientific facts but methods by which scientific facts are discovered. I realize there is only one method, the "scientific method" but there are many different approaches to problem solving that are consistent with this method. Disclaimer: Being a newcomer to the field of teaching, I have not formulated any answers as of yet as to how best assess student performance. Go easy on me. Trent Nordmeyer Postdoc/Appearing soon at: University of Wisconsin-Stout Menomonie, WI 54751 tenordme@uci.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 18:55:25 -0400 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: tjz - paper2 - goals and assessment It seems to me that we are somewhat adrift with respect to assessment. By examining exams our goal appears to me to be the spectrum of content in a defined area of study. Is this the goal? I prefer the critical thinking as chemists and preparing for life learning goals as chemists. I structure the classes this way so my students don't do so well on the traditional standardized exam. I can't push as much content into a semester. I think that without clear goals we will continue as we have all along. Goals are not a list of content items. They are not a list of pedagogical tools and practices. Goals are to me those things that help me to write perfomance objectives for a lesson and a course. Tha is, why am I doing this topic. Currently I can write content objectives. That is what do I want the students to do at the end of this lesson. I am struggling with the broader issue of goals. Someone wrote today about the organic chemistry exam for the dental students and other students. There must have been something about the goals in the development of the organic test for dental students that was fundamentally different from that for medical students. The authors of the dental exam seemed to be using organic chemistry to assess a different set of goals. Hmm.... Theresa Theresa Julia Zielinski Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Niagara University Niagara University, NY 14109 theresaz@localnet.com http://www.niagara.edu/~tjz/ 716-639-0762 (H - voice, voice mail and fax) 716-286-8257 (O - voice and voice mail) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 18:55:24 -0400 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: tjz-voice in the wilderness I have heard some teachers describe a way to get reform going. It goes like this. Find a course that no one else wants to teach, football chemistry for example. Teach it well and use the best tools. There have been success using this approach. Of course you can always just push the limit in your own courses. Most important, don't despair. Theresa Theresa Julia Zielinski Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Niagara University Niagara University, NY 14109 theresaz@localnet.com http://www.niagara.edu/~tjz/ 716-639-0762 (H - voice, voice mail and fax) 716-286-8257 (O - voice and voice mail) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 18:55:27 -0400 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: tjz - paper 2 - comment on standardized testing Trent Nordmeyer wrote today "Teach it all. But don't teach it all to one class. Everyone teach what is important to him/her. The outcome will be that the new generation of scientists as a whole will possess those ideas needed to propagate scientific discovery." Facinating. Just think of the collaboration that will be necessary. No more will we think of the chemist as the lone scientist working in a lab filled with bottles and glassware. Nice work Trent Theresa Theresa Julia Zielinski Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Niagara University Niagara University, NY 14109 theresaz@localnet.com http://www.niagara.edu/~tjz/ 716-639-0762 (H - voice, voice mail and fax) 716-286-8257 (O - voice and voice mail) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 20:28:19 -0700 From: Bob Bruner Subject: paper 2. BB: type of test question It is clear from the discussion that many issues are involved in testing. One common lament is how students do just enough to get by. We also lament that students just want "the answers". In some cases we encourage the behavior we lament. Multiple choice (mc) and other short answer questions are fundamentally answer oriented. I do realize that some with large classes find mc tests necessary -- as a practical matter. I also realize that some mc questions are written to encourage thoughtful analysis. Nevertheless, we should recognize that mc is for the convenience of instructors -- and is promoting the wrong message. I ask very few questions that do not require an explanation or "clear work". I tell the students in advance that answers without the requested explanation or work will receive no credit -- and I occasionally have to enforce that. It is important to be consistent in test style. I send my message about what is expected from the beginning. The message is that reasons and logic are more important than answers. Some don't want to accept it at first, but then catch on, and do better; I can deal with that! Bob Bruner Contra Costa College and Univ Calif Extension, Berkeley -------------------------------- Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 14:42:04 -0700 From: "Pastorek, Christine" Subject: paper 2. CP: Better use of the laboratory for learning The opportunity to use cooperative learning techniques, oral presentations and other one-on-one learning exercises is already built into most chemistry programs starting at the general chemistry level on up through the senior year -most of us just don't make the best use of it. There is a time and a place and a person already scheduled for the job. Every laboratory section in the US seems to be limited to 24 students per teacher-probably dictated by safety issues-we have a small group environment built right into teaching chemistry. This puts chemistry departments in the perfect position to eliminate the lecture format entirely! Being told a nice story about chemistry in a lecture format is, well, entertaining and convenient for the instructor and really very nice, but not at all necessary to the learning process. Guidance and the demonstration of tricks for solving problems by the expert is better delivered one-on-one with the student, not shouted out from the podium. Personal review of the background material is made more convenient for the student by easy access of the material via the WEB. The figures and tables of chemistry maybe better on the WEB, often times interactive and linked to the rest of the world. Personal review is what is needed first if real mastery is to be realized. Real mastery of chemistry is inextricably linked to the hands-on doing of chemistry. The first-hand participation in chemistry takes place in our chemistry laboratories right now-we need to make better use of it. The natural peer pressure that develops in small groups that work together each week is a driving force for mastery that beats any that we try to dictate and it is genuine. The best place to assess the student's learning of chemistry is in the laboratory setting with writing intensive components. Multiple choice tests be gone! Currently I team teach the Integrated Lab for majors and have the luxury of working with a small group of highly motivated students, but I did teach general chemistry for many years. The blooming of the WEB and molecular modeling software on PC's are prime examples of tools available at our fingertips now to improve the materials available for our students. These are new tools they should be using for their personal review of chemistry. I firmly believe that it is our duty to exploit all technology to update the teaching of chemistry. The lab time is the perfect place to implement development. Chris Pastorek Department of Chemistry Oregon State University PastorekC@chem.orst.edu -------------------------------- Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 08:43:06 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 2 - DR: Some References on Conceptual Chemistry Re: Paper 2 - DR: Some References on Conceptual Chemistry, V. Diagrams and Concept Mapping "Concept Learning versus Problem Solving" by Mary B. Nakleh and Richard C. Mitchell J. Chem. Educ. 1993, 70, 190. "Chemical Education Research in the Laboratory Environment" by M. B. Nakleh J. Chem. Educ. 1994, 71, 201. "Students' Models of Matter in the Context of Acid-Base Chemistry" by M. B. Nakleh J. Chem. Educ. 1994, 71, 495. "Successive on Algorithmic and LOCS vs Conceptual Chemistry Examination Questions" by U. Zoller, A. Lubezky, M. B. Nakleh, B. Tessler and Y. J. Dori J. Chem. Educ. 1995, 72, 987. "Narrowing the Gap between Concepts and Algorithms in Freshman Chemistry" by M. B. Nakleh, K. A. Lowrey and R. C. Mitchell J. Chem. Educ. 1996, 73, 758. These references cite other pertinent references. Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699-5810 315-265-9242 ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 08:19:20 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: DR: Course Content and Assessment From: Donald Rosenthal ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU Re: General Discussion - DR: Content and Assessment ===================================================================== Some interesting comments from: "New Directions for General Chemistry" Recommendations of the Task Force on the General Chemistry Curriculum by Baird W. Lloyd and James N. Spencer J. Chem. Educ, 1994, 71, 206 "The tremendous explosion in chemical knowledge and technology continuously alter the manner in which chemists do their work. . . . Computers have changed the way chemistry is done. Therefore, students should be taught from the beginning how to use computers to enhance and assist their learning. Allowing computers to perform the memory and computational skills would free students to perform more demanding intellectual problem solving." "Do not focus attention so completely on the design of innovative instruction that you reach the stage of full implementation before asking the fundamental question: How do we assess the efficacy of the materials we have developed." "Most of the thermodynamics and quantum mechanics are too abstract for general chemistry. Molecular orbital treatments of bonding are, at best, limited and unnecessary. . . . The concept of free energy is poorly, and often incorrectly, introduced in the course. . . . Any concept or principle that can not be introduced with its major characteristics intact should be left for a later course. Any concept introduce should first pass a test of "need to know for now" by students. This way, the number of concepts can be lowered without compromising the integrity of the introductory course." "There is toomuch emphasis on the perceived needs of chemistry majors. An ideal course in introductory chemistry would use the principles of chemistry to rationalize experimental observations and provide a unifying theme." "The zero-base approach assumes that the problem of identifying what should be taught in general chemistry is best answered by examining subjects of importance to non-chemists that require a substantial knowledge of chemistry." ===================================================================== How many of you are teaching course like this to chemistry and non-chemistry majors? How many textbooks are there that emphasize this approach? How many standardized tests for General Chemistry exclude the topics which this report recommends should not be taught? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 09:31:39 -0400 From: "James N. Stevenson" Subject: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment At 08:19 AM 6/21/97 EDT, Don Rosenthal wrote: snip >===================================================================== > >How many of you are teaching course like this to chemistry and non-chemistry >majors? > >How many textbooks are there that emphasize this approach? > >How many standardized tests for General Chemistry exclude the topics >which this report recommends should not be taught? > What determines the content of my general chemistry course is not so much what I would like to have in it but rather the considerable pressure placed on me by the Teacher Education program. The students in that program need the information that will allow them to score well on the Excet test that the State requires for teacher certification. I find it difficult to even get it all in. The idea that >Any concept introduce should first pass a test of "need to know for >now" by students. This way, the number of concepts can be lowered without >compromising the integrity of the introductory course. is not applicable in my situation. I incur the wrath of the education faculty if I eliminate anything that would cause their students to do poorly on the state exam. In a small school such as this, cooperation is the mname of the game. I need the enrollment by the teacher education students in the course to bolster the numbers so that the course remains viable. Therefore the students need to be assured that they will get what they need to do well on the exam. That way the advisors in the teacher education program will recommend chemistry to the students and I will get the enrollment that I need. But I can't lower the number of concepts - I only struggle with the problem of how are they going to remember this for 2 or 3 years until they take their exams. So a lot of what is in the course is "need to know" but only as determined by the state exam preparers. Sincerely, James N. Stevenson E-mail: jims@austin.concordia.edu Concordia University at Austin H.O. 3400 IH35 North; Austin, TX 78705 Phone/voice mail:512-452-7662 Ext. 1209 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 10:56:10 -0400 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: ROP - Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment IMHO, the authors of these recommendation have not really thought through what they have dictated. They have a good point on instructional technology but the remainder is not realistic. Reducing the number of concepts taught to what is "of importance to non-chemists" would leave us with a poor non-majors course. Althoug I cannot expect a detailed knowledge of such topics as quantum mechanics and Gibbs free energy, I can at least impart the basic principles and applications. Question (for anyone): If we leave off most of the subjects from the general chemistry curriculum, who is going to teach them and in which couse? Many students such as mechanical, civil, and electrical engineering will take no other chemistry beyond the two term generl chemistry. I would wonder about any of these without some concept of some of the things we cover in these courses. I saw some disasters caused by mechanical engineers (for lack of basic chemistry background) when I was in industry. On the other hand, think about what teaching soph. organic would be like with a group who had no exposure to bonding and hybridization. I do a lot of remedial work during the first 2 weeks as it is. There is no way I could find time for more. If you remove from one place, it has to go somewhere else. It appears that Lloyd and Spencer would have us engage in a pass the buck action. In case they have not noticed, most of us have a non-majors "chemistry for all" course which focuses on topics "of importance to non-chemists" I wish more students would take the class. It cannot replace general chemistry. One could get the impression that the "task force" has operated in a vacuum without much input from those who actually teach the courses. Using the "ostrich algorthym" (putting your head in the sand and hoping the difficulties will go away) with respect to the problems of undergraduate science will not be sucessful. /* Richard */ #include - - ____ | | _ | | Organic Chemistry / \ |_| | | || CAI Programming / \ | | / \ || Pizza / \ / \ | | _||_ Star Trek (_________) (_____) |______| _/____\_ Doberman Pinschers --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Richard Pendarvis, Ph.D. 3001 W. College Road | | Associate Professor of Chemistry Ocala, FL 32608 | | Central Florida Community College EMAIL: afn02809@afn.org | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 18:41:59 UT From: "William (Bill) Pfeiffer" Subject: WFP - Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment On June 21, Richard Pendarvis wrote (heavily edited) Question (for anyone): If we leave off most of the subjects from the general chemistry curriculum, who is going to teach them and in which couse? (more editing) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Richard Pendarvis, Ph.D. 3001 W. College Road | | Associate Professor of Chemistry Ocala, FL 32608 | | Central Florida Community College EMAIL: afn02809@afn.org | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- My recent experience with goals and assessment methodology forces me to ask the question differently. How do we want our students to THINK about the world when they EXIT our general chemistry course? Can we distill what we want to accomplish into one or, at most, three BEHAVIORS that they will show when they leave us? What is it about we chemists that causes us to have the view of the world that we have? Shouldn't we be trying to get our students to approach problems in the same fashion, or (at least) by using some of the same tools? If we can agree on the central features of the way that chemists think, then it seems to me that much of the subject matter that we discuss in our introductory course becomes a collection of tools for facilitating a way of thinking about the world. We may be putting the cart before the horse by arguing about whether to include stoichiometry, thermodynamics, orbital hybridization, etc. in the intro course. (I think that most of the "training of majors" can happen in later courses.) My biggest frustration with my general chemistry students is that I have an AWFUL time getting them to think microscopically about macroscopic phenomena. When I try to articulate a single goal for the course, it relates to that issue in some way. At Utica College we are presently trying to address the problem by emphasizing atomic and molecular structure much more heavily in the first semester (including experimental evidence like nmr and ir). The jury's still out on how we are doing...assessment is a whole new issue! 'Sorry to rattle on... Bill Pfeiffer William F. Pfeiffer, Professor of Chemistry Utica College of Syracuse University 1600 Burrstone Rd. Utica, NY 13502 (315) 792-3071 FAX: (315) 792-3292 wpfeiffer@utica.ucsu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 16:59:10 -0400 From: Mike Epstein Subject: Re: ME response to DR: Course Content and Assessment At 09:31 AM 6/21/97 -0400, you wrote: >At 08:19 AM 6/21/97 EDT, Don Rosenthal wrote: >snip >>===================================================================== >> >>How many of you are teaching course like this to chemistry and non-chemistry >>majors? >> In the second-semester general chemistry course that I taught last year as an adjunct, I was faced with a class that was 90+% non-chemistry majors ... mostly biology, biochemistry, and nursing. Fortunately, the professor for whom I was substituting said "teach it the way you think best" and there was no pressure to follow his exact schedule. I ended up putting a heavy emphasis on chemical equilibrium, properties of solutions, chemical kinetics, acids and bases, electrochemistry and analytical chemistry (the latter which wasn't even in the textbook ... Zumdahl) at the expense of a decreased emphasis on entropy, free energy, and an overview of the elements. Essentially, it was what I thought the students in these areas needed to know. >>How many textbooks are there that emphasize this approach? >> I had to use Zumdahl's "Chemistry", because that was the standard text, but considering the audience, I would have preferred using something like Bloomfield's "Chemistry and the Living Organism" and expanding on some standard general chemistry topics that might not be adequately covered in this text using my own notes (which I did anyway using the standard text to make some topics more understandable). By the way, considering the topics of Paper #5, those of you with Bloomfield might want to look on page 167 :-) Mike E. Mike Epstein Research Chemist National Institute of Standards and Technology Michael.Epstein@nist.gov http://esther.la.asu.edu/sas/epstein/epstein.html .................................................... From tomorrow on, I shall be sad - from tomorrow on! Not today; no! Today I will be glad. And every day, no matter how bitter it be, I will say: From tomorrow on, I shall be sad, not today!" Motele - Theresienstadt .................................................... ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 16:17:04 -0500 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment At 09:31 AM 6/21/97 -0400, you wrote: >I can't lower the number of concepts - I only struggle with the >problem of how are they going to remember this for 2 or 3 years until they >take their exams. > >So a lot of what is in the course is "need to know" but only as determined >by the state exam preparers. >Sincerely, >James N. Stevenson E-mail: jims@austin.concordia.edu >Concordia University at Austin H.O. >3400 IH35 North; Austin, TX 78705 Phone/voice mail:512-452-7662 Ext. 1209 There is no way that any of my students would remember much for two years unless they are constantly using the information in their daily activities. What an unhappy situation to find one's self in. Are these the science major teachers or the other teachers in the program? Theresa Theresa Julia Zielinski Professor of Chemistry, Niagara University Visiting Professor of Chemistry, U. Wisconsin - Madison ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 16:17:05 -0500 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: tjz- Re: ROP - Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment May I ask if you have a copy of the recommendation and if you have read them recently? In my opinion the ideas expressed there are well thought out and were supported by the ACS. Both authors are thoughtfull and dedicated educators. The same opinions are expressed in various publications by Sigma Xi and the ACS and other bodies of scientists involved with setting the directions for science education. Curious in Wisconsin Theresa Theresa Julia Zielinski Professor of Chemistry, Niagara University Visiting Professor of Chemistry, U. Wisconsin - Madison ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 20:24:13 -0400 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: Re: tjz- Re: ROP - Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment On Sat, 21 Jun 1997, Theresa Julia Zielinski wrote: > May I ask if you have a copy of the recommendation and if you have read them > recently? In my opinion the ideas expressed there are well thought out and > were supported by the ACS. Both authors are thoughtfull and dedicated > educators. The same opinions are expressed in various publications by Sigma > Xi and the ACS and other bodies of scientists involved with setting the > directions for science education. > > Curious in Wisconsin > I have a copy of the recommendations and I have read them. I have been an ACS member for 25 years and was elected to full Sigma Xi membership while in graduate school (but never paid my dues afterward). I do not recall anyone ever asking me what I thought about any of these things. I feel that most committees represent mainly themselves. I agree with those who wonder what is actually gained from exposure to many of the topics in our general chemistry classes. I am reasonably sure that those with some exposure to the topics will know more about them than those who have not. Some other benefits include such things as self discipline, study skills, problem solving, data analysis, self confidence etc. Does anyone know how many actual teachers were surveyed to come up with these radical recomendations? /* Richard */ #include - - ____ | | _ | | Organic Chemistry / \ |_| | | || CAI Programming / \ | | / \ || Pizza / \ / \ | | _||_ Star Trek (_________) (_____) |______| _/____\_ Doberman Pinschers --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Richard Pendarvis, Ph.D. 3001 W. College Road | | Associate Professor of Chemistry Ocala, FL 32608 | | Central Florida Community College EMAIL: afn02809@afn.org | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------- Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 14:24:06 -0400 From: "James N. Stevenson" Subject: Re: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment At 04:17 PM 6/21/97 -0500, you wrote: >There is no way that any of my students would remember much for two years >unless they are constantly using the information in their daily activities. > >What an unhappy situation to find one's self in. > >Are these the science major teachers or the other teachers in the program? > Thanks, Theresa, Perhaps I sounded too negative. There are two concentrations the teacher education students could take; Physical Science or Science Composite (I haven't developed enough courses to offer a chemistry specialization). In both of the student could take general chemistry and perhaps one semester of organic and then an array of other courses without seeing chemistry again until the certification exam. The students in the other concentrations (english, math, social studies, etc.) would probably not choose chemistry for the core requirement in science, and would have only the professional development and area of specialization sections on their exams. Sincerely, James N. Stevenson E-mail: jims@austin.concordia.edu Concordia University at Austin or: ctxstevenjn@crf.cuis.edu 3400 IH35 North Phone/voice mail:512-452-7662 Ext.1209 Austin, TX 78705-2799 Fax:512-459-8517 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 16:04:39 -0500 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: Re: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment So Jim, could it be that the content of the course is not so important but being able to learn science in an ongoing fashion would be more beneficial for pre-teachers. What level of teaching are the teachers preparing for? I sometimes think that so many of them think they can't do science and that if we can help them get over this misperception they would be better in the classroom with younger students who pick up on teacher attitudes so quickly. What do you think? Theresa Theresa Julia Zielinski Professor of Chemistry, Niagara University Visiting Professor of Chemistry, U. Wisconsin - Madison ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 22 Jun 1997 23:22:57 -0400 From: "Lynn E. Maelia" Subject: Re: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment >So Jim, could it be that the content of the course is not so important = but >being able to learn science in an ongoing fashion would be more = beneficial >for pre-teachers. >What level of teaching are the teachers preparing for? >I sometimes think that so many of them think they can't do science and = that >if we can help them get over this misperception they would be better in = the >classroom with younger students who pick up on teacher attitudes so = quickly. >What do you think? >Theresa I have been working with teachers, trying to change attitudes about = science. I have been shocked by the number of elementary school = teachers who don't even bother to teach science because they think they = can't do science. In those cases, students don't get _negative_ = attitudes about science. They get nothing. It just is never done - it = must not be important! How sad that the youngest learners lose their = curiosity for the world around them because it isn't as important as = everything else they learn in school. I think you are right - it is the process of science that the teachers = need. They need to feel comfortable using science to answer their own = questions. They need to see that it IS important. They need to see = that science isn't memorizing facts - it is a way of thinking and = learning. Then they can teach their students to be scientists, too. Lynn Maelia Department of Chemistry Mount Saint Mary College Newburgh, New York maelia@msmc.edu maelia@sprynet.com -------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 09:28:07 -0400 From: "L. Peter Gold" Subject: Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment At 08:19 AM 6/21/97 EDT, Donald Rosenthal wrote: > >"New Directions for General Chemistry" >Recommendations of the Task Force on the General Chemistry Curriculum >by Baird W. Lloyd and James N. Spencer >J. Chem. Educ, 1994, 71, 206 > >"There is toomuch emphasis on the perceived needs of chemistry majors. >An ideal course in introductory chemistry would use the principles of >chemistry to rationalize experimental observations and provide a unifying >theme." > I disagree. If we were teaching a majors-only general chemistry course we could and would be a lot more innovative. In fact, we would probably give a course that "would use the principles of chemistry to rationalize experimental observations and provide a unifying theme." In fact, our first-semester course is required by about fifty different four-year degree programs; almost all of them have ideas about what chemistry their students should have. There are also countless sets of professional school admissions requirements, professional license requirements, accreditation requirements, etc. All of this doesn't mean that our course remains unchanged. It does mean that changes are gradual. Roughly half of our students plan to major in one of the engineering fields; the other half plan to major in some basic or applied biological science. Over the past several years we have been gradually introducing more on modern materials; we also start the course with organic chemistry so we can use organic examples throughout. We have been decreasing some of the physical chemistry (e.g. the Clausius-Clapeyron equation) and some of the traditional descriptive inorganic chemistry. ------------------------------------------------------ L. Peter Gold phone (814) 865-7694 Professor of Chemistry fax (814) 865-3314 Penn State University 152 Davey Lab Internet: LPG@PSU.EDU University Park PA 16802 ------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 23:18:11 EDT From: "George I. Loeb" Subject: Re: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment About lower grade science teaching: I have come to believe that the lower grade teachers have not had exposure duri ng their training to scientific apparatus enoughto feel comfortable with it, an d this didcomfort can be apparent to the kids. Therefore, I am trying to do sci ence with things they have around the house so that they can prctice in their k itchen and become comfortable with their equipment beforte doing thgeir thing i n class. Cooking and ironing, gardening, etc. are candidates. I would appreciate comment from others who are doing this kind of thing. -------------------------------- Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 09:09:11 -0500 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: Re: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment What a wonderful idea. You may want to check out the book by Carl Snyder called " the extraordinary Chemistry of ordinary things." He does lots of this in the book and the demo video that accompanies it. Using everyday things is much less intimidating and brings the science to life. Cheers Theresa Theresa Julia Zielinski Professor of Chemistry, Niagara University Visiting Professor of Chemistry, U. Wisconsin - Madison ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 10:34:49 -0400 From: Michael Epstein Subject: Re: ME comment on TJZ: Course Content and Assessment I used "The Extraordinary Chemistry of Ordinary Things" in general chemistry to provide supplementary examples of topics we were covering in Zumdahl. While I didn't have the video, I introduced some of the topics by using a 60 second commerial from the 50s and 60s, which lightened up the atmosphere a bit. There are a number of CD-ROM compilations of commericals (.avi or .mov files) available covering a number of *ordinary things* such as antacids, laxatives, etc... and they are hilarious. ME > ======================================================== < > Mike Epstein < > Adjunct Professor, Department of Science < > Mount Saint Mary's College, Emmitsburg, MD < > [Opinions expressed are mine ... not necessarily theirs] < > PHONE: (301) 447-5376 FAX: (301) 447-5755 < > epstein@msmary.edu mse@enh.nist.gov < > WWW Home Page: http://esther.la.asu.edu/sas/epstein/epstein.html < > ======================================================== < > "From tomorrow on, I shall be sad - from tomorrow on! < > Not today; no! Today I will be glad. < > And every day, no matter how bitter it be, I will say: < > From tomorrow on, I shall be sad, not today!" < > Motele - Theresienstadt < > ======================================================== < ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 10:47:37 -0400 From: "Thomas E. Hagan" Subject: Re: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment George- regarding teaching science to pre-secondary students- I fully agree that the teachers themselves may have some anxiety about teaching science which of course may be "picked up" by the students. Recently I participated in a two day summer camp with students from the 5th and 6th grades. I conducted a (bio)-chemistry experiment which investigated the respiration of yeast using food right off the grocery shelf. The yeast was bakers yeast. To evaluate how food type affected the rate of respiration, I had the students place balloons over the flasks to capture the CO2 which was given off. This was especially useful because it provided immediate visual gratification. (I get the same reaction from my own students when we conduct a similar, though more complex experiment in my introductory biochem lab for non-majors.) It would be quite easy to adapt this type of experiment exclusively to materials found in the home. Hope this helps. Tom Hagan Department of Chemistry Elizabethtown College Elizabethtown, PA ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 11:29:10 -0400 From: Michael Epstein Subject: ME comment on Course Content and Assessment I would be curious to know the reaction of some of the list members to the following quote from Gabor Levy's article "Deconstruction and Construction" in the May 1997 edition of American Laboratory. "Teachers, as their professors in academe, are frustrated by exact natural sciences, which, although always evolving, are largely immune to arbitrary individualistic revolutionary revision and linguistic manipulation. And the teachers strike back. For this reason, when you inquire about chemistry, a grade schooler will not come up with penicillin or nylon as an example, but will almost invariably pop up with pesticides or other toxic substances. To them, technology is portrayed as pollution, waste, and garbage." ME > ========================================================< > Mike Epstein < > Adjunct Professor, Department of Science < > Mount Saint Mary's College, Emmitsburg, MD < > [Opinions expressed are mine ... not necessarily theirs] < > PHONE: (301) 447-5376 FAX: (301) 447-5755 < > epstein@msmary.edu mse@enh.nist.gov < > WWW Home Page: http://esther.la.asu.edu/sas/epstein/epstein.html < > ======================================================== < > "From tomorrow on, I shall be sad - from tomorrow on! < > Not today; no! Today I will be glad. < > And every day, no matter how bitter it be, I will say: < > From tomorrow on, I shall be sad, not today!" < > Motele - Theresienstadt < > ======================================================== < ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 12:05:04 -0700 From: "Pastorek, Christine" Subject: FW: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment There is also "Chemical Magic from the Grocery Store", by Andy Sae, at Eastern New Mexico U. I ordered it direct a last year; I believe it is now published by kandal/Hunt , Dubuque Iowa, 1-800-228-0810. Chris Pastorek Oregon State ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 14:40:24 -0500 From: sc18 Subject: Re: ME comment on Course Content and Assessment Hi, I'm largely just lurking through this conference ("bad joke Dr. Fountain"-240 lb), but I can't resist this message. The problem with constructionism, to every physical scientist at least, is the claim of being a post-epistomological system. Any epistomology raised on the spur of the moment constructs knowledge as validly as any other spur-of-the-moment epistomology. Knowledge constructed from the colors of a rendering in a Hyperchem experiment is as valid as that obtained from knowledge of the energy of the lowest energy conformer. However, as physical scientists we are bound by the canon of reproducibility. It is true that we engage in knowledge construction, but only after we have sufficient knowledge mastery to ensure reproducibility. Thus, no physical scientist can completely embrace constructionism. We would be better off remembering Michael Polanyi's writings on knowing and being, with their attendance to the tacit dimension of knowledge than to completely and uncritically assume a constructionist stance. Pardon me, I just felt a preach coming on. Sincerely, Ken Fountain ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 18:21:52 -0500 From: "Kathleen A. Davis" Subject: Re: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and A National Science Teachers Association has a catalog of inexpensive publications. Many have procedures using apparatus built from hardware and grocery store materials. Alas my favorites are on physics: Evidence of Energy, Taking Charge, Methods of Motion. Kay Davis Alverno College Milwaukee, Wisconsin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Jun 1997 20:00:31 -0400 From: Louise Mary Nolan Subject: Re: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment Hello - While I think your idea of having elementary school teachers do experiments with the things in their kitchens due to their lack of expertise using standard laboratory equipment I believe this should only be done in conjunction with inservice training that teaches them how to use triple beam balances, microscopes,graduated cylinders and the other tools of science. Measurement and the use of scientific instruments are very concrete topics that can be handled extremely well in the elementary schools. Middle school teachers need to have students come to them with basic science skills that they do not have to re-teach. High school teachers should also expect students to come to them proficient in certain skills. Middle and high school teachers will not be able to get done all that is expected of them if they need to spend time teaching tool use and skills they should be reinforcing through application. I also think a large part of the fun of science is using the "real stuff". If teachers are uncomfortable why not use high school students, retirees, or students from a local college. Part of the problem that I see is curriculum has changed. Teachers find more is expected of them and feel they have more to teach. Indeed they do. But if they knew more about what was happening at other levels and were more ready to rely on the teachers at lower levels covering certain things they would find life easier. In Massachusetts there are series of new state frameworks. Children will be tested at the ends of grades 4, 8, and 10. Teachers at these levels can not be expected to do everything to prepare students. We are currently dividing the K-4, 5-8, 9-10, amd 11-12 material so each grade will be responsible for a concrete section. Our teachers are excellent and I believe they see the new responsibilities they will have. LMN ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 09:04:33 -0700 From: Bob Bruner Subject: Re: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment At 08:00 PM 6/27/97 -0400, Louise Mary Nolan wrote: >Hello - > >While I think your idea of having elementary school teachers do experiments >with the things in their kitchens due to their lack of expertise using >standard laboratory equipment I believe this should only be done in >conjunction with inservice training that teaches them how to use triple beam >balances, microscopes,graduated cylinders and the other tools of science. >Measurement and the use of scientific instruments are very concrete topics >that can be handled extremely well in the elementary schools. Middle school >teachers need to have students come to them with basic science skills that >they do not have to re-teach. What are our goals in teaching science to young kids -- most of whom will not become science practitioners? The essence of science is inquiry... asking questions about the natural world, developing approaches, learning to deal with the uncertainties of real data, and so forth. It would be nice if 100% of our citizenry understood the scientific approach. I cannot imagine that very many need to know how to use a triple beam balance. Now of course the young budding scientists do need to measure things, so let them learn the role of measurement when they need to measure something. But whether they use a measuring cup (or even a teaspoon) or a graduated cylinder will have little impact on their scientific development. (I doubt that many find learning how to use a triple beam balance interesting or stimulating.) I teach intro chem at a community college. This is approximately equivalent to high school chem. Yes, it would be nice if my students knew how to use tools. But it would be even nicer if they retained the curiosity so typical of young kids. I can easily teach the tools when needed, but it is hard to re-instill the curiosity if it has already cooled. Bob Bruner Contra Costa College and Univ California Berkeley Extension bbruner@uclink4.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 17:42:10 -0400 From: "James N. Stevenson" Subject: Re: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment At 11:18 PM 6/26/97 EDT, George I. Loeb wrote: >About lower grade science teaching: > >I have come to believe that the lower grade teachers have not had exposure duri >ng their training to scientific apparatus enoughto feel comfortable with it, an >d this didcomfort can be apparent to the kids. Therefore, I am trying to do sci >ence with things they have around the house so that they can prctice in their k >itchen and become comfortable with their equipment beforte doing thgeir thing i >n class. Cooking and ironing, gardening, etc. are candidates. I would >appreciate comment from others who are doing this kind of thing. > While I don't use it, I did seriously consider the little paperback book "Cup and Saucer Chemistry" as a possibility for laboratory exercises that students could do at home, in the kitchen with materials generally found there. I was thinking of a distance learning situation in which the students could not come to the campus for laboratory work. I'm not in my office right now so I don't have the publisher but can get it if anyone is interested. Sincerely, James N. Stevenson E-mail: jims@austin.concordia.edu Concordia University at Austin H.O. 3400 IH35 North; Austin, TX 78705 Phone/voice mail:512-452-7662 Ext. 1209 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jun 1997 18:09:47 -0400 From: "James N. Stevenson" Subject: JNS Re: ME comment on Course Content and Assessment At 11:29 AM 6/27/97 -0400, Michael Epstein wrote: >I would be curious to know the reaction of some of the list members to the >following quote from Gabor Levy's article "Deconstruction and >Construction" in the May 1997 edition of American Laboratory. > >"Teachers, as their professors in academe, are frustrated by exact natural >sciences, which, although always evolving, are largely immune to arbitrary >individualistic revolutionary revision and linguistic manipulation. And >the teachers strike back. For this reason, when you inquire about >chemistry, a grade schooler will not come up with penicillin or nylon as >an example, but will almost invariably pop up with pesticides or other >toxic substances. To them, technology is portrayed as pollution, waste, >and garbage." > The reason they don't come up with penicillin and do come up with pesticides is that no one tells them about the "good" chemistry. The journalists on the TV news and pseudonews (60 min; 20/20 etc.) rarely deal with the real science (multi-step syntheses, structure and property determination, etc.) associated with a "penicillin" story; but you can bet that they will have all the graphic images of polluted streams, toxic waste dumps, belching smokestacks, and billowing clouds of "steam" from a cooling tower (for the anti-nuclear side) when they think that the public needs to know about some antisocial behavior of a "chemical" plant. The journalists and the teachers, in general, suffer from a lack of understanding of what science really is - brought about by a failure to provide the proper emphasis on science in the educational system. The objectives provided by the state (Texas) education agency, which are used to assess students qualification to teach science have nothing to do with the necessary skills and attitudes that students (and the future students of the students who are now in teacher education) will need to utilize to deal with the "chemical" situations that they will face later on. In training students to be teachers of chemistry so that they will pass the certification exam, I have to be sure that they know how many electrons are in a sodium atom but I do not have to be sure that they know how to critically evaluate evidence from an experiement. Sincerely, James N. Stevenson E-mail: jims@austin.concordia.edu Concordia University at Austin H.O. 3400 IH35 North; Austin, TX 78705 Phone/voice mail:512-452-7662 Ext. 1209 -------------------------------- Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 22:07:04 +0000 From: DeGennaro-Al Subject: Re: tjz-Re: JNS Re: DR: Course Content and Assessment <<