Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 06:40:00 EST From: to2 Subject: ChemConf Archive Notice This is perhaps as good a time as any to remind everyone that all the ChemConf listserv discussions are archived and are available in plain ASCII format for each paper separately on the Conference home page. Just click on "Discussion of Paper 1", etc. I update these archives each morning. Incidently, you may be interested to know that we have a total of 837 subscribers to the ChemConf listserv, representing 49 different countries. For those interested in the international participation in the conference, here is a breakdown of countries: * Country Subscribers * ------- ----------- * Argentina 3 * Australia 25 * Austria 1 * Belgium 3 * Brazil 6 * Canada 27 * Chile 3 * China 2 * Czech Republic 2 * Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 1 * Finland 1 * France 2 * Germany 6 * Great Britain 10 * Greece 2 * Hongkong 2 * Hungary 5 * Iceland 1 * Israel 5 * Italy 7 * Japan 3 * Korea 1 * Latvia 2 * Malaysia 1 * Mexico 8 * Morocco 1 * Netherlands 4 * New Zealand 1 * Norway 4 * Philippines 1 * Poland 7 * Portugal 1 * Romania 2 * Russia 7 * Saudi-Arabia 6 * Singapore 1 * Slovakia 1 * Slovenia 1 * South Africa 1 * Soviet Union 4 * Spain 11 * Sweden 1 * Taiwan 2 * Thailand 2 * Turkey 2 * Ukraine 1 * USA 629 * Venezuela 2 Tom -------------------------------------------------- Tom O'Haver Professor of Analytical Chemistry Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Maryland Collaborative for Teacher Preparation The University of Maryland at College Park to2@umail.umd.edu http://www.wam.umd.edu/~toh [ Part 3: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 07:45:31 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: SHORT QUESTIONS FOR PAPER 2 To: CHEMCONF Registrants From: Donald Rosenthal Re: SHORT QUESTIONS FOR PAPER 2 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It is 8 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time - 1300 GMT) on Friday, January 23. During the next 24 hours you may send SHORT QUESTIONS about Paper 2 - "Do I Really Need to Know this Stuff: A Dialogue between Teacher and Student on the Importance of Mathematics in the General Chemistry Curriculum" by Julie A. Grundman and Paul B. Kelter to the authors and the conference participants. SHORT QUESTIONS are sent to clarify aspects of the paper, obtain more information from the author and/or conference participants and help to promote subsequent discussion. Answers to SHORT QUESTIONS will be sent at the beginning of the discussion on Monday. DISCUSSION of Paper 2 will begin on Monday, January 26 and continue ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^ through Thursday January 29. The paper can be retrieved from the Conference World Wide Web Site: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~toh/ChemConf98.html Short Questions should be sent to CHEMCONF@UMDD.UMD.EDU Please include the PAPER NUMBER, YOUR INITIALS AND THE TOPIC IN THE SUBJECT LINE, e.g. "Paper 2 - CD: Mathematics the Universal Language of Science" These messages will be received by the author AND the conference registrants. Please send ASCII only messages with no more than 72 characters per ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ line and no attachments. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ To send comments or questions privately to the author of the paper, send your message to the author's e-mail address given in the paper. Reports of typographical errors, spelling or grammatical errors should be sent directly to the author and not to CHEMCONF. [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 08:16:39 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 2 - DR: Math vs. Concepts - Some Short Questions 1. In Paper 1 Sylvia Ware wrote: " . . . how chemistry is introduced at the pre-college level in other countries. Most countries do not concentrate on introducing chemistry through its mathematics, as many traditional U.S. courses tend to do, but through its phenomena, through its applications, through its concepts. Organic chemistry, industrial chemistry, and environmental chemistry are typically part of the chemistry syllabus in most secondary schools in most developing countries." a. Why do you suppose other countries have taken a different approach? b. Are there data which show which system works better? What do you think? c. Are there data which show whether ChemCom works better than the traditional U.S. course? What do you think? 2. Are concepts and mathematics necessarily in conflict? Are not many concepts deeply embedded in mathematics? 3. Suppose it were decided that next year all chemistry courses in the U.S. are to be taught in Urdu rather than English. This would be a problem for most students and teachers. Isn't this part of the problem with mathematics? Several High School chemistry teachers have told me that their students are not as well prepared in mathematics as they were a number of years ago - this is a problem in attempting to teach high school chemistry and also college chemistry. 4. In your paper you mention: "At UNL 20% of our general chemistry students fail or drop the course. Would we lose fewer students if we didn't focus on math as much?" Supposing you were teaching students how to high jump and you found that 20% of the students couldn't jump three feet. Would it make sense to set two feet or one foot as the height of the bar? What effect would this have on the other 80% of the students? There have been many complaints that we are lowering our standards in order to accommodate more poorly prepared students. What do you think? [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 09:37:26 -0500 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: ROP - Re: Paper 2 - DR: Math vs. Concepts - Some Short Questions On Fri, 23 Jan 1998, Donald Rosenthal wrote: > 1. In Paper 1 Sylvia Ware wrote: > " . . . how chemistry is introduced at the pre-college level in other > countries. Most countries do not concentrate on introducing > chemistry through its mathematics, as many traditional U.S. courses > tend to do, but through its phenomena, through its applications, > through its concepts. Organic chemistry, industrial chemistry, and > environmental chemistry are typically part of the chemistry syllabus > in most secondary schools in most developing countries." If you look at the students coming out of most of the high schools in our area, you wonder if they actually DO teach anything about calculations. Many of the students say that they did not. Those students do not seem to have any better conceptual understanding. > 2. Are concepts and mathematics necessarily in conflict? > Are not many concepts deeply embedded in mathematics? Some are so deeply embedded that they are difficult to teach at the freshman level. > 4. In your paper you mention: > "At UNL 20% of our general chemistry students fail or drop the > course. Would we lose fewer students if we didn't focus on math as > much?" A couple of years ago, I did a survey on CHEMED-L, the schools responding (about 80) averaged 40% losses in the first term of general chemistry. > Supposing you were teaching students how to high jump and you found > that 20% of the students couldn't jump three feet. Would it make > sense to set two feet or one foot as the height of the bar? What > effect would this have on the other 80% of the students? There have > been many complaints that we are lowering our standards in order to > accommodate more poorly prepared students. What do you think? If your losses are only 20%, one or more things must be happening: (1) maybe you have better students (2) maybe you are superior teachers (3) lower standards. Grade inflation is a national if not international problem. /* 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 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Part 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 10:16:10 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: PAPER 2 - DR: STUDENT PARTICIPATION IN THE DISCUSSION To: All CHEMCONF PARTICIPANTS Paper 2 is written by a college student and college professor. One of the conference participants has indicated he showed the paper to a student. The student enjoyed the paper and had several comments, but was reluctant to participate in the Discussion. I would encourage you to tell students, who might be interested in the paper, about the paper and the Conference. Have them subscribe to CHEMCONF and participate in the discussion. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If they are reluctant to directly participate, ask them to give you their comments and send them to CHEMCONF. Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699-5810 ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU 315-265-9242 [ Part 8: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 15:33:21 +0100 From: Tim Brosnan Subject: Re: Paper 2 - DR: Math vs. Concepts - Some Short Questions Donald Rosenthal wrote: >2. Are concepts and mathematics necessarily in conflict? > Are not many concepts deeply embedded in mathematics? Of course, yes. But one essential point is that students ability to 'do the mathematics' associated with an idea does NOT mean that they understand the idea. The problem is, that unless assesed correctly, this lack of qualitative understanding can be masked by the student's ability to manipulate equations and follow algorithms. On example from my own experience. I used to mark 'A' level Chemistry examination papers ('A' level is the national examination here in the UK usually taken by 18 year old pupils intent on going to university). One year candidates were asked to explain why Methane was stable in air and Silane not. To help them they were given various data including bond energies. They were NOT asked to do any calcuations. Despite this, most candidates DID calculate the enthalpy of combustion for the two compounds and virtually all of them got this correct - including the sign. Howver, about half of the people who did the maths correctly then went on to write that: "More energy is released when xxxxx bond breaks than........" and "It takes more energy to make xxxxx bond than ......" In other words they had learnt to manipulate the required formulae but their understanding of the nature of chemical bonding was precisely the opposite of the reality. Perhaps we need to spend less time on the maths and more on developing the qualitative understanding that underpins it. After all - if this is truly understood then the maths often follows naturally. 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/science/tb.html Tel: +44 (0)171 612 6779 Fax: +44 (0)171 612 6792 [ Part 9: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 14:18:34 -0500 From: Bert Ramsay Subject: Re: Paper #2 A short question [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "ISO-LATIN" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] The opening dialog says: " and I note with interest that the majority of the questions on this common 1000-student exam were mathematical." I've asked this question several years ago with no response: Q: Have there been any studies of the % of questions in first semester general chemistry [college or HS] requiring the use of math? What about the Final Exam, or the ACS Chemistry Education exams? Do we not test what we teach? Sorry, perhaps that's more than one question. Bert Ramsay Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 08:23:00 EST From: to2 Subject: Paper 2, TOH: Nature of Mathematics in General Chemistry I enjoyed the interesting format and the attractive graphical design of this paper. >...the majority of the tests I have taken in my > chemistry classes have been mathematical in nature. I wonder if Julie, who is also a math major as well as a biochemistry major, could put on her "math hat" and answer these questions from the point of view of a professional mathematician: 1. Are general chemistry tests really fundamentally mathematical in nature or do they simply use mathematics as a tool? 2. All of the examples given in the paper are essentially algebraic. But math is more than algebra. Is non-algebraic mathematical thinking also involved in general chemistry? >Lets say an electron in a sodium atom became >excited and then released the energy as light. I can describe >this with graphs.... The graph that is provided in the paper (which is labeled hydrogen, not sodium) seems to have nearly equal vertical spacing between the four levels. Would this graph be conceptually clearer if the spacing between the levels were proportional to the energy (inversely proportional to the wavelength) of the emitted light? Tom -------------------------------------------------- Tom O'Haver Professor of Analytical Chemistry Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Maryland Collaborative for Teacher Preparation The University of Maryland at College Park to2@umail.umd.edu http://www.wam.umd.edu/~toh [ Part 3: "Included Message" ] Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 11:26:36 -0600 From: mayne Subject: Paper 2 - DM: Mathematics the Universal Language of Science List Members, I am a high school chemistry teacher and very concerned that my students are prepared to take college chemistry and other upper level science classes. My questions on the paper are: 1. Does the four-pronged approach used in high schools to blending science and math in chemistry, ie., lecture-discussion, demo, lab, and math problems related to the subject thoroughly tie in the connection between math and its tremendous impact not only on teaching chemistry and sciences but on retaining it into the college arena? 2. Does it help retention to revisit specific mathematic concepts in different contexts when teaching the different concepts of chemistry and are were specific studies done on this? 3. I am having to reteach basic algebraic problem-solving in my Chemistry I class when doing specific problems when the formula has to be manipulated to find a different quantity, for instance, when finding the mass of solute in grams in a percent by mass problem when all other information is given. Is this typical with other teachers when dealing with students who's math skills on entering my class range from Algebra II to calculus? Thank you, Dinah Mayne Chemistry teacher Buhler High School Buhler, KS [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 09:37:43 -0600 From: Oliver Seely Subject: Re: Paper 2, TOH: Nature of Mathematics in General Chemistry Tom writes, in part: > 1. Are general chemistry tests really fundamentally > mathematical in nature or do they simply use mathematics > as a tool? A question in this spirit was asked of me during my preliminary defense of my thesis project and I answered it in what I thought was the same spirit. That is to say, after Lavoisier chemistry became quantitative, finally pulling civilization out of the murkiness of alchemy, the belief that phlogiston is an element and all that. But I limited my answer to the acceptance of arithmetic in much of chemistry. My reluctance to go the next step and to say that chemistry was "mathematical" brought a loud round of "harrumphs" at my suggestion that chemistry was NOT mathemtatical. It was one of those memorable events in one's life in which if I'd just played dumb and said, well, two hydrogen atoms bind to one oxygen atom, so I guess that we use the ratio 2:1, that's mathematical, isn't it?? and the relative weight of the hydrogen atoms is 2 compared to 16 for oxygen and the relative weight of a water molecule is 2+16=18, and that's addition, right?, so yes, I guess that chemistry is mathematical -- had I the cunning to see my way through that strategy, I wouldn't have had to appear in the math professor's office a month later to take the math part of my prelim exam. I'd still defend my answer that much of the study of chemistry involves quantitative concepts but very little of it is "mathematical," at least in the sense of proving theorems and doing other things that mathematicians do. Unless mixing coffee with sugar in the morning is considered to be chemical. Mathematicians do that also. 8-) Oliver [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 11:50:15 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Re: Paper 2 - DM: Mathematics the Universal Language of Science Conference Participants, We welcome the participation of UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS in the discussion of our paper. It was drafted, in large part, to encourage just such an undergrad/faculty dialogue. Please let your undergrads know that they should not be shy about asking questions and offering opinions. Thanks, Paul Kelter and Julie Grundman [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 11:50:38 -0800 From: "K.R.Fountain" Subject: Re: Paper 2, TOH: Nature of Mathematics in General Chemistry Oliver Seely wrote: > Tom writes, in part: > > > 1. Are general chemistry tests really fundamentally > > mathematical in nature or do they simply use mathematics > > as a tool? > > A question in this spirit was asked of me during my preliminary defense > of my thesis project and I answered it in what I thought was the same spirit. > That is to say, after Lavoisier chemistry became quantitative, finally pulling > civilization out of the murkiness of alchemy, the belief that phlogiston > is an element and all that. But I limited my answer to the acceptance of > arithmetic in much of chemistry. My reluctance to go the next step and > to say that chemistry was "mathematical" brought a loud round of > "harrumphs" at my suggestion that chemistry was NOT mathemtatical. > > It was one of those memorable events in one's life in which if I'd just > played dumb and said, well, two hydrogen atoms bind to one oxygen atom, > so I guess that we use the ratio 2:1, that's mathematical, isn't it?? > and the relative weight of the hydrogen atoms is 2 compared to 16 for > oxygen and the relative weight of a water molecule is 2+16=18, and > that's addition, right?, so yes, I guess that chemistry is mathematical -- > had I the cunning to see my way through that strategy, I wouldn't have > had to appear in the math professor's office a month later to take the > math part of my prelim exam. > > I'd still defend my answer that much of the study of chemistry involves > quantitative concepts but very little of it is "mathematical," at least > in the sense of proving theorems and doing other things that mathematicians > do. Unless mixing coffee with sugar in the morning is considered to be > chemical. Mathematicians do that also. 8-) > > Oliver This response is puzzling to me. Mathematics existentially attaches meanings to symbols. Manipulation of these symbols, whether practical or not, make up most of the games mathematicians play. Re-representations of the meanings of the symbols occur regularly (new theorums etc.) in math. Chemistry is very symbol oriented. We manipulate the relationships between our symbols extensively. We re-represent our symbols in new ways to achieve deeper, or newer ways of constructing our knowledge. It seems to me, besides the fact that I have 20 yrs experience with looking at the math aptitutude scores of my organic students and the grades they get correlate strongly with math scores, that on the symbolic level math and chemistry are deeply intertwined. But what do I know. I only read literature on education and learning theory as well as my research stuff. Sincerely, Ken Fountain [ Part 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 15:07:43 -0800 From: "Dr. James G. Goll" Subject: Paper 2 jg Math and Chemistry I read with great interest your paper on the place of mathematics in general chemistry. I have a few questions. Do you find that mathematical ability correlates negatively or positively with a student's ability to formulate conceptual relationships not mathematically based? Is part of the discussion on the amount of mathematics in your general chemistry course include a comment that most of the biologically related students will also take organic chemistry which is mostly conceptually based? Do you find that you can test on a larger number of concepts using questions not requiring mathematics? One theme that comes through in your paper is will anyone remember this concept in five years. Isn't this true about many chemical concepts even for those who become chemists? How many people do you know that teach courses in each of the areas of chemistry? I know only one. Most of the best research scientists I have know also use a broad base of knowledge. However, they are relatively rare. It is not surprising that most specifics are lost but hopefully some of the process remains. I do appreciate the comment on the importance of connections in both art and science. Often this creative aspect gets overlooked by me and my students. My comment on your 5th question on the goals of chemistry teachers is this. I want to prepare student the best I can to be ready for the next level which may be professional, graduate school, or employment. To acomplish this, looking at the curriculm as a whole is the way to go. If you wish to be more conceptual in general chemistry, one must be prepared to build a mathematic framework is some later courses. I work at a small college so it is easy for me to do this. Jim Goll Glenville State Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:31:31 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: #2 PBK - Kelter team repsonses Sunday, 10:00 P.M. CST Denver Broncos win! Football Season Over! Kelter's Wife Breathes Huge Sigh of Relief! Dear Conference Participants, There were many questions raised this weekend and I will attempt to comment on them as succinctly as possible. Julie will be "on board" in a few hours and add her own thoughts. A colleague will be joining Julie and me for the discussion this week. Mel Thornton is Professor of Mathematics here at the University of Nebraska. He is also one of only 14 members of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Academy of Distinguished Teachers (this is one step up from our "regular" Distinguished Teacher awards - sort of a "lifetime" award.) (mthornto@math.unl.edu) We didn't answer all the questions in this email. We will answer Q's from Jim Goll, Bert Ramsey, Tom O'Haver and Dinah Mayne later in the day. Let's begin with Don Rosenthal's questions: Q1. Sylvia Ware wrote: "Most countries do not concentrate on introducing chemistry through its mathematics, as many traditional U.S. courses tend to do, but through its phenomena, through its applications, through its concepts. Organic chemistry, industrial chemistry, and environmental chemistry are typically are typically part of the chemistry syllabus in most developing countries." Why do you suppose other countries have taken a different approach? Are there data to show which system works better? What do you think? Kelter's response: I think it would be presumptuous of me, a kid from Brooklyn, NY, to discuss the how and why's of other countries. I barely understand Brooklyn. So I thought I'd ask my colleagues f rom overseas what they thought. I received the following answers. I hope that our many registrants from other countries can add to the discussion. A colleague from Ireland says, "There is *some* organic chemistry in high school, but the bias is still strongly molecular and physical. Since everyone has calculus in the equivalent of the freshman high school year, chemistry is pretty mathematical; we integrate the first-order kinetic equation, for example. There is no industrial or environmental chemistry in the curriculum." A colleague from South Korea (who is currently there) asked a couple of co-workers. I have edited their comments to make the grammar a bit smoother. "My high school used both Korean and American textbooks (written in the '60's). The Korean text was much thinner and because of that, more formulas were included. My American text devoted lots of pages to explaining the concept. Does it mean that the American textbook was better? I don't think that was the case. I had a pretty good math background, thus it was easy for me to derive formulas and equations using the concepts, and derive concepts by looking at the equations..... I think American students definitely need more math.....Korean high school students generally have 3-6 hours per week of math classes and study on their own for 10-15 hours per week." Another Ph.D. from South Korea says, "Math in Chemistry was greatly emphasized in the 70's and 80's. In those days, math was a required subject in the high school curriculum. In the early 90's, chemistry was made optional and the content level was lowered. Now, chemistry is a required subject and its curriculum level is rising again." Q2. In your paper you mention, "At UNL, we about 20% of our general chemistry students fail or drop the course. Would we lose fewer students if we didn't focus on math as much?"......Supposing you were teaching students how to high jump and found that students couldn't jump 3 feet. Would it make sense to set 2 feet or 1 foot as the height of the bar? What effect would that have on the other 80% of the students? There have been complaints that we are lowering our standards in order to accommodate more poorly-prepared students. What do you think? Kelter's Response: I like the question. I don't think that they key variable in the drop rate is how high we set the academic bar. That is, the key is not the content level of the course. I believe that it is the nature and commitment of the teacher. In our UNL Chemistry Department, we have taken data for the past 4 years on the drop rate as a function of section (and therefore teacher). The drop rates vary from around 40% for a particularly lousy teacher of Chem 109 to negative 5 % for a certain master teacher ( - not me. Mine vary between 2 and 10%). The average is around 20%. The curriculum is as close to the same for each section as common exams dictate (even though that is a lousy way to guarantee curriculum, but that's another story...). I have slightly lowered the level of the curriculum and raised it, depending upon what students come into class with (prior math skills). The drop rate is independent of this. Some teachers teach tougher courses than me, some easier. But the key to a low drop rate (in my mind) is how willing the teacher is to build (professional) relationships with the kids - how much you want to invest. THAT's the secret. The bar can be as high as necessary if you work with the kids to see the "sense of science" (including the mathematical sense of science). Q3.-Are concepts and mathematics necessarily in conflict? Mel Thornton's response: This seems like an "Are you still beating your spouse" sort of question [PK note: I have to ask Mel to explain that analogy to me...]. If mathematics did not already contain concepts, it would pretty much be a waste of everyone's time. Without concepts math could probably all be replaced by a pocket calculator. I view the power of mathematics in its ability to define and describe concepts in a precise and condensed way. Then the concepts can be handled, related and applied in a manner not otherwise possible. and with compact notation for the concepts they can be more easily understood and remembered. Note this says 'more easily', not 'easily'. Even a concept like inverse proportion causes most persons to stumble at first. But expressed in a mathematical formula, it is easier to use. Q4. - Are not many concepts deeply imbedded in mathematics? Mel Thornton's response: I would certainly hope so. another way to ask a question like this would be, 'are not many concepts deeply embeddable in mathematics?' I would say yes, that's again what makes mathematics worth studying on its own. So persons working in various fields trying to understand various things can have tools to define and describe their concepts. And if these tools are applied in the right way, they may be able to get new insights about the concepts and transform/apply them in new ways.....I think all persons can apply what I would call mathematics at some level. Q5. Suppose it were decided that next year all chemistry courses in the U.S. are to be taught in Urdu rather than English. This would be a problem for most students and teachers. Isn't this part of the problem with mathematics? Several high school chemistry teachers have told (the questioner) that there students are not as well prepared in mathematics as they were a number of years ago - this is a problem in attempting to teach high school and college chemistry. Mel Thornton's response: Most high school students have not been exposed to Urdu since early childhood. When do babies start to count, organize and classify things? We've all struggled to change the meaning of "I'm Three" to "I'm Three YEARS OLD" and to understand what that means. The abstraction of number, the importance of units, the understanding of what is being measured is built up slowly, but it builds. Students are not coming into mathematics cold. Most would come into Urdu cold, except for the background in their native language's grammar, syntax, etc. I agree that there is a "problem with mathematics", but I don't think the problem is that it is too foreign, too arbitrary or too abstract. Of course, math can (and sometimes is) taught that way. But it need not be so. So what is the "problem with mathematics"? I think it is that teachers are never really certain exactly what the students really have understood about math, and what they just memorized in Ms. X's math class and then ignored when they left the math room. We al need to remember that "well prepared in mathematics" is a relative notion. No one is ever completely prepared. We are all constantly growing in math understanding. I don't know of many who can confidently say that they have 'arrived'. If high school (or college) chemistry (physics or any other subject, for that matter) suddenly decided that no math should be assumed, used or taught in the class, that would be a first class disaster for chemistry and math. The message for math would be that it was not useful, just a confusing intellectual game and not applicable to life outside the academic setting. What would chemistry lose? Chemists and chem teachers could better answer that...... Re: student math preparation - from the point of view of a college math teacher, we are getting more students than in the past. Many have a really good math background. More math seems to be taught to a lot of them before they get here. However, we still have a good share of students that need to remove some deficiencies and we do have remedial classes. If college chemistry classes didn't expect or use any mathematics that would not cause us to stop teaching mathematics. But it would probably make our job harder, and I think make the chemistry classes less useful to students. That's enough for tonight. Julie will tackle some in the morning (Monday). [ Part 2: "Included Message" ] Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 23:31:31 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: #2 PBK - Kelter team repsonses [The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "ISO-LATIN" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] Sunday, 10:00 P.M. CST Denver Broncos win! Football Season Over! Kelter's Wife Breathes Huge Sigh of Relief! Dear Conference Participants, There were many questions raised this weekend and I will attempt to comment on them as succinctly as possible. Julie will be "on board" in a few hours and add her own thoughts. A colleague will be joining Julie and me for the discussion this week. Mel Thornton is Professor of Mathematics here at the University of Nebraska. He is also one of only 14 members of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Academy of Distinguished Teachers (this is one step up from our "regular" Distinguished Teacher awards - sort of a "lifetime" award.) (mthornto@math.unl.edu) We didn't answer all the questions in this email. We will answer Q's from Jim Goll, Bert Ramsey, Tom O'Haver and Dinah Mayne later in the day. Let's begin with Don Rosenthal's questions: Q1. Sylvia Ware wrote: "Most countries do not concentrate on introducing chemistry through its mathematics, as many traditional U.S. courses tend to do, but through its phenomena, through its applications, through its concepts. Organic chemistry, industrial chemistry, and environmental chemistry are typically are typically part of the chemistry syllabus in most developing countries." Why do you suppose other countries have taken a different approach? Are there data to show which system works better? What do you think? Kelter's response: I think it would be presumptuous of me, a kid from Brooklyn, NY, to discuss the how and why's of other countries. I barely understand Brooklyn. So I thought I'd ask my colleagues f rom overseas what they thought. I received the following answers. I hope that our many registrants from other countries can add to the discussion. A colleague from Ireland says, "There is *some* organic chemistry in high school, but the bias is still strongly molecular and physical. Since everyone has calculus in the equivalent of the freshman high school year, chemistry is pretty mathematical; we integrate the first-order kinetic equation, for example. There is no industrial or environmental chemistry in the curriculum." A colleague from South Korea (who is currently there) asked a couple of co-workers. I have edited their comments to make the grammar a bit smoother. "My high school used both Korean and American textbooks (written in the ^Ñ60's). The Korean text was much thinner and because of that, more formulas were included. My American text devoted lots of pages to explaining the concept. Does it mean that the American textbook was better? I don't think that was the case. I had a pretty good math background, thus it was easy for me to derive formulas and equations using the concepts, and derive concepts by looking at the equations..... I think American students definitely need more math.....Korean high school students generally have 3-6 hours per week of math classes and study on their own for 10-15 hours per week." Another Ph.D. from South Korea says, "Math in Chemistry was greatly emphasized in the 70's and 80's. In those days, math was a required subject in the high school curriculum. In the early 90's, chemistry was made optional and the content level was lowered. Now, chemistry is a required subject and its curriculum level is rising again." Q2. In your paper you mention, "At UNL, we about 20% of our general chemistry students fail or drop the course. Would we lose fewer students if we didn't focus on math as much?"......Supposing you were teaching students how to high jump and found that students couldn't jump 3 feet. Would it make sense to set 2 feet or 1 foot as the height of the bar? What effect would that have on the other 80% of the students? There have been complaints that we are lowering our standards in order to accommodate more poorly-prepared students. What do you think? Kelter's Response: I like the question. I don't think that they key variable in the drop rate is how high we set the academic bar. That is, the key is not the content level of the course. I believe that it is the nature and commitment of the teacher. In our UNL Chemistry Department, we have taken data for the past 4 years on the drop rate as a function of section (and therefore teacher). The drop rates vary from around 40% for a particularly lousy teacher of Chem 109 to negative 5 % for a certain master teacher ( - not me. Mine vary between 2 and 10%). The average is around 20%. The curriculum is as close to the same for each section as common exams dictate (even though that is a lousy way to guarantee curriculum, but that's another story...). I have slightly lowered the level of the curriculum and raised it, depending upon what students come into class with (prior math skills). The drop rate is independent of this. Some teachers teach tougher courses than me, some easier. But the key to a low drop rate (in my mind) is how willing the teacher is to build (professional) relationships with the kids - how much you want to invest. THAT's the secret. The bar can be as high as necessary if you work with the kids to see the "sense of science" (including the mathematical sense of science). Q3.-Are concepts and mathematics necessarily in conflict? Mel Thornton's response: This seems like an "Are you still beating your spouse" sort of question [PK note: I have to ask Mel to explain that analogy to me...]. If mathematics did not already contain concepts, it would pretty much be a waste of everyone's time. Without concepts math could probably all be replaced by a pocket calculator. I view the power of mathematics in its ability to define and describe concepts in a precise and condensed way. Then the concepts can be handled, related and applied in a manner not otherwise possible. and with compact notation for the concepts they can be more easily understood and remembered. Note this says ^Ñmore easily', not ^Ñeasily'. Even a concept like inverse proportion causes most persons to stumble at first. But expressed in a mathematical formula, it is easier to use. Q4. - Are not many concepts deeply imbedded in mathematics? Mel Thornton's response: I would certainly hope so. another way to ask a question like this would be, ^Ñare not many concepts deeply embeddable in mathematics?' I would say yes, that's again what makes mathematics worth studying on its own. So persons working in various fields trying to understand various things can have tools to define and describe their concepts. And if these tools are applied in the right way, they may be able to get new insights about the concepts and transform/apply them in new ways.....I think all persons can apply what I would call mathematics at some level. Q5. Suppose it were decided that next year all chemistry courses in the U.S. are to be taught in Urdu rather than English. This would be a problem for most students and teachers. Isn't this part of the problem with mathematics? Several high school chemistry teachers have told (the questioner) that there students are not as well prepared in mathematics as they were a number of years ago - this is a problem in attempting to teach high school and college chemistry. Mel Thornton's response: Most high school students have not been exposed to Urdu since early childhood. When do babies start to count, organize and classify things? We've all struggled to change the meaning of "I'm Three" to "I'm Three YEARS OLD" and to understand what that means. The abstraction of number, the importance of units, the understanding of what is being measured is built up slowly, but it builds. Students are not coming into mathematics cold. Most would come into Urdu cold, except for the background in their native language's grammar, syntax, etc. I agree that there is a "problem with mathematics", but I don't think the problem is that it is too foreign, too arbitrary or too abstract. Of course, math can (and sometimes is) taught that way. But it need not be so. So what is the "problem with mathematics"? I think it is that teachers are never really certain exactly what the students really have understood about math, and what they just memorized in Ms. X's math class and then ignored when they left the math room. We al need to remember that "well prepared in mathematics" is a relative notion. No one is ever completely prepared. We are all constantly growing in math understanding. I don't know of many who can confidently say that they have ^Ñarrived'. If high school (or college) chemistry (physics or any other subject, for that matter) suddenly decided that no math should be assumed, used or taught in the class, that would be a first class disaster for chemistry and math. The message for math would be that it was not useful, just a confusing intellectual game and not applicable to life outside the academic setting. What would chemistry lose? Chemists and chem teachers could better answer that...... Re: student math preparation - from the point of view of a college math teacher, we are getting more students than in the past. Many have a really good math background. More math seems to be taught to a lot of them before they get here. However, we still have a good share of students that need to remove some deficiencies and we do have remedial classes. If college chemistry classes didn't expect or use any mathematics that would not cause us to stop teaching mathematics. But it would probably make our job harder, and I think make the chemistry classes less useful to students. That's enough for tonight. Julie will tackle some in the morning (Monday). Paul _______________________ Paul Kelter Associate Professor of Chemistry University of Nebraska - Lincoln 402-472-3512 pkelter@unlinfo.unl.edu maddoc@unlinfo.unl.edu [ Part 3: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 07:51:00 EST From: to2 Subject: Re: #2 PBK - Kelter team repsonses Paul Kelter wrote: >I don't think that they key variable in the drop rate is how high >we set the academic bar. That is, the key is not the content >level of the course. I believe that it is the nature and commitment >of the teacher.... >...the key to a low drop rate (in my mind) is how willing the >teacher is to build (professional) relationships with the kids - >how much you want to invest. I think this is a VERY interesting position. One researcher who has made a study of this question is Shiela Tobias, as described in "Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't", published in 1992 by the Research Corporation. One of her conclusions is in substantial agreement with your observation: "...course materials and teaching enhancements are minor factors. What hinders students are the pace, the conflicting purposes of the courses (variously, to provide an introduction, to lay a foundation for a research career, or to weed out the "unfit"), attitudes of their professors and their fellow students, unexplained assumptions and conventions, exam design and grading practices, class size, the exclusive presentation of new material by means of lecture, and the absence of community - a host of variables that are not addressed by most reforms." (p 17-18). Tom -------------------------------------------------- Tom O'Haver Professor of Analytical Chemistry Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Maryland Collaborative for Teacher Preparation The University of Maryland at College Park to2@umail.umd.edu http://www.wam.umd.edu/~toh [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 07:54:14 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: BEGIN DISCUSSION OF PAPER 2 To: CHEMCONF Registrants From: Donald Rosenthal ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU Re: BEGIN DISCUSSION OF PAPER 2 It is 8 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time - 1300 GMT) on Monday, January 26 The next 96 hours will be devoted to discussion of Paper 2 - "Do I Really Need to Know this Stuff: A Dialogue between Teacher and Student on the Importance of Mathematics in the General Chemistry Curriculum" by Julie A. Grundman and Paul B. 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I'm trying to make the point that some concepts may not be grasped properly without mathematics as a tool. Paul Kelter has left an opening by maintaining that using the Henderson Hasselbalch equation to discuss acid-base equilibria is >"just one more artificial mathematical manipulation", and he prefers to stick with the equilibrium expression to teach students to >"conceptually do a lot of work with just one construct". Yet later he says his instructional goal is >"to have students make connections". In regard to making connections, I'd like to speak up in defense of the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation. In my mind, there is a conflict between Paul's two goals (working with one construct and making connections). Why? Because the Henderson-Hasselbalch is just the equilibrium expression in another form, and there are some "connections" that are easier to make in this form. The "connection" I try to get across in acid-base chemistry is that between [H+] and the ratio of protonated and unprotonated forms of the acid-base conjugate pair (either [A-]/[HA] or [HA]/[A-]). This connection illustrates how buffers (and the ratio) can control [H+], as well as how [H+] controls the ratio (and hence the charge, for example, of a functional group in a protein). Ideally, the student should be able to make mental connection between the two. Now the equilibrium expression can be viewed in two ways in this regard: [H+] = Ka([HA]/[A-], where Ka is the proportionality constant making the connection between the two, and [H+]/Ka = [HA]/[A-], where it is the ratio of H+ to Ka that determines the protonation ratio. But the exponential math here becomes hard to do in one's head. For example, in remembering approximate ionization constants for various functional groups, which of the following is easier "conceptually" to remember? Ka or pKa acetic acid 1.8 x 10e-5 4.74 cysteine side chain of protein 3.2 x 10e-9 8.5 methyl ammonium ion 2.3 x 10e-11 10.64 arginine side chain of protein 3.2 x 10e-13 12.5 (Yes, I realize that protein side chains can have a range of pK's, hence the rounding to one significant figure in the mantissa.) And which of the following calculations is easier to do in one's head: [H+]/[Ka] = 3.2 x 10e-3/1.8 x 10e-5 = 1.8 x 10e2 or pK-pH = 4.74 - 2.49 = 2.25? I submit that the pK's are easier to remember, and easier to use in calculations. Furthermore, we are stuck with the problematic pH scale anyway. (Why problematic? If pH is a measure of acidity, why doesn't its value increase when something gets more acid? How much time do instructors have to spend on this discrepancy when introducing acids and bases?) So the Henderson-Hasselbalch makes it easy to make the mental connection between pH and the ratio [A-]/[A]. When pH = pK, the ratio is one When pH = pK +0.5, the ratio is about 3 When pH = pK + 1, the ratio is 10 When pH = pK + 2, the ratio is 100 When pH = pK -0.5, the ratio is about 1/3 When pH = pK - 1, the ratio is 1/10 When pH = pK - 2, the ratio is 1/100 etc. All easily done in one's head. Working backwards, I also like to introduce the equilibrium expression in a third form, still pointing out that it is the same equation: [A-]/[A] = 10e(pH-pK) easily calculating ratios from pH's other than those above. Furthermore, the "conception" of a titration, via a titration curve (a pictoral representation) is easier to connect to the Henderson-Hasselbalch form of the equation. So in summary, I think when the student can make the "connection" between the three forms of the same equation: Ka = [A-][H+]/[HA] pH = pKa + log([A-]/[HA]) and [A-]/[HA] = l0e(pH-pKa) and can understand that they are really the same equation, then he or she can choose the form that most suits the problem at hand, rather than using a rote procedure to solve the problem. Sorry if this ran on too long. Robley Light ************************************************************* Robley J. Light Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Phone: (850) 644-3844 Florida State University Email: rlight@chem.fsu.edu Tallahassee, FL 32306-4390 Fax: (850) 644-8281 Home Page: http://www.sb.fsu.edu/~rlight [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 07:33:48 -0800 From: Bob Bruner Subject: paper 2, BB: Their questions I particularly enjoyed Grundman & Kelter's paper. It is conversational, informal, and provocative. It deals with day to day issues of how we choose what to teach. Here are some 'answers' to the questions posed by the G&K at the end. 1. Level of math needed for general chem. I would like to argue "very little", except basic logic and some algebra. As has been noted, we do not do much advanced math in general chem. We could use calculus, but usually do not (and that is fine). But what we do need is logic, the ability to read a sentence, and see the relationships between various parts of it -- and to see the relationships between ideas presented at different places in the course. The big barrier is that the students want rote memorization, and that does not work in chem, certainly does not lead to anything particularly interesting in chem. They want a list of facts ("Tell me what you want me know."), and a simple way of regurgitating them. As to algebra, if a student cannot solve a = b/c for c -- even on the second try -- and does not even seem to know what to do, that is a bad omen. I will discuss some of the specific equations they mentioned in another message. 3. I have discussed a variation of this with colleagues in the following context... If we offer a 'non-majors' intro, using something like CiC (etc), would you take those students directly into general chem if they decide that is what they want? The answer is always yes. I think the point is that doing well in any intro is more important than the specific facts learned. Our general chem courses will always have heterogeneity. Students who have learned to 'think chem' will have some advantages (assuming we 'think chem' in general chem). If they are behind on some specific topics, so be it. Those who have lots of facts, but can't follow the logic of an argument will be in worse shape. 4. See #3. It really would be nice if they have begun to see 'how science works', if they have begun to realize that learning is about putting ideas together. 5. All of the above, but the balance is different for different students. Who is grading our answers, Julie or Paul?? How about best 3 of 5?? Bob Bruner Contra Costa College, San Pablo, CA and UC Berkeley Extension [ Part 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 11:44:20 -0500 From: Cory Emal Subject: Paper #2 - CE: Q.#5 - Chemistry as a tool To me, question #5 raised by the authors is probably the most fundamental of all of these questions. As a chemistry graduate student who studied science education as an undergraduate, I constantly try to keep this question in my mind; otherwise I will do a disservice to my students. Robley Light raised the idea of "tools", which is precisely the manner in which I look at the use of knowledge (at this point in my life). Probably the most meaningful event in my educational career at this point occurred in, of all places, a Children's Literature course I took from Dr. James McShane, a wonderful teacher at the University of Nebraska. He based the semester on the idea of developing "tools" which we could use to analyze and interpret the literature we studied. The key to this is that our use of tools was explicit, as opposed to the implicit assertion that the knowledge is useful that we usually get in secondary and post-secondary courses. In fact, the degree of "explicitness" was such that the final consisted of two questions: "List ten tools you used this semester." and "Use them to analyze 'The Hobbit.'" Since then I've used the idea of tools actively to process and find a use for information that I'm not sure why I'm obtaining. So what does this have to do with chemistry and mathematics? I think that ultimately we teach chemistry (and math, and physics, etc....) so that people develop a sense of how their world works and can use this knowledge to their advantage, whether it is in the workplace or the grocery store or the voting booth. In my eyes, the way to do this is to explicitly present the sciences as tools for living. For different students, this will take on different meanings; a chemistry major vs. a nursing student vs. a philosophy student, for example. However, we can give each of them the same set of tools and they will use the ones that fit their needs the best. Now, I am not suggesting we take the curriculum for first-year chem courses straight from ChemComm. Quite the opposite, in fact. I would side with Julie in saying that the inclusion of mathematics is _essential_, because if we deny the students a mathematical manner of looking at a problem, we deny them of potentially useful tools. The inclusion of the conceptual side is just as essential. There must be a balance between the conceptual and the computational so our students get their choice of how to understand and solve a problem, both present (in class) and future (in the "real" world, whatever that may be). Whew!! Thank you all for your patience. :) Cory Emal Graduate Student University of Michigan emalc@umich.edu [ Part 8: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 12:22:31 -0500 From: Joyce Overly Subject: Paper #2 - JO - Mathematical Literacy At the community college level one of our biggest problems with mathmatics in general chemistry is the wide range of math literacy, even among students who have all completed the same math prerequisites. (currently ours is College Algebra). Some students can do basic operations, like solving for c in the equation a = b/c, but are unable to identify which variable, b or c, is inversely proportional to a or that "inversely proportional" means that as c gets larger, a gets smaller. They know the "mechanics" of the math without understanding the implications of a mathematical expression in everyday terms. To address the authors' questions about the proper level of mathematics in general chemistry and the knowledge needed by entering college students, I think that in a mainstream general chem course students need to really understand concepts like ratios and proportions and be able to do some simple algebra. Unfortunately, requiring pre-req courses is not completely effective in ensuring that students do indeed have these skills. Joyce Overly Science Department, Gaston College and Online Tutor, America Online [ Part 9: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 12:11:02 -0600 From: "Dr. David Ritter" Subject: Paper 2 - DR: Learning Styles May I suggest that the two styles being considered, mathematical vs conceptual, are both necessary for an understanding of chemistry, and in fact the set should be broadened. In their excellent learning guide for students "How the Survive (and even excel in) General Chemistry", Elizabeth Kean and Cathy Middlecamp break chemical content down further into four types: facts, concepts, rules, and problems. We need to use all four. Various types of content lend themselves to each. Grundman and Kelter's choice of Henderson-Hasselbach for example: >PK: "My creative sense...has me teach buffers via the use of the equilibrium >expression." >JG: "Do you think that it is better to teach this from a conceptual basis... >when every other class teaches it from a plug and chug basis?" In my class, I start with equilibrium and then show how approximations lead to Henderson-Hasselbach, and emphasive the conditions that lead to the limited expression. For solving a problem, I give the students the choice to either 'start from scratch' with the equilibrium method that will work for every case, or to remember the limiting conditions and use the approximate equation where valid (not just Henderson-Hasselbach, but several others as well). As to which style lends itself to "Long-Term Retention": >PK: "Five years from now, would pre-med, biology, or pre-pharmacy majors use >this [Henderson-Hasselbach] ? I walked across the way and asked biology and pre-med people. I am told that the fields that work under buffer conditions (most of these) do use the Henderson-Hasselbach equation frequently. It the operative way that they choose effective buffer rangess, choose indicators, choose stains, etc. It is my experience that repeated usage leads to retention. David Ritter David Ritter Department of Chemistry Southeast Missouri State University dritter@semovm.semo.edu [ Part 10: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 12:44:30 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: [Fwd: #2 - Kelter team responses] [ Part 10.2: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 12:39:27 -0600 (CST) From: julie a grundman To: pkelter@unlinfo.unl.edu Subject: #2 - Kelter team responses Dear participants I'm now "on board" and will do my best to add comments when I'm not in class. So, I'll start by responding to Tom O'Haver's questions. Q 1 -- "...the majority of the tests I have taken in my chemistry classes have been mathematical in nature." Are general chemistry tests really fundamentally mathematical in nature or do they simply use mathematics as a tool? I guess I would consider the tests to contain mathematical calculations with the intention of using these calculations to uncover the underlying chemical concepts. For instance, when finding the half-life of a element, the student must work with rate constants and kinetics, which is why this type of problem is included on a gen chem test. But, to solve and understand the problem, one must perform algebraic manipulations. Therefore, I see math as a way of illustrating the chemical concept and bringing it into terms that a student can actually understand and relate to real life, such as carbon dating. Q 2 -- All of the examples given in the paper are essentially algebraic. But math is more than algebra. Is non-algebraic mathematical thinking also involved in general chemistry? Not nearly as much as it is involved in advanced chemistry classes. I believe it comes down to the idea of where one should draw the line on using math in gen chem. While it is possible to teach the derivation of the Schrodinger equation in a gen chem class, it is not typically done since it is not considered necessary knowledge at this level. But, it is necessary to be able to use and understand certain equations, such as Henderson-Hasselbalch, and to be able to manipulate this equation to find what you are looking for. This manipulation requires only the use of basic algebraic skills. The more in-depth math is left for upper level classes when the acquisition and utilization of this knowledge is deemed necessary. Q 3 -- "Lets say an electron in a sodium atom became excited and then released the energy as light. I can describe this with graphs...." The graph that is provided in the paper (which is labeled hydrogen, not sodium) seems to have nearly equal vertical spacing between the four levels. Would this graph be conceptually clearer if the spacing between the levels were proportional to the energy (inversely proportional to the wavelength) of the emitted light? Yes, it would be clearer if the spacing were proportional to the energy and the drawing were actually to scale. I also believe that to get the best understanding of this concept, the actual numbers, calculated using the Rydberg equation, should be found and incorporated along with the pictorial representation. Julie Julie, let me hitch a ride on your note: I enjoyed the commentary this morning - I think the comments by Robley Light regarding the Henderson Hasselbalch equation are important. You are right - in many cases, the H-H equation can be quite useful. However, I am cynical enough to know that students do not view the H-H as a derived construct, useful in a particular set of circumstances. They too often view it as an equation whose use is nearly always "plug and chug". This is why so very many flip the log term on exams and such. To me, the elegance of the Equil. Expression is that it FORCES students to think about each and every application because it is used differently each time - different set of assumptions, and such. Re: Bert Ramsay's question, I don't have the data. But I do try to test what I teach - if I do my job and the students are prepared to learn (that is a loaded statement, I know...) They should all get "A" grades on my test. That is an even MORE loaded statement. And I believe it. [ Part 11: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 14:46:17 -0500 From: Robley Light Subject: Re: [Fwd: #2 - Kelter team responses] At 12:44 PM 1/26/98 -0600, you wrote: >I enjoyed the commentary this morning - I think the comments by Robley >Light regarding the Henderson Hasselbalch equation are important. You >are right - in many cases, the H-H equation can be quite useful. >However, I am cynical enough to know that students do not view the H-H >as a derived construct, useful in a particular set of circumstances. >They too often view it as an equation whose use is nearly always "plug >and chug". This is why so very many flip the log term on exams and >such. To me, the elegance of the Equil. Expression is that it FORCES >students to think about each and every application because it is used >differently each time - different set of assumptions, and such. > A very good point, Paul. We often overlook trying to explain the assumptions we put into a problem in order to keep it simple. For example, several times I have sent an email question to my class, or included the question on a test, to tell me the pH of 10e-8 M HCl solution. You'd be surprised how many conclude it is 8! Even though I have mentioned in the earlier presentation that we generally assume [OH-] is small in the charge conservation relation [H+] = [Cl-] + [OH-] Robley Light ************************************************************* Robley J. Light Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Phone: (850) 644-3844 Florida State University Email: rlight@chem.fsu.edu Tallahassee, FL 32306-4390 Fax: (850) 644-8281 Home Page: http://www.sb.fsu.edu/~rlight [ Part 12: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 12:01:25 -0800 From: Bob Bruner Subject: Paper 2 - BB - comments on specific mathematical equations The analysis of the role of math in teaching general chem undoubtedly does not have one simple answer. So I would like to examine some of the specific equations that G&K brought up, as well as one more. I would encourage debate on whether the proper reasons are being considered, as well as on the conclusions. 1. Rydberg equation (RE). How many chemists (or anyone else) _use_ the RE in their work? Does it have considerable theoretical significance? I certainly think general chem students should understand the general notion that our modern understanding of electronic structure relates to observed spectra. But beyond that it is rather abstract. As to the RE, it is great for plug-in type problems. It may also be part of a good story, but I suspect most just do the plug-in problems. Seems clear to me... this equation is not important in general chem. 2. Henderson-Hasselbalch equation (HH). This equation is useful. Further it is closely related to material that is undoubtedly core material in general chem, acids and equilibria. So far, sounds good. Should we derive it? Well, I'll hedge a little here. I do think it is important that students know that it can be derived. It is not an arbitrary or simply empirical relationship, but one which follows from our discussion of equilibria and acids. Whether it is actually worth going through the derivation may be more a matter of taste; this one is not particularly difficult, but many students have trouble following the algebraic manipulations at the pace we are likely to go through them on the board. It would be nice if the students would go through it themselves, but many would not unless pressed. G&K raise an issue with the HH equation... students who use it may flip the log term. Ah, good point. This is not just an equation error, it is a conceptual error. If a student tells me that adding _acid_ to a solution _raises_ the pH, that reflects a _conceptual_ error. It is a very important lesson for students to judge the reasonableness of their mathematical answers. Answers from equations and from calculators are not always right -- for one reason or another. When we do teach equations, we must teach that students are expected to make that judgment. Of course, we must somehow 'enforce' that, by the way we mark papers. One way I do that is to allow _zero_ partial credit for a 'conceptually unreasonable' answer such as that referred to above. (I tend to give generous partial credit when problems are set up correctly, and I will help a student with calculator keys upon request.) I substantially agree with Robley Light's discussion of how the HH equation should be put in context. 3. This is one not discussed by G&K... Dilution equation (DE). There is a common equation for calculating dilutions, usually something like M1V1 = M2V2. (Some will use C and D for the subscripts, meaning concentrated and dilute.) (A formally similar equation is used for titrations, and these remarks would substantially apply there.) The problem is, as with HH, students tend to 'flip.' They blindly plug numbers into the equation, not being clear which subscripts go with what. Then they tell me that to make 100 mL of a dilute solution, start with 500 mL of concentrated solution. Again, that is a big _conceptual_ error. I stopped teaching the DE a few years back. I show them to calculate the number of moles needed to make the dilute solution, then as a second step to calculate the volume of concentrated solution needed (to obtain that number of moles). That is, I want them to do dilution calculations 'from first principles' (in a sense). It is a bit longer, but much safer. (I "allow" them to use the DE, which they will find in the book. But I caution them that they are responsible for understanding it, and that if they use it wrong, I will give zero partial credit.) With feedback and repetition, I usually end up with a rather high percentage doing dilution calculation correctly. I am sure we all have our favorite equations. If PK does not particularly want to teach HH, fine. The point here is to show that there may be 'better' ways to teach some equations, that there may be messages that must go along with using equations. We can choose which equations to focus on as our examples, but we need to promote 'wise use' of equations (not _just_ plugging in), and we need to 'enforce' that by the feedback we give. Comments, please, on the approaches. And it would be nice if others would give examples of how they have improved the presentation of common equations. Bob Bruner Contra Costa College, San Pablo, CA and UC Berkeley Extension [ Part 13: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 14:26:42 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Re: [Fwd: #2 - Kelter team responses] > Robley Light wrote: > We often overlook trying to explain the > assumptions we put into a problem in order to keep it simple. For > example, > several times I have sent an email question to my class, or included > the > question on a test, to tell me the pH of 10e-8 M HCl solution. You'd > be > surprised how many conclude it is 8! Even though I have mentioned in > the > earlier presentation that we generally assume > [OH-] is small in the charge conservation relation > > [H+] = [Cl-] + [OH-] > Yes!! That's so. And I do enjoy teaching this..... I'd like to expand the point because it relates well to the issue of the role of math **as a source of ratcheting up the content level** in the gen chem curriculum. That is, in order to quantitatively consider the pH of the extremely dilute strong acid solution, one needs to raise the issue of charge and mass balance. This goes beyond what is normally taught. However, if one wants to ratchet up the gen chem content level, this type of thing is often done. I think it does not help the student at the general chem level, although it is useful, I think, at the honors level. In gen chem, however, it is a heckuva good problem to depress the average on exams. I fear that the application of the derivation adds difficulty for the students way out of proportion to the "weight" (ie; the importance) of the topic to the curriculum. This is one concern I have in general with how math is used in the chem class. Paul ________________ Paul Kelter Associate Professor of Chemistry Univeristy of Nebraska - Lincoln [ Part 14: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 14:51:33 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: PK/JG #2 - Goll/Mayne questions Folks, Jim Goll raised some questions, which I will now **abstract**, because I type with 2 fingers and that, combined with slow modems, can make a banana slug seem warp speed by comparison. 1. Do you find that mathematical ability correlates negatively or positively with a student's ability to formulate conceptual relationships? Kelter: I believe it correlates positively, because, as Thornton points out, math is the key way we make connections, and those who are REALLY good at math (not equations, but, rather, the SENSE of math), can make these connections. I do not have a reference for this though. 2. Is part of the discussion related to the fact that organic chemistry is mostly conceptually-based? Kelter: I proposed just that idea to our Organic Division faculty last year, and I am still picking the shards of glass out of my behind. It may be true, but you didn't hear it here!!! (Maybe Rosemary Woods has it as the "18-1/2 minute gap in the tape".) 3. Do you find that you can test on a larger number of concepts using questions not involving math? Kelter: I am giving multiple choice tests this semester, because I find that the variability in grading skill among our grad and undergrad TA's is simply too great for my comfort. Also, I don't need the hassle of all-evening grading sessions and students picking at me for one or 2 points out of the 10 billion available during the semester. I will be composing my own questions because test banks have as much interest as commercial banks on money markets, and many of the test bank questions are flat-out wrong. But the key is that, give or take, 80% of the questions are mathematical. OUR SUBJECT IS, SIMPLY PUT, MATHEMATICAL IN NATURE. THIS IS HOW WE DISCOVER AND UNDERSTAND THINGS. To the extent that we use a conceptual model, we make ANALOGIES because many of our students simply can't handle the math, or we do not teach it in a way that has meaning to them. HOWEVER, the PREDICTIONS THAT RESULT from the math-related ideas do not necessarily involve math, and THIS is where many interesting "conceptual" questions can be asked. 4. One theme that comes through in the paper is 'will anyone remember this concept in 5 years'? Isn't this true even regarding chemists? Most of the best research scientists I know have a broad base of knowledge. However, they are relatively rare. We hope that while specifics are lost, process remains. Kelter: AMEN!!!!! This is true. We have faculty who are quite well-respected in their area who cannot draw Lewis Structures of many things. We have others who would not be able to prove that the pH of a super-dilute strong acid solution is (theoretically) less than 7. I have my own cache of weaknesses (mostly dealing with biochemistry). And you are correct, the process remains. That is the value of a Ph.D. WE KNOW HOW TO KNOW. [ Part 15: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 15:34:20 -0500 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: paper 2 equations vs phenomena - the use of models Dear Colleagues, I doubt that I can add much to the debate on the HH, Re, and DE equations. I never use the RH in my work except as an historical item. I don't use the HH equation either but I do know there are activities that must be considered and that temperature is important as biological systems are not at 25 C. I occasionally use the DE equation when I need a solution in lab, about once a year. I think we may be missing the forest because of the trees. What, after all, do these equations represent? We need to think of them more appropriately as mathematical models summarizing physical phenomena. In light of this then the model should be based on a lot of experience with the phenomena, which it was, of course, when the model was designed. I haven't taught general chemistry for over 15 years but I remember when I did. Boy was it easy to conduct a class based on mathematical manipulations. Conducting a class based on phenomena and creating the need to interpret and systematize phenomena is a difficult process. Might we actually need to create a need to know chemistry as a way of knowing rather than a body of information in the form of equations. Would such an approach actually let students see science as a way of knowing. I wonder what our students think? Do they think nature follows a bunch of laws that are written on some stone tablet for us to decipher or do they think that we create understanding through observation of natural phenomena? I don't have an answer but I am curious. Which came first, and what message do we transmit about science when we reverse the message in the classroom? 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) [ Part 16: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 15:44:49 -0500 From: Jimmy Reeves Subject: Re: Paper 2 - DR: Learning Styles [The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "ISO-LATIN" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] -----Original Message----- From: Dr. David Ritter To: CHEMCONF@UMDD.UMD.EDU Date: Monday, January 26, 1998 12:15 PM Subject: Paper 2 - DR: Learning Styles Though I have been only marginally involved in reading the discussions, I have been drawn in by their relevance and content. The issues of math and chemistry has been at the center of my concerns about teaching chemistry, but my take is a little different, I think. First, I am a physical chemist by trade, and both enjoy math and consider it indispensable to any physical science course. On that point I differ with some of my colleagues here and elsewhere who maintain that a non-science course could be presented to students for whom algebra is rocket science. I'm afraid, however, that the emphasis on math has obscured much of what is valuable in an introductory course, particularly one that is terminal (only in the sense that the students will never take another course in chemistry, though many students think about it the other way). There are many concepts, like buffers, that become much more meaningful and predictable when we introduce what at first blush are complicated mathematical formulas to describe them. Henderson-Hasselbach is a good example, and I agree that teaching that equation as a way of understanding buffers is important, at least for potential science majors. But the concept of the meaning of a buffer can be addressed by considering a titration curve, without ever addressing the equations that explain the result. For the first course in chemistry (or more correctly the first semester of chemistry, which is often the only general chemistry a student will take) it is more important in my view that students be able to identify the buffer region on a titration curve than be able to mathematically derive it. If students can't associate the part of the graph where volume of titrant changes significantly but the pH changes only slightly as the buffer region, they either don't know how to interpret graphs (a distinct and sad possibility) or they don't UNDERSTAND what a buffer does. That understanding is distinct from being able to plug numbers into an equation that contains some logarithmic terms and crank out a pH. When students focus on the math and not the ideas, they begin to view chemistry as a contest in programming their calculator (which is how many of my daughter's contemporaries in high school view the course). The joke on their teacher is to program enough of the math so that they can solve every problem by calculator manipulation. Just because an acetic acid/sodium acetate buffer that is 85% acetic acid produced a pH of 5.7(flipped ratio) doesn't strike them as odd because it is what the calculator said. A frightening side effect of this is that students are learning that its the calculator (or computer) number that matters, not the chemical common sense of the answer. So I think we need to proceed very cautiously when we talk about math and chemistry. My own view is that the first semester of chemistry ought to forgo the complicated math (HH equation, Rydberg equation, Arrehenius equation) and concentrate on conceptual understanding, and that it should cover all of the relevant topics in chemistry. The second course, usually taken by science majors, pre-health science, and environmental majors at UNCW, concentrate on filling in the mathematical details of that qualitative understanding. In other words, pH and titration curves are the subject of the first course, but Henderson-Hasselbach is not introduced until the second semester, after students have had a chance to think about buffers in a more qualitative way. It's my hypothesis that if you introduce all the qualitative info and the complicated math at the same time, (Henderson Hasselbach is complicated to students, make no mistake about that), then the concepts get obscured by the math for many students. I can tell you that I suffered from this problem in the first courses I took in Quantum Mechanics, and that, in general, my students respond better the second and third time they see a complicated concept, particularly when there is some difficult math involved. Jimmy Reeves University of North Carolina at Wilmington 601 S. College Rd. Wilmington, NC 28403 910-962-3456 (office) 910-962-3013 (fax) reeves@uncwil.edu [ Part 17: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 15:20:30 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: #2 - PK-JG paper -Zielinsky Folks, Theresa Zielinski raises a key question regarding the nature of science. It is intrinsically interesting and also goes to the heart of teaching, especially at large, land-grant universities and especially with a fairly tight "national curriculum", at least insofar as we can say that the ACS exams represent what is nationally desirable (yeah, I know it's backwards to work that way...) It also relates to graduate student preparation for academic careers. She writes, "I wonder what our students think? Do they think nature follows a bunch of laws that are written on some stone tablet for us to decipher or do they think that we create understanding through observation of natural phenomena? I don't have an answer but I am curious. Which came first, and what message do we transmit about science when we reverse the message in the class?" Kelter: The key we need to teach is, in fact, the nature of science, because that really reflects a rational approach to ideas. In an ideal world, I think that we ought to focus on how chemists learn what they know based on this way of knowing (the Middlecamp/Kean book was mentioned before - Betsy Kean has been an advocate of this model of instruction. Also, any of Jacob Bronowski's books supplement this idea). IMO, Our graduate students are not being properly taught, because they do not leave grad school with this understanding on the nature of science. So they fall back on a relatively "rote" model of teaching gen chem, often seeing math as part of this rote curriculum, rather than for the beauty of interpretation that it really does represent. and their quality of teaching, in this respect, is not as good as it could be. Some of this comes with the wisdom of age. Part of it could come with a grad course in the chem departments that addresses the nature of chemistry as a science. Paul [ Part 18: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 13:20:29 -0800 From: Bob Bruner Subject: Re: BB reply to PK/JG #2 - Goll/Mayne questions At 02:51 PM 1/26/98 -0600, PK wrote: >Jim Goll raised some questions, which I will now **abstract** -- banana slug stuff deleted, out of repsect to those from Univ California, Santa Cruz -- > >1. Do you find that mathematical ability correlates negatively or >positively >with a student's ability to formulate conceptual relationships? > >Kelter: I believe it correlates positively, because, as Thornton points >out, >math is the key way we make connections, and those who are REALLY >good at math (not equations, but, rather, the SENSE of math), can make >these connections. I do not have a reference for this though. > Question... If we took the students who were going to get an A in college math, and put them in general chem _before_ they took that math, would they do just as well in chem? That is, is the correlation between doing well in math and in chem because of the knowledge gained from the math class _or_ from the "abilities" it reflects? I suspect the latter (largely). I think Paul is saying that, too. Bob Bruner Contra Costa College, San Pablo, CA and UC Berkeley Extension [ Part 19: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 16:27:03 EST From: "JAMES E. STURM" Subject: Re: Paper 2 - BB - comments on specific mathematical equations On the "appropriateness" (!!!) of mathematics in study of science such as chemistry, I was edifyingly impressed with the attitude of Enrico Fermi who at age 10 did all of the homework problems in any book he studied in math or physics [and, by extrapolation, in chemistry]. His biography by Giorshio (sp?) is worth reading. Fermi sought to describe behavior of matter as simply as he could but did not shirk from complications when they were demanded by observations. Jim Sturm jesd@lehigh.edu [ Part 20: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 15:47:55 -0600 From: Gabriela Weaver Subject: Paper #2:GW - CE: Chemistry as a tool Cory Emal wrote: > > So what does this have to do with chemistry and mathematics? I think > that ultimately we teach chemistry (and math, and physics, etc....) > so that people develop a sense of how their world works and can use > this knowledge to their advantage, whether it is in the workplace or > the grocery store or the voting booth. ... > > I would side with Julie in saying that the inclusion of mathematics > is _essential_, because if we deny the students a mathematical manner > of looking at a problem, we deny them of potentially useful tools. > The inclusion of the conceptual side is just as essential. There must be > a balance between the conceptual and the computational so our students > get their choice of how to understand and solve a problem, both > present (in class) and future (in the "real" world, whatever that may > be). > > > Cory Emal I very much agree with Cory. I do not believe that chemistry can be taught from a completely conceptual standpoint, sans math. Nor do I think that mathematical manipulations without an explanation of the concepts serve any purpose (other than to teach mathematical manipulations.) One reason for this, which both Julie and Paul point out in their paper, is that there are many learning styles that are used by our students. While one student can understand a picture most easily, another student would find it most useful to see the equation that resulted in (or which explains) that figure. If you leave out the mathematical relations behind some of the phenomena we claim to understand, then you may be denying some of your students a depth of understanding. On the other hand, it is *very* easy to fall into the trap of showing students a bunch of equations that are used to calculate chemical quantities, and then have them treat these as "black boxes" - where you put one number in and another one pops out which is "the answer". This type of treatment would lead to a complete lack of understanding of the concepts, and therefore why these equations are used in the first place (a point also addressed in Bob Bruner's comments). How many times have you seen a student who can plug a value (x) into his/her calculator and get a value of e^x, and yet they *don't know* what the shape of the e^x curve looks like? (Have you looked for this?) I've seen this, and e^x is not nearly as involved as the H-H equation or the Arrhenius equation which are used as examples in the paper. By the way, I liked this paper a great deal. It was enjoyable to read and quite thought-provoking. Gabriela Weaver Assistant Professor University of Colorado at Denver Chemistry Department Campus Box 194 P. O. Box 173364 Denver, CO 80217-3364 Phone: (303) 556-3201 Fax: (303) 556-4776 [ Part 21: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 15:53:00 -0600 From: Gabriela Weaver Subject: Paper #2: KE (Student of GW) Here is an opinion from one of my undergraduate physical chemistry students who read Julie and Paul's paper: ------ Forwarded Message Hello everyone! I have read the paper on the internet, and my opinion is: I understand my world through the use of mathematics--courses that are not based on mathematics are a lot more work for me, and at times, they are frustrating, and I'm never sure that I completely understand them because it boils down to memorization. I believe that my relative success in physics and chemistry courses are due to the fact that *every one* of my teachers approached the science through math. However, I know several people who are not as mathematically intuitive who have had great difficulty with this approach. Like Paul, in the paper, said, those who intend to become chemists need to be able to understand the science through the math because of the data collection that is at the base of chemistry. I believe this to be absolutely true. Students who take general chemistry but do not intend to become chemists, in general, may be a different story. I think, basically, that they are a different sort of person, and that perhaps the conceptual type of teaching that Paul talked about may be more appropriate for them. All this suggests that there needs to be two different general chemistry curricula--one for majors and one for non-majors, which is what (I think) Paul was referring to in the paper. As for chemistry majors who do not intend to become chemists, I think they need to learn to deal with the math because it is so central to the science. In short, if the math keeps them from earning a degree in chemistry, maybe they shouldn't have a degree in chemistry. Of course, they could do what Metro does--offer two different degrees in chemistry, one that confers a B.A. and one that confers a B.S. Personally, I think that a B.S. would be preferable to prospective chemists. For me, science without the math is philosophy (Ugh!). Anyway, that's what I think. Karla ------ End of Forwarded Message Gabriela Weaver Assistant Professor University of Colorado at Denver Chemistry Department Campus Box 194 P. O. Box 173364 Denver, CO 80217-3364 Phone: (303) 556-3201 Fax: (303) 556-4776 [ Part 22: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 17:18:08 -0500 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: Re: #2 PBK - Kelter team repsonses On Mon, 26 Jan 1998, to2 wrote: > > I think this is a VERY interesting position. One researcher who > has made a study of this question is Shiela Tobias, as described in > "Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most > Don't", published in 1992 by the Research Corporation. One of her > conclusions is in substantial agreement with your observation: > > "...course materials and teaching enhancements are minor factors. > What hinders students are the pace, the conflicting purposes of the > courses (variously, to provide an introduction, to lay a foundation > for a research career, or to weed out the "unfit"), attitudes of > their professors and their fellow students, unexplained assumptions > and conventions, exam design and grading practices, class size, the > exclusive presentation of new material by means of lecture, and > the absence of community - a host of variables that are not addressed > by most reforms." (p 17-18). CLASS SIZE! CLASS SIZE! I also feel that class size is important. We had some discussion about class size on the CHEMICAL EDUCATOR forums in 96. (The posts are still available, http://journals.springer-ny.com/chedr) The last word was that there is no evidence that there is a significant effect of class size upon learning. I cannot help believe otherwise. Does anyone know of any statistical work on this important factor? /* 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 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Part 23: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 22:09:33 -0000 From: Greg Pearce Subject: Paper 2 - GP: Comments from a student [The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "ISO-LATIN" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] I am a 16 year old student in England studying for an A-level in chemistry. I enjoy chemistry and consider it a likely career. I also study A-level math. Although the A-level chemistry course places some emphasis on the conceptual understanding of chemistry, for the majority of the time a good knowledge of algebra and other mathematical techniques is needed. Calculus is not required. My personal opinion is that the level of math used in A-level chemistry is not a problem. Whilst I have not (yet) encountered the equations in the paper (Arrhenius equation, Henderson-Hasselbalch eqn, Rydberg eqn) I do not think that the math would be a problem. The difficulty lies in that making chemistry too mathematical would pose problems for some students, putting them off chemistry. Many students who study chemistry will not require the in-depth mathematical knowledge when they use chemistry in the future, so is it necessary to include it now? I think it would probably be better to ensure the mathematical standard for chemistry is kept low enough for less mathematical students to understand the subject (in most cases the underlying chemistry is more important than the math in any case). Perhaps students who have a better mathematical knowledge would benefit from non-compulsory handouts (etc) so they could explore the more mathematical part of the subject without hindering the less mathematical students. In some cases, however, the math is unavoidable and this would not be an option. An example encountered recently of non-compulsory math was that of lattice energy calculation. The A-level course requires students to know how to calculate lattice energies via a Born-Haber cycle, but the calculation of theoretical lattice energies (from 1st principles of electrostatics) is not required. In our chemistry lessons we were given handouts explaining how the force between two ions can be calculated, and then how the energy required to separate them (or energy gained in bringing them together) can be found by integration. Most of the chemistry class could not do the integration (it's not compulsory) but for those who could, it went some way to explaining how theoretical lattice energies could be calculated. By making this an option, the more mathematical students could explore the subject in more depth without making it difficult for the less mathematical ones. In general I would say that most students seem to prefer this approach. I think it is important to ensure that students do not simply learn the mathematics, but also the underlying chemistry. In many cases the math reinforces the chemistry, and makes concepts clearer, but it is not beneficial to learn the math (formulae etc.) without the chemistry. This is where the conceptual stoichiometry is useful, as it is more directly related to the chemistry than the math. As Julie notes in the paper, many students prefer the traditional style questions, even though they may perform equally well on each. In this case (stoichiometry) students are likely to be able to do both. But in more complex cases where the link between concept and math is less obvious, I would expect that learning the concepts is more important than the math, and bridging the gap between concept and math is what needs to be done. Greg Pearce Walton High 6th Form Stafford, UK [ Part 24: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 17:02:17 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Re: #2 PBK - Kelter team repsonses Readers, Richard raises an interesting point (below). I cannot present a study at the college level, though the New York Times recently cited work that said that 17 students was an important cut-off at the precollege level. But my own view is that there is a key point that needs to be addressed in this discussion. Where there is an option to have a small class (that is, where there is not an economic necessity to have stadium-sized lectures or where correspondence/Internet courses are not necessary because the kiddies are in town) the small class should be the model. This should be so, IMO, whether or not "more learning" takes place in this model v. Internet, self-testing, large class, or what have you. A friend of mine puts it well when he says that when you teach, "you sell your material AND you sell yourself." My passion for teaching comes from the pleasure of considering ideas. It comes from the ability to go off on relevant tangents, even if these were not specifically on my list of curriculum objectives for the day. It is the beauty in the flexibility of my students' thinking. There are many frustrations (read, "is it going to be on the test?" - I wonder if Greg Pearce over in England has friends who say that?). But it is the humanity in teaching that makes it the job I have chosen. The departmental committee work is a pain, though. Large lectures and the Internet used for **local** classes take away that humanity, at least the way I have seen the Internet used. The Internet is important in that it brings far-away students together with the teacher. But small classes permit professional and productive student-teacher relationships. I like to get to know students. And that is important in my world. Whether they learned, on average, 3% more or less than in another format of teaching really doesn't matter to me. They will know how to think, they will know they can come to me if they need/want to, and they may well be more motivated to take more chemistry, which is good for the profession. Paul > The last word was that there is no evidence that there is a > significant > effect of class size upon learning. I cannot help believe otherwise. > > Does anyone know of any statistical work on this important factor? > > /* Richard */ [ Part 25: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 08:49:43 +0900 From: Hideyuki Kanematsu Subject: Re: #2 PBK - Kelter team repsonses Dear Professor Kelter!! I was much impressed by your paper. And at the same time, the format using dialogue between a senior and her teacher made me, a non-English speaker, possible to understand the content more easily. In relation to your answer for the short questions by Professor Rosenthal, I would like to comment on several points. >> Q1. Sylvia Ware wrote: "Most countries do not concentrate on >> introducing chemistry through its mathematics, as many traditional >> U.S.... >> Why do you suppose other countries have taken a different approach? >> Are there data to show which system works better? What do you think? I am sure I am one of qualified people who can answer the question, because I am a Japanese. You mentioned examples in South Korea. But our situation is different from theirs, even though we are located very close each other. In our country, all text books are written by Japanese and authorized by Japanese Education Ministry at high school level. I am sorry I don't know any textbooks at the level in USA. Therefore,I can't compare ours with yours. However, at undergraduate level in Universities, most of text books are written in Japanese basically, but some of them are translated from English. I mean that your text books are often used at the level. I had an impression in the past that your textbooks were generally described more mathematically than ours. And in addition, exercises were generally attached to the text. As a result, I think that students can learn the subjects much more concretely rather than abstractly through your text books. At the same time, they may be in danger of having an impression that dealing with mathematical equations would be the essence of chemistry. (At least for me, the idea sounds wrong.) >> Q2. In your paper you mention, "At UNL, we about 20% of our >> general chemistry students fail or drop the course... > Kelter's Response: I like the question. I don't think that... > That is, the key is not the content level of the course. I believe > that it is the nature and commitment of the teacher. In our UNL To tell the truth, I was very interested in the question. I would like to know how professors and teachers in USA think about the problem generally. Yes, I can understand very well that the key is the nature and commitment of the teacher. I think it depends on what the teacher wants the students. We, Japanese teachers, have aimed at improving averaged scholastic ability of students so far. Therefore, we have tried to lower the drop rate as possible as we could. Of course, we have several exceptions, but we are still restricted by the idea to some extent. On the contrary, teachers in USA seem to be more interested in educating a few excellent students, even though they may give up "other majority". Maybe my idea is a little bit extreme. But I have such a general impression about the topic. Regards. Hide ---------------------------------------- Hideyuki Kanematsu web page (tentative): Associate Professor, Dr.Eng. Dept. MS & E. Suzuka National College of Technology Address:Shiroko-cho, Suzuka, Mie 510-02, JAPAN Phone:+81-593-68-1849 (direct) FAX:+81-593-87-0338 [ Part 26: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 17:51:57 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Re: [Fwd: Paper 2 - GP: Comments from a student] > Greg, I enjoyed your letter a great deal. It would seem as if the mathematics preparation is fairly stiff, even at the high school level. Can you please describe what the typical math preparation is for a high school graduate (or the U.S. equivalent?) Also, in college, do you have such course as "chemistry for the liberal arts [ie; non-science] student?" Are there test requirements - that is, specific competencies that you are expected to have, and are tested for, before graduation? I would like to open this question up to registrants from other countries as well. Thanks, Paul. [ Part 27: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 20:45:02 -0500 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: paper 2 tjz Kelter team responses Today Hideyuki Kanematsu wrote "....At the same time, they may be in danger of having an impression that dealing with mathematical equations would be the essence of chemistry. (At least for me, the idea sounds wrong.)..." and earlier a student wrote "Like Paul, in the paper, said, those who intend to become chemists need to be able to understand the science through the math because of the data collection that is at the base of chemistry." I tend to agree with my Japanese colleague and disagree with the student. Mathematical equations are not the essence of chemistry. Observations on how matter changes and is transformed in chemical reactions is closer to the essence with an emphasis on the observation of phenomena. The data in chemistry is not math. Data is just numbers. Now the significance of the numbers is the crucial thing. The work of most chemists I know is in the explanation of phenomena by developing models that can be tested through experimentation. It just turns out that we can do this succinctly by using mathematical relationships and graphical techniques. Let me tell you a story about a student who got A in calculus each semester in freshman year. This student while studying titration curves was asked to make a plot of a typical set of pH/volume data. S/He then, as I passed the computer where s/he was sitting, proceeded to do a linear regression on the plot. So much for math and observation. The student didn't even flinch when there was an obvious discrepancy between the plot of the observed data and the linear regression for that data. I hope this student is not typical but I am afraid that the connection between the math they do know, the computer skills they have, and the available software, make for an interesting brew. Do we have a situation where students can't even trust their own eyes? Is it possible we have the cart before the horse? 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) [ Part 28: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 21:52:43 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Re: #2 PBK - Kelter team repsonses Hideyuki Kanematsu wrote: > Hide wrote: > Yes, I can understand very well that the key is > the nature and commitment of the teacher. I think it depends on what > the teacher wants the students. We, Japanese teachers, have aimed at > improving averaged scholastic ability of students so far. Therefore, > we have tried to lower the drop rate as possible as we could. > Of course, we have several exceptions, but we are still restricted by > the idea to some extent. On the contrary, teachers in USA seem to be > more interested in educating a few excellent students, even though > they may give up "other majority". Maybe my idea is a little bit > extreme. But I have such a general impression about the topic. Hide, you raise one of the key issues that faculty in the U.S. have grappled with for quite some time. There is a real tension among faculty as to "what level (student) to teach to". Some like to go for the best, most prepared (set the bar high), and hope that the rest of the class can reach it. Others, like me, go for the middle, while having high expectations (that is, middle-level content, but I demand that all my students work hard to understand it - I have absolutely no tolerance for students who do not take their work seriously) Still others will go for the lowest skill level. At UNL, we now have a bunch of first-year chem courses - Chem 105 ("liberal arts"), Chem 109/110 (mainstream), Chem 111 (Engineers), and Chem 113/114/116 (majors). There was a proposal for a "Science 120" (interdisciplinary with chemistry biology, physics and math, but it was (rightly, in my view) defeated for a variety of reasons, including a strange teaching model that includes having 3 professors in the class at once to teach 20 students. I have been part of this model in an education course. I used to have lots of hair. I don't anymore. It is not genetics. It was the "3 teachers in a room at the same time" model. Rogaine won't help. Cordially, Paul. ____________ Paul Kelter Associate Professor [ Part 29: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 20:48:15 -0800 From: Walter Volland Subject: Re: paper 2 WV Math versus concepts I agree with Theresa's comments. The idea that the essence of chemistry is mathamatics ignores that fact that observations and experiments provide the data that can be analyzed. The "qualitative side of chemistry is every bit as important as the numerical side. They are both essential. An annoying problem that I have encountered over the years has been the tendency among people to believe in a numerical result in spite of its inherent falseness. Robley Light brought up one such example of the students who want to get pH 8 solution by diluting a hydrochloric acid solution. The math mechanics are okay but the logical analytical skills are incomplete. There are many students who like "the exactness of chemistry". This is a comment often made about the satisfaction of having a number answer instead of one that requires interpretation along with the number. These same people do not like analysis. They are very comfortable with their algorithms. I try to make all problems have a descriptive component.. > Dr. Walt Volland > Department of Chemistry > Bellevue Community College > Bellevue WA 98007 > 425-641-2467 > wvolland@bcc.ctc.edu > http://www.scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/wv/101-140homepage.html > > We are all reflections of our previous experience. Whomever we > contact will likewise be a reflection of us. [ Part 2: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 21:07:19 -0800 From: Bob Bruner Subject: Re: BB reply to paper 2 RP, re class size At 05:18 PM 1/26/98 -0500, Richard Pendarvis wrote: > >CLASS SIZE! CLASS SIZE! > >I also feel that class size is important. We had some discussion about >class size on the CHEMICAL EDUCATOR forums in 96. (The posts are still >available, http://journals.springer-ny.com/chedr) > >The last word was that there is no evidence that there is a significant >effect of class size upon learning. I cannot help believe otherwise. > >Does anyone know of any statistical work on this important factor? > Perhaps you -- or anyone -- can summarize the _types_ of studies that were done, or the alleged reasons for the conclusion? It may not be the class size per se, but what we do with the smaller classes. In a smaller class, I have more direct interaction with the students in the lab (and elsewhere). For example, I may be able to watch each group set up a tricky apparatus, and guide them and discuss it with them. Or I may be able to discuss lab questions -- interactively -- rather than just grade papers. Further, I can afford more thoughtful tests. My intuition, too, is that should be 'good'. Of course, if I taught a class of 25 the same way I would be forced to teach a class of 500, class size might not matter. At our community college, lab sections of about 25 are the norm. 'Lecture' may be to a group of 2-3 sections. We would like to think that the small class size, with the actual instructor teaching the lab, is one of our strengths compared to Big U. Bob Bruner Contra Costa College, San Pablo, CA and UC Berkeley Extension [ Part 3: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 21:07:23 -0800 From: Bob Bruner Subject: Re: BB reply to paper 2 tjz, on data collection At 08:45 PM 1/26/98 -0500, Theresa Julia Zielinski wrote: >Today Hideyuki Kanematsu wrote > >"....At the same time, they may be in danger of having an impression >that dealing with mathematical equations would be the essence of >chemistry. (At least for me, the idea sounds wrong.)..." > >and earlier a student wrote > >"Like Paul, in the paper, said, those who intend to become chemists >need to be able to understand the science through the math because of the data >collection that is at the base of chemistry." > >I tend to agree with my Japanese colleague and disagree with the student. I would like to agree with both of them. One issue that comes thru in G&K paper and in much of our discussion is that there are different kind of students. I think Karla stated her case well, and that her mathematical abilities will enhance her work as a chemist. I think Karla is also quite reasonable to state that data collection is at the base of chem -- and that we analyze that data mathematically. That is not the entire story, but I am happy that a chem student is impressed with that part. That a student did the data analysis incorrectly -- well, they are learning! I have seen students who think they have been taught to always draw a straight line through data. (I suspect they had not yet come across any other case). I do agree with your main thrust below. But it is not either-or. And I think you may have somewhat distorted karla's intent in order to help make your contrast. Bob Bruner Contra Costa College, San Pablo, CA and UC Berkeley Extension --- rest is from TJZ's message >Mathematical equations are not the essence of chemistry. Observations on >how matter changes and is transformed in chemical reactions is closer to >the essence with an emphasis on the observation of phenomena. The data in >chemistry is not math. Data is just numbers. Now the significance of the >numbers is the crucial thing. The work of most chemists I know is in the >explanation of phenomena by developing models that can be tested through >experimentation. It just turns out that we can do this succinctly by using >mathematical relationships and graphical techniques. > >Let me tell you a story about a student who got A in calculus each semester >in freshman year. This student while studying titration curves was asked to >make a plot of a typical set of pH/volume data. S/He then, as I passed the >computer where s/he was sitting, proceeded to do a linear regression on the >plot. So much for math and observation. The student didn't even flinch when >there was an obvious discrepancy between the plot of the observed data and >the linear regression for that data. I hope this student is not typical but >I am afraid that the connection between the math they do know, the computer >skills they have, and the available software, make for an interesting brew. >Do we have a situation where students can't even trust their own eyes? Is >it possible we have the cart before the horse? > >Theresa > [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 00:53:31 EST From: Lucky bel Subject: Re: Paper 2 -WV-Chemistry drop outs and success I'm unhappy to report that chemistry is not the only science subject that has high failure rates. The present attrition rates for college students in all areas should be considered. The plus side is that a 20% dropout rate in a course means 80% success. Do the numbers include all failing grades and people who choose not the sign up the next term? Has the failure rate and dropout rate changed over the years at your institutions? I've been teaching general chemistry since 1968 and there has not been any significant change at our college. Our attrition rate/failure rate is around 5-15%. While everyone condemns grade inflation I'm hearing some pretty odd comments about success and failure in our colleges and universities. There is an implicit assumption that people leave chemistry because they cannot do the math. Well it may be that they left chemistry because they found out they didn't like it. Maybe they didn't like the kind of chemistry being taught. Maybe they decided a different major was more attractive. Maybe they were right out of high school and full of energy to do something besides studying anything. There is a crying need to be sure that our general chemistry is understandable by our students along with a need to be sure that they are treated fairly. The current trend toward multiple choice testing is an example of this unfair treatment. I feel students are being cheated if they are evaluated only using multiple choice exams. This is particularly true of the canned test banks that publishers provide. Short essay questions are more work, but they are necessary. Walt Volland Department of Chemistry Bellevue Community College Bellevue Washington 425-641-2467 wvolland@bcc.ctc.edu (office) luckybelaol.com (home) [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 05:42:58 EST From: Lucky bel Subject: Re: Paper 2 WV, re class size & numbers The issue of class size is very important if only the safety issue is considered. The lecture class size is another matter. I believe class size has an impact on student and faculty attitudes. There are dedicated "science" students who are impervious to the problems of class size but the less dedicated students or uncertain students will suffer. When I have taught larger classes (300) students at the University of Washington I have lost the connection with the individual students that I have at BCC. The class size at Bellevue Community College is linked to the lab of 24. Our campus has lecture rooms that only hold 48-55. This means we have small lecture classes. I believe the 48 student class is near the limit where faculty members start to lose touch with the class. The 24 student classes are easier to teach because there is less paper shuffling and because I can talk individually with every student during lab and discussion sections. I fine it hard to imagine a lab instructor sitting in the lab grading papers while the students do the experiment. I can see how they tackle a problem and nudge them over obstacles. I have a better sense of the amount of "work" they are doing and the successes they are having. This is one reason why our retention rates in chemistry are very good. This is also one reason why our program has the one of the largest groups of undergraduate chemistry students in the state. Students are shopping for colleges that are user friendly. The commuter students out here discuss departments using email. We have been blessed with many excellent students who have fled the four year colleges because of their large classes. An odd development regarding class sizes arises regarding online classes. I'm in the process of developing an online class for a state wide Associate of Arts curriculum. Who is teaching an online chemistry class out there? What is done about class size in these online classes? What have you done about number grinding and concept balance. Walt Volland Department of Chemistry Bellevue Community College 425-641-2467 wvolland@bcc.ctc.edu luckybel@aol.com [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 07:13:50 -0500 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: Re: Paper 2 WV, re class size & numbers On Tue, 27 Jan 1998, Lucky bel wrote: > The issue of class size is very important if only the safety issue is > considered. The lecture class size is another matter. I believe class size > has an impact on student and faculty attitudes. There are dedicated "science" > students who are impervious to the problems of class size but the less > dedicated students or uncertain students will suffer. > snip > > An odd development regarding class sizes arises regarding online classes. I'm > in the process of developing an online class for a state wide Associate of > Arts curriculum. Who is teaching an online chemistry class out there? What > is done about class size in these online classes? What have you done about > number grinding and concept balance. > IMHO, online courses and distance learning initiatives appear to be backed by administrators for what are primarily economic incentives. Education is perpetually in an economic crunch. I read somewhere that we will get the $ for technology and other innovations if and only if they can be shown to pay for themselves. Perhaps the discussion on "Silicon Cognition" will shed some light on this. /* 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 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Part 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 08:10:36 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Re: Paper 2 -WV-Chemistry drop outs and success > Walt Volland wrote: > The current trend toward multiple choice testing is an example of this > unfair > treatment. I feel students are being cheated if they are evaluated > only using > multiple choice exams. This is particularly true of the canned test > banks > that publishers provide. Short essay questions are more work, but > they are > necessary. Kelter comments: Multiple choice testing is only unfair if it is the only method of assessment. A full assessment of students includes all kinds things - individual reports, team projects, etc. All this is possible, and, indeed, desirable, even in a large lecture section (at UNL, we typically have between 150 and 6 bazillion students per lecture class). Multiple choice exams, if written properly (by the teacher, not the textbook companies - you are correct - they are generally awful..) can give proper weight, can be "partial credit" and do eliminate errors due to having TA's who don't know very much making value judgements on answers. Student grades are too important to have TA's do the grading on essay-style exams. Multiple choice exams me a heckuva lot of sense to me. Paul ______________ Paul Kelter [ Part 8: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:44:30 -0500 From: Bert Ramsay Subject: Re: Paper 2 -WV-Chemistry drop outs and success [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "ISO-LATIN" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] > > Walt Volland wrote: > > > The current trend toward multiple choice testing is an example of this > > unfair treatment. I feel students are being cheated if they are evaluated > > only using multiple choice exams. This is particularly true of the canned test > > banks that publishers provide. Short essay questions are more work, but > > they are necessary. > Kelter comments: Multiple choice testing is only unfair if it is the > only method of assessment. A full assessment of students includes all kinds > things - individual reports, team projects, etc. All this is possible, > and, indeed, desirable, even in a large lecture section (at UNL, we > typically have between 150 and 6 bazillion students per lecture class). > Multiple choice exams, if written properly (by the teacher, not > the textbook companies - you are correct - they are generally awful..) > can give proper weight, can be "partial credit" and do eliminate errors > due to having TA's who don't know very much making value judgements > on answers. Student grades are too important to have TA's do the grading > on essay-style exams. Multiple choice exams me a heckuva lot of > sense to me. === Learning from the incorrect answers on a multiple choice exam: Typically the incorrect answers on a multiple choice exam are "anticipated" -e.g. they have made a decimal point error, used the wrong chemical formula to calculate a molar mass (CaCl instead of CaCl2), etc. A tutor (or teacher) on reviewing a test can usually help the student avoid the same kind of mistakes by going over the incorrect answers. And then suggest he/she work some additional problems until these errors are elminated. This approach while guaranteed to improve student performance has not been practical until now because of the time and cost required to provide every student with a tutor. My software has solved this problem. You are welcome to look at http://www.Bizserve.com/c3 to get some idea of how this is possible. Bert Ramsay, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, Eastern Michigan University - and President, Chemical Concepts Corporation. [ Part 9: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 08:56:58 -0600 From: "Dr. David Ritter" Subject: Re: Paper 2 -WV-Chemistry drop outs and success At 12:53 AM 1/27/98 EST, you wrote: >I'm unhappy to report that chemistry is not the only science subject that has >high failure rates. .... >...I feel students are being cheated if they are evaluated only using >multiple choice exams... >Walt Volland >Department of Chemistry >Bellevue Community College >Bellevue Washington >425-641-2467 >wvolland@bcc.ctc.edu (office) >luckybelaol.com (home) > Last evening, as I was reading the day's discussion of these issues, a former student stopped by my office for a visit. He finished his BS in Chemistry a few years ago and has now enrolled in the MBA evening program while he works in a chemical plant during the day. He explained the exam system that was used in one of his management classes: The exam was multiple choice. Some of the items were worded so that they had to be read rather carefully to discern between the choices. As they went through the exam (after passing them back), the instructor polled the class to see how many had missed each item. For each question that a majority had missed, they got to add the point back onto their score. The net result was that everyone did quite well, and (I guess) felt good about themselves. Perhaps we should consider a similar remedy for those students that have been cheated. David Ritter David Ritter Department of Chemistry Southeast Missouri State University dritter@semovm.semo.edu [ Part 10: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:01:42 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Thornton resp.Paper 1, TOH: Nature of Mathematics in General Chemistry]] [ Part 10.2: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 98 08:41:24 -0600 From: Mel Thornton To: pkelter@unlinfo.unl.edu Subject: Re: [Fwd: Paper 1, TOH: Nature of Mathematics in General Chemistry] Paul: >Tom writes, in part: > >> 1. Are general chemistry tests really fundamentally >> mathematical in nature or do they simply use mathematics >> as a tool? (story of prelim question on math and chem) >I'd still defend my answer that much of the study of chemistry involves >quantitative concepts but very little of it is "mathematical," at least >in the sense of proving theorems and doing other things that mathematicians >do. Unless mixing coffee with sugar in the morning is considered to be >chemical. Mathematicians do that also. 8-) Of course I've never met this person, but I'm certain I would like them. Nice answer. A lay person could very well stretch and think mixing stuff in your coffee is doing chemistry. I would agree that if one tried to explain what happened when sugar is mixed in a cup of coffee and how one could tell sugar was there and how much, you are probably doing what chemists do, ie chemistry. My first response would be that general chemistry tests use computational mathematics simply as a tool. Do most general chemisty students hunt for patterns, make conjectures, justify conclusions, and try to generalize? Probably not. And of course most calculus students don't yet either. Melvin C. Thornton Department of Mathematics and Statistics University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln NE, 68588-0323 ph: 402-472-7234, email: mthornto@math.unl.edu FAX: 402-472-8466 [ Part 11: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:22:11 -0500 From: Leon Combs Chemistry Subject: Re: Paper 2 -WV-Chemistry drop outs and success >Last evening, as I was reading the day's discussion of these issues, a >former student stopped by my office for a visit. He finished his BS in >Chemistry a few years ago and has now enrolled in the MBA evening program >while he works in a chemical plant during the day. > >He explained the exam system that was used in one of his management classes: >The exam was multiple choice. Some of the items were worded so that they had >to be read rather carefully to discern between the choices. As they went >through the exam (after passing them back), the instructor polled the class >to see how many had missed each item. For each question that a majority had >missed, they got to add the point back onto their score. The net result was >that everyone did quite well, and (I guess) felt good about themselves. > >Perhaps we should consider a similar remedy for those students that have >been cheated. >David Ritter >David Ritter >Department of Chemistry >Southeast Missouri State University >dritter@semovm.semo.edu > Cheated? Just because a majority missed a question means that they were cheated by an unfair question (I presume the question is unfair is the assumption regarding being cheated)? If a majority of the class misses a question then indeed something is wrong, but there are several possiblities for what that might be. I would have to know more before I could agree with this. Leon <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< Leon L. Combs, Ph.D. Professor and Chair Tel: 770-423-6159 Dept. Chemistry FAX: 770-423-6744 Kennesaw State University e-mail: lcombs@ksumail.kennesaw.edu 1000 Chastain Road http://science.kennesaw.edu/~lcombs Kennesaw, GA 30144-5591 CARPE DIEM ---- CORUM DEO <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< [ Part 12: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:50:14 -0500 From: Joyce Overly Subject: Re: Paper 2 -WV-Chemistry drop outs and success -Reply David Ritter's comment: ..snip...For each question that a majority had missed, they got to add the point back onto their score... Perhaps we should consider a similar remedy for those students that have been cheated. Leon Combs responded: Cheated? Just because a majority missed a question means that they were cheated by an unfair question (I presume the question is unfair is the assumption regarding being cheated)? If a majority of the class misses a question then indeed something is wrong, but there are several possiblities for what that might be. I would have to know more before I could agree with this. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I definitely agree with Leon on this point. There's a difference between a difficult question and an unfair question. One way that I use to discern the difference is not to look at the overall class's results on a question, but to compare the results on that question for the top 10-20% of the students and the bottom 10-20% of the students on the entire test. If most of both groups miss the question (or worse yet, more of the bottom students than top students get it right), then it's likely that there is some problem with the question and it should be examined and probably eliminated from the test. But if the majority of the top group get it right and the majority of the bottom group get it wrong, then my conclusion is that it was a difficult question but not an unfair one. Arbitrarily eliminating any question that a majority of the students miss sounds like "lowering the bar" to me. Joyce Overly Science Department, Gaston College and Online Tutor, America Online Academic Assistance Center [ Part 13: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:04:49 -0700 From: Scott Donnelly Subject: Paper 2 and math... Have English faculty done away with having students write complete sentences in their term papers? What about spelling...a lot of people have difficulties spelling? Or correct subject-verb agreement? Are these tools for communicating no longer necessary to earn high marks in English composition? I doubt it. Why not have students verbalize to faculty what they would write? Conceptually it may work. Quantitatively, that's a lot of students. If the answer to any of the above is "yes", then a grave disservice has been done. Just curious. Scott D. Scott Donnelly Email: aw_donnelly@awc.cc.az.us Department of Chemistry Phone: 520 344 7590 Arizona Western College Webpage: http://www.awc.cc.az.us/chem/ Yuma, AZ 85366-0929 "In education it is not enough to be aware that other people may try to fool you;it is more important to be aware of your own tendency to fool yourself." -Paul G. Hewitt [ Part 14: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:10:28 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Thornton response Paper 2 - DR: Learning Styles]] [ Part 14.2: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 98 10:02:28 -0600 From: Mel Thornton To: Paul Kelter Subject: Re: [Fwd: Paper 2 - DR: Learning Styles] From: >Jimmy Reeves >University of North Carolina at Wilmington >601 S. College Rd. >Wilmington, NC 28403 >910-962-3456 (office) >910-962-3013 (fax) >reeves@uncwil.edu > So I think we need to proceed very cautiously when we talk about math >and chemistry. My own view is that the first semester of chemistry ought to >forgo the complicated math (HH equation, Rydberg equation, Arrehenius >equation) and concentrate on conceptual understanding, and that it should >cover all of the relevant topics in chemistry. The second course, usually >taken by science majors, pre-health science, and environmental majors at >UNCW, concentrate on filling in the mathematical details of that qualitative >understanding. In other words, pH and titration curves are the subject of >the first course, but Henderson-Hasselbach is not introduced until the >second semester, after students have had a chance to think about buffers in >a more qualitative way. It's my hypothesis that if you introduce all the >qualitative info and the complicated math at the same time, (Henderson >Hasselbach is complicated to students, make no mistake about that), then the >concepts get obscured by the math for many students. Excellent point. Henderson-Hasselbach seems to be a wonderful answer to a question the students will NOT have unless they have this qualitative background and understanding. Nice answers to questions you don't have aren't useful and don't make sense. Does it take a full semester to attain that level of qualitative info? Or does it take a semester to "prune" the course to a collection of students who can understand and appreciate H-H? I hope that's not what is going on. Melvin C. Thornton Department of Mathematics and Statistics University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln NE, 68588-0323 ph: 402-472-7234, email: mthornto@math.unl.edu FAX: 402-472-8466 [ Part 15: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:52:28 -0500 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Paper 2 JMM math and literacy Scott wrote: >Have English faculty done away with having students write complete >sentences in their term papers? What about spelling...a lot of people have >difficulties spelling? Or correct subject-verb agreement? Are these tools >for communicating no longer necessary to earn high marks in English >composition? I doubt it. >Why not have students verbalize to faculty what they would write? >Conceptually it may work. Quantitatively, that's a lot of students. > >If the answer to any of the above is "yes", then a grave disservice has >been done. > Since in the workplace communication is essential and business demands writing and speaking skills as well as numeracy, does an over emphasis on math, equation, multiple choice etc produce a chemist that can function in the real world? What is the appropriate balance. If we don't use essays, and essay questions and require students to demonstrate the ability to explain as well as to derive equations or solve numeric problems do we know if they understand chemistry? We are also getting from the business world a greater requirement for evidence that graduates can work in groups and all our testing and lab training teaches them to do it individually. 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/ [ Part 16: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:43:38 -0000 From: Greg Pearce Subject: Re: [Fwd: Paper 2 - GP: Comments from a student] Paul, >It would seem as if the mathematics preparation is fairly stiff, even >at the high school level. > >Can you please describe what the typical math preparation is >for a high school graduate (or the U.S. equivalent?) At the start of the A-level course (age 16) all students will be able to do basic algebraic manipulation (a = b/c etc.), draw graphs, use scientific notation, etc. Better students will be able to solve quadratic and simultaneous equations, do more complex algebra, etc. There are many other topics that wouldn't be relevant to science. At this level, no calculus or logs are taught. Post-16, the students that choose A-level math will learn calculus, logs, statistics, etc. No further math is taught to students who do not choose A-level math. This is probably the reason why calculus is no longer a requirement for chemistry or physics A-level (as far as I know). >Also, in college, do you have such course as "chemistry >for the liberal arts [ie; non-science] student?" No. There are no such courses. At A-level (age 16-18) the courses available are general, e.g. "Chemistry", "Physics", "Mathematics". There are no separate courses for non-science students. In fact, non-science students are discouraged from the A-level science courses. I think at university, post-18, there are some combined degree courses (e.g. "Chemistry with French") but they are not aimed at non-science students. >Are there test requirements - that is, specific competencies >that you are expected to have, and are tested for, before >graduation? There are numerous exams that must be taken before an A-level is awarded. The course that we follow is "modular", i.e. four separate exams are taken throughout the course, followed by a "synoptic" paper at the end. The four separate exams have fairly short questions that test knowledge of the subject (for example drawing a Born-Haber cycle, calculating % yield, predicting products from reactions, and so on), whereas the synoptic paper tests knowledge of lab techniques (essay questions). We must also complete a written "investigation" (lab report) which accounts for about 10% of the final grade (I think). Also the teacher must complete a report on your "general competence" which accounts for some percentage of the grade as well. In reference to the message "Re: #2 PBK - Kelter team repsonses", yes, most students do ask what will be on tests. But the teachers never say. They don't seem to like people who ask questions like that. Greg Pearce Walton High 6th Form Stafford, UK [ Part 17: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 12:10:58 -0500 From: Mike Epstein Subject: Paper 2 - ME comment on JMM math and literacy [The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "ISO-LATIN" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] From: Jack Martin Miller >Since in the workplace communication is essential and business demands >writing and speaking skills as well as numeracy, does an over emphasis on >math, equation, multiple choice etc produce a chemist that can function in >the real world? This is a very important point. General chemistry exams AND laboratory reports are often lacking any significant requirement for writing skills. There is, of course, a good reason for this: it is terribly time-consuming for a faculty member to grade 40+ essay questions or essay-based laboratory reports and qualified student aides may not be available to grade the essays. On the other hand, single answer or multiple choice questions can be graded by any student aide or quickly done by the faculty member. So ... when these students get to quantitative analysis, where the class size is smaller and they are required to explain their laboratory data in an essay format, the result is less than pleasing. Yet, as JM points out, speaking and writing skills are critical to success in the sciences. So this training must start in general chemistry. Mike Epstein ================================================== Mike Epstein Research Chemist, NIST, Gaithersburg, Maryland [Opinions expressed are mine ... not necessarily theirs] PHONE: (301) 975-4114 FAX: (301) 869-0413 Mike_S_Epstein@msn.com Michael.Epstein@nist.gov WWW Home Page: http://esther.la.asu.edu/sas/epstein/epstein.html Check out our new Spectrochemical Methods Group Page at NIST: http://www.cstl.nist.gov/nist839/839.01/spectro.htm "Standardization is a euphemism for monopoly" ... Ralph Nader at the Appraising Microsoft Conference, Nov 13-14, 1997 [ Part 18: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:21:07 -0700 From: gary mort Subject: Re: Paper 2 - ME comment on JMM math and literacy Ok so here is a sideways arguement for small classes. gm [ Part 19: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 12:27:26 -0500 From: "Dr. Kenneth Brown" Subject: Re: Paper 2 -WV-Chemistry drop outs and success -Reply Playing devil's advocate: But the students "felt better" and in these days of the touchy feely isn't that important? Kenneth H. Brown, Ph.D. phone:405-327-8560 Department of Chemistry fax:405-327-1881 Northwestern Oklahoma State University 709 Oklahoma Blvd. Alva, OK 73717 [ Part 20: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 09:10:56 -0800 From: George Wiger Subject: H-H Equation and course structure I am a bit confused about concerns regarding the use of the H-H equation. First, as far as I am aware, detailed discussion of equilibria usually appears in the second semester, at which point an enormous amount of qualitative discussion and supporting lab work will have occured. I am curious if there are any schools at which acid-base equilibria, in a quantitative sense, is presented early. Second, it has not been my experience that the H-H equation is difficult for students, beyond their almost universal lack of familiarity with logs. Since they lack any formal training in log relationships, what the H-H equation "means" is lost and they become pluggers. As others have noted, the question really is: What is the source of math content (or emphasis) being an obstacle to understanding chemistry? Is it how we're doing the chemistry or how others are doing the math? I wish I could answer that one. George Wiger CSU Dominguez Hills gwiger@chemistry.csudh.edu [ Part 21: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 11:21:43 -0700 From: Scott Donnelly Subject: Paper 2 sjd Math ability.... I teach at a small community college. There are ~70 students enrolled in both General and Intro Chemistry on average on the first day for Fall semester. The first week I take a lab period (3.5 hours) and administer a Math Pre-test of ~10 questions. The questions deal mainly with metric conversions, % calculations, solving for a single variable, ratios, unit cancellation, and simple graph interpretation. All the questions are related to common and recognizable situations to students. For example: You have 10$ and wish to buy 3 pounds of meat. If the meat costs $3.25/lbs do you have enough $$ to buy the 3 pounds? If "no" how much more do you need? If "yes" how much money is left over? If "yes" what percentage of the original amount of $$ did you spend? Etc. I give ~45 minutes to complete the pre-test. We then go over each question and students make corrections where appropriate. Students are told that questions of these types are very similar to those they will have to solve either in lab, on an exam, or on a quiz. I also ask them some conceptual problems that as a class they discuss. For example, when walking barefoot in your house why does the tiled kitchen floor feel colder than the carpeted living room floor even though...(I tell them the following at this at this point in the semester)...the floors are at the same temperature? Students now have an idea of what is expected of them mathematically and also what constitutes a conceptual ???. I can't control whether those who did poorly on the math pre-test brush up on their math. But at least they have an idea of what will be expected of them in terms of basic mathematics. I'd like to hear what others do. Cheers. Scott D. Scott Donnelly Email: aw_donnelly@awc.cc.az.us Department of Chemistry Phone: 520 344 7590 Arizona Western College Webpage: http://www.awc.cc.az.us/chem/ Yuma, AZ 85366-0929 "In education it is not enough to be aware that other people may try to fool you;it is more important to be aware of your own tendency to fool yourself." -Paul G. Hewitt [ Part 22: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 13:46:14 EST5EDT4,M4.1.0,M10.5.0 From: "Lanzafame, Frank" Subject: Re: H-H Equation and course structure I find all this discussion of the Hideous, Horrific, Henderson-Hasselbach equation disconcerting. One of life's desires for me is to hang some garlic around it and drive a silver tipped, wooden stake through it. I would urge the aficionado's of old H^4 to calculate the pH of a solution which is 0.10 M in Picric Acid and 0.10 M in Sodium Picrate. Ka = 0.51 The usual misuse of this equation does not provide pH = 1.13 Those using the equilibrium approach will see the difficulty in blindly applying H^4. The sorry problem is that H^4 really does the student no favor. Blindly stuffing some numbers into THE equation produces neither understanding nor the correct answer. Stepping from the soap box and seeking refuge in my flame resistant bunker,... Ciao, /\~~~/\ > > Frank M. Lanzafame Department of Chemistry > ^ ^ > Monroe Community College 1000 East Henrietta Rd. > (_O_) > Rochester, NY 14623 716-292-2396 > U > Internet: flanzafame@monroecc.edu [ Part 23: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 13:59:39 -0500 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: Re: Paper 2 sjd Math ability.... I teach in a slightly large community college, Fall is 70 students in prep (intor) chem 50 in Gen chem 1, 20-34 in Org. 1, 40 in Health Occupations chem, 20 in non-majors. I am half of the chemistry dept. I can already guess at the results that we would get, probably worse than yours. We have a college algebra prerequisite for all of our courses. Math people teach it much better than I do. I learned from early experience that those who slipped through the system without the prerequisite will drop or flunk mostly (75% or more). The prerequisite makes a big difference. Drastic? Maybe but it works. If I had to spend half the term trying to teach algebra, not much would be left for chemistry content. It is too tight already. /* 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 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Part 24: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 15:21:24 -0400 From: "Harry E. Pence" Subject: Re: Paper 2 - DR: Math vs. Concepts Donald Rosenthal wrote: >2. Are concepts and mathematics necessarily in confict? I would say that they are not, as long as the mathematics is readily understandable to those who are involved. I would also add that the math is a supplement to, not a replacement for, the concept. During a physics course that I took while in graduate school, the professor started talking about the Stern-Gerlach experiment. I held up my hand and asked if he could please refresh my memory regarding what the Stern-Gerlach experiment was. He wrote an equation of the board. I persisted by asking again, "What is the experiment?" By now he was becoming quite unhappy (That's what happens when we let these damn chemists into real courses!), and he pointed at the equation and announced, "That is the Stern-Gerlach Experiment!" At this point I had a moment of enlightment - Some people see nature through math, and some do not. Most of us use a combination of the methods. We must design our lectures based on the people in the audience. If we lecture in Arabic, when most of the people in the class don't speak that language, we are wasting our time. Sometimes our mathematical arguments, which look very elegant to us, are just as much of a foreign language to our students as a lecture in Arabic. I once looked in on a gen chem lecture, where the lecturer had the full Schroedinger for the hydrogen atom written on the board. The faces of the students ran the spectrum from total boredom to extreme frustration. The mathematics was great; the teaching was not. A simple discussion of the concepts might have been far better communication, and so better teaching. The key, as usual, is finding the right balance. If you are doing simple algebra and the students are lost, you've lost the game. If you are qualitatively introducing basic ideas from differential equations in such a way that most of the students can follow, you're on the right track. Concepts and mathematics don't have to be in conflict, as long as we keep a strong grip on reality, and teach to the students in front of us, not the ones we remember from graduate school. 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____________________________| [ Part 25: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 14:52:07 -0500 From: Marcy Towns <00mhtowns@BSU.EDU> Subject: Re: Paper 2 JMM math and literacy As Jack wrote: > >Since in the workplace communication is essential and business demands >writing and speaking skills as well as numeracy, does an over emphasis on >math, equation, multiple choice etc produce a chemist that can function in >the real world? What is the appropriate balance. If we don't use essays, >and essay questions and require students to demonstrate the ability to >explain as well as to derive equations or solve numeric problems do we know >if they understand chemistry? We are also getting from the business world a >greater requirement for evidence that graduates can work in groups and all >our testing and lab training teaches them to do it individually. > I agree with all the discussion about essay questions and other methods of assessment taking alot of time, BUT Jack's last two sentences are worth reading more than once. Most folks have probably heard of the JCE articles by1) Nurrenbern & Pickering, 2) Sawrey, and 3) Pickering which focused on asking algorithmic vs. conceptual questions (they were gas law and stoich questions). The notion is that students can function algorithimically and not have any idea what they are calculating, or what the numbers mean. I think is it appropreiate to ask students to explain, or to compare and contrast concepts. Although I teach mostly physical chemistry students, at times it is amazing to read what they write or to listen to them talk about concepts. They need to learn to express themselves well in a written format and an oral format. It is a must in the business world. Listening to students talk about discuss graphs on the chalkboard, (or interpret figures or drawings of experiments), is very enlightening. Finally, many businesses require employees to work in teams, either within their own department across the company, or between companies. At some point in learning about chemistry it might be helpful to our students if we encouraged them to learn some communication and interpersonal skills that would help them be successful in the workplace. Sincerely, Marcy. Marcy Hamby Towns Assistant Professor of Chemistry Ball State University Cooper Hall Muncie, IN 47306 765-285-8075 765-285-2351 (FAX) 00mhtowns@bsu.edu [ Part 26: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 12:08:26 -0800 From: Jim Diamond Subject: Re: Paper 2 -WV-Chemistry drop outs and success -Reply On Tue, 27 Jan 1998 10:50:14 -0500 Joyce Overly wrote: > I definitely agree with Leon on this point. There's a difference between a > difficult question and an unfair question. One way that I use to discern the > difference is not to look at the overall class's results on a question, but to > compare the results on that question for the top 10-20% of the students > and the bottom 10-20% of the students on the entire test. If most of both > groups miss the question (or worse yet, more of the bottom students than > top students get it right), then it's likely that there is some problem with the > question and it should be examined and probably eliminated from the test. .. > Joyce Overly We look at the correlation between overall performance on the exam and performance on each individual question. We use a graphical rather than a quantitative method of comparison. We compare two curves on the same graph: one which plots the total number of points earned by each quintile of the class versus quintile, and one which plots the number of points earned on a particular question by each quintile of the class versus quintile. We through out questions where these curves appear dissimilar. We feel that well-written questions are those in which individual question quintile performance is very similar to overall quintile performance. This has been a very fruitful approach for us, and it has really helped us write consistent exam questions as well. Jim Diamond, chair Chemistry Department McMinnville, OR 97128 jimd@linfield.edu Linfield College (503)-434-2471 [ Part 27: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:07:51 -0500 From: Robley Light Subject: Re: H-H Equation and course structure At 01:46 PM 1/27/98 EST5EDT4,M4.1., you wrote: >I find all this discussion of the Hideous, Horrific, Henderson-Hasselbach >equation disconcerting. > >One of life's desires for me is to hang some garlic around it and drive a >silver tipped, wooden stake through it. > >I would urge the aficionado's of old H^4 to calculate the pH of a solution >which is 0.10 M in Picric Acid and 0.10 M in Sodium Picrate. Ka = 0.51 > >The usual misuse of this equation does not provide pH = 1.13 A very good point. But the normal equilibrium expression wouldn't work either if you just plugged in the values as they are, without realizing that some of the picric acid is going to dissociate, giving a final concentration of (0.1 - [H+]), and the picrate a concentration of (0.1 + [H+]), and there is not enough picric acid to produce a [H+] of 0.51 M. Even in this problem, we are neglecting the H+ produced by water ionization, and the actual picrate concentration should be (0.1 + [H+] - [OH-]) or (0.1 + [H+] - Kw/[H+]). For acids with much smaller Ka's we neglect the [H+] term but never point out that we do so. That is similar to the 10e-8 M HCl problem. And given the If we don't take the time to go over what assumptions we make to simplify the math, and when those assumptions are invalid, then we can run into these problems. (Of course we run into them even after thinking we explained it.) I'm not sure this is an argument to cut math out of general chemistry, though, just to be more careful how we apply it. So the HH is still valid as pH = pK + log(0.1 + [H+])/(0.1-[H+]) its just not useful in this case because you can't solve it in this form(I thought I might try by a series of iterations beginning with an approximate value, but that doesn't seem easily to converge). Thanks for the example. I'll keep it in mind next time I talk about limitations of assumptions. Robley Light > >Those using the equilibrium approach will see the difficulty in blindly >applying H^4. The sorry problem is that H^4 really does the student no favor. >Blindly stuffing some numbers into THE equation produces neither understanding >nor the correct answer. > >Stepping from the soap box and seeking refuge in my flame resistant bunker,... > >Ciao, > > > /\~~~/\ > > > Frank M. Lanzafame Department of Chemistry > > ^ ^ > Monroe Community College 1000 East Henrietta Rd. > > (_O_) > Rochester, NY 14623 716-292-2396 > > U > Internet: flanzafame@monroecc.edu > ************************************************************* Robley J. Light Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Phone: (850) 644-3844 Florida State University Email: rlight@chem.fsu.edu Tallahassee, FL 32306-4390 Fax: (850) 644-8281 Home Page: http://www.sb.fsu.edu/~rlight [ Part 28: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:34:32 EST From: Lucky bel Subject: Paper 2 WV-Re: JMM math and literacy The need to communicate ideas is fundamental. The inclusion of essays and written work is part of the learning process. Graduates who can fill in a multiple choice exam may not be able to write a complete sentence about the same material. I feel that students are cheated by multiple choice exams when they don't learn how to write answers and communicate ideas. The quality of multiple choice exam questions is only one facet of the problem. Walt Volland Department of Chemistry Bellevue Community College Bellevue Washington, 98007 425-641-2467 wvolland@bcc.ctc.edu luckybel@aol.com [ Part 29: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 15:40:15 -0600 From: "Dr. David Ritter" Subject: Re: H-H Equation and course structure At 03:07 PM 1/27/98 -0500, you wrote: >At 01:46 PM 1/27/98 EST5EDT4,M4.1., you wrote: >>I find all this discussion of the Hideous, Horrific, Henderson-Hasselbach >>equation disconcerting. >>..... >A very good point. But the normal equilibrium expression wouldn't work >either if you just plugged in the values as they are,.... >Robley Light > >>..... >> > > Frank M. Lanzafame The thread may be getting further from the original purpose of the article, but, along a similar line, I would like to offer my 2 cent's worth to point out that the energy in the Arrhenius Equation (simple empirical relation) is not at all the same thing as the potential energy to the saddle point along the reaction coordinate (activated-complex) as illustrated in the article, but can be related much more closely to the kinetic energy term of collision theory. One must use both the mathematical and conceptual to make the connections. David Ritter David Ritter Department of Chemistry Southeast Missouri State University dritter@semovm.semo.edu [ Part 30: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:50:17 EST From: Lucky bel Subject: Re: Paper 1-WV- Thornton resp-Nature of Math.. On Tuesday Melvin C. Thornton wrote >My first response would be that general chemistry tests use computational >mathematics simply as a tool. Do most general chemisty students hunt for >patterns, make conjectures, justify conclusions, and try to generalize? >Probably not. And of course most calculus students don't yet either. I believe you are 100% right. Most students in calculus and chemistry will not make these generalizations. I believe the faculty member teaching the class has the responsibility to point out the global or general applications of the principles. The wider value of course content isn't immediately obvious to beginning students or even graduate students. They don't see the forest for the trees. Walt Volland Department of Chemistry Bellevue Community College Bellevue Washington 425-641-2467 wvolland@bcc.ctc.edu luckybel@aol.com [ Part 31: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:55:24 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Re: Paper 2 WV-Re: JMM math and literacy Walt et al; What you say below is true. Hence the need for other assessment tools. I have my 150 kiddies this semester keep a daily journal of what they know - it's for ***extra credit***, so they ALL do it. They also have individual and team lab reports, terms papers and such. They do Far, Far more writing in my class, with its multiple choice tests, than they EVER would in a conventional class with regular exams. BTW, exams (read: STRESS!!) are not at all the proper venue for developing and evaluating thoughtful writing skills. That's why I do the other things. Paul Kelter Lucky bel wrote: > The need to communicate ideas is fundamental. The inclusion of essays > and > written work is part of the learning process. Graduates who can fill > in a > multiple choice exam may not be able to write a complete sentence > about the > same material. I feel that students are cheated by multiple choice > exams when > they don't learn how to write answers and communicate ideas. The > quality of > multiple choice exam questions is only one facet of the problem. > > Walt Volland > Department of Chemistry > Bellevue Community College > Bellevue Washington, 98007 > 425-641-2467 > wvolland@bcc.ctc.edu > luckybel@aol.com [ Part 32: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 19:12:54 -0800 From: Bob Bruner Subject: Re: Paper 2 bb reply to sjd Math ability.... Scott talked of a diagnostic test for chem, and asked what others do. I also use a math diagnostic test for intro chem, at a community college. Since it is short, I include it here: 1. Multiply 24.6 by 6. 2. Add 1/4 and 1/3; give the answer as a fraction. 3. Simplify: b3cd2/bcf 4. Solve the following equation for h: m = k/h. 5. Multiply 2x103 by 3x104. (Leave answer in scientific notation.) 6. What is 5% of 40? This is done informally, but I do collect them and record the student's score. Overall, there is a quite good correlation between math diagnostic score and chem grade. In particular, it is rare that a student who gets below 3 on this completes the course with a passing score. I tell the class the next day about this general correlation, and tell them that if they really were not able to do most of these, they do not have the math skills to take chem. I do not enforce this (and that would not be proper, since it is not formally administered), but do offer the advice. ROP says that he does not use such a test, because he can predict the results. Perhaps, but I think the feedback has some value for the individual student. One student turned this in with a zero. She was shocked, telling me she found it easy. She told me that she had received grade B in her HS algebra. I asked her if she wanted to try it again. She did -- same questions, now knowing that it was 'important'. This time she got 2. After three midterm grades Of FFF, she dropped. Some students complain that #1 is too hard, because I wrote it out as a sentence. No comment. Most of the questions were chosen with some chem 'application' in mind. Happy to discuss this with anyone. Bob Bruner Contra Costa College, San Pablo, CA and UC Berkeley Extension [ Part 33: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 23:13:33 -0500 From: "Lynn E. Maelia" Subject: Paper 2 - LM- comments on specific mathematical equations Bob Bruner said: Comments, please, on the approaches. And it would be nice if others would give examples of how they have improved the presentation of common equations. ================================================================= I derive the H-H equation from equilibrium principles and show the students that they are the same thing. I don't stress the H-H equation itself because I think it is easier to derive something than memorize it. If I thought that people actually used this on a routine basis (as someone remarked) then I would definately rethink and stress it more. I do the same with the D-E (dilution equation MV=MV). We figure out a dilution problem and _then_ I show them that MV=MV is the SAME THING. I also give them dire warnings about using it for everything and anything since it is such a nice simple equation to remember, students tend to use it whenever they don't know what else to do. As for the Rydberg equation, I show them how it works and what it shows us, but I don't think that it helps students to know how to plug numbers into an equation. I would much rather push the conceptual understanding of what it means. I think that most students prefer the mathematic problem-solving part of chemistry. My first test last year was almost all short answer with very few numerical problems. The students were not comfortable with that _at all_. Lynn Maelia Department of Chemistry Mount Saint Mary College Newburgh, New York [Part 33.2, Application/MS-TNEF 3KB] [Unable to print this part] [ Part 34: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 27 Jan 1998 23:44:30 -0400 From: Dennis Swauger Subject: Re: Paper 2 sjd Math ability.... Several years ago I analyzed the success of incoming general chemistry students at Ulster County Community College (in upstate New York - home of the almighty Regents curriculum) in reference to their background and placement in math courses. At the time there was a prerequisite of Regents Math Course III (roughly equivalent to our College Algebra course) or a corequisite of College Algebra (for those who took little or no high school math) for the first semester and Precalculus for the second semester. Over a period of three years there was a glaring fact - any student, just out of high school, who took three or four years of math and then placed into our College Algebra course had absolutely no chance of succeeding in general chemistry. All students in this category either withdrew or failed. With his evidence in hand, I submitted a proposal to our curriculum committee to change the prerequisites for the courses: College Algebra for the first semester and precalculus for the second semester (we no longer accept the high school math as prerequisite). The proposal passed the committee by one vote!!! Comments in the discussion of the proposal ranged from "It excludes too many students from the courses" to "Oh well! Students have the right to fail if they want to." Since the change students do have a better chance to succeed in the courses. There are still too many withdrawls but very few students fail. Dennis Swauger Coordinator of Chemistry and Physics Ulster County Community College Stone Ridge, NY 12484 [ Part 2: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:18:49 -0500 From: Robley Light Subject: Re: #2 RL - undergraduate student input Paul and Julie wrote: >We welcome the participation of UNDERGRADUATE >STUDENTS in the discussion of our paper. It was drafted, >in large part, to encourage just such an undergrad/faculty dialogue. >Please let your undergrads know that they should not >be shy about asking questions and offering opinions. I informed students in both my second semester general chemistry course and my senior-level second semester biochemistry course about the conference and the paper, and invited them to send me their comments (and to subscribe if they wished). Following are excerpts from a few. More will follow: >From a general chemistry student: "I personally feel there is way too much math in the general chemistry curriculum. I frequently find myself bogged down in the calcualations necessary for most problems. It is unnessary for all the math, and calculation as a supposed tool for learning. The material is shadowed by calculations and looses its value. I learn more about mathematics than science. I also, feel many students do poorly in General Chemistry due to these heavy math requirements. In my high school Lake Worth Community, Lake Worth, Fl I had a teacher who taught and lectured on what chemistry was and I learned the material easily and applied the sometimes necessary formulas when needed. I feel Chem1045-1046 has restricted teaching to memorization of mathematical equations. I feel the memorization of formulas is highly unnessecary and only obstructs learning...The major thing I have learned about chemistry while in college is, Chemistry is unbelivably hard to calculate.....I might add that I was an Honors student with a 3.69 GPA in high school and was very good in honors mathematics, and honors sciences recieving at least a B to an A every semester. I pray for the same, and will work as hard as possible to calculate my way through this course.." >From another student in the same class: "Personally, I believe that it is vital to incorporate math with the first year of science.. especially with Chemistry. There are math prerequistites, however there are some who need a refreshing. There are basic math essentials ( ex:conversion) that are used throughout the sciences, therefore it would make sense to strengthen the students ability. This is just my personal viewpoint. " >From a student in the senior biochemistry course "I don't know how much the curriculum has changed in the three years since I took General Chemistry, but from what I remember, the math in CHM 1045-1046 is nothing but basic college algebra, if that much. Most of the formulas that some memorize can also be learned by a true understanding of the subject. A lack of emphasis on math would remove the subject material from that implied in the title. Chemistry is not a qualitative science, as it would have to be if no or little math was used. All of the "hard" sciences, such as Chemistry and Physics use math as a basic tool to aid their conception of a world-view. If General Chemistry were to skimp on the math, then the students would not be learning General Chemistry, but rather a watered-down version that could not be applied by students who are going to go into a Chemistry-related field and therefore take more chemistry classes. This watered down version is called Chemistry for Liberal Arts majors. Chemistry _is_ a difficult subject, and I think that prospective chemists should be introduced to this in the general chemistry classes rather than in their senior year." I'll send a few more as they come in. Don't want to make the message too large. Robley Light ************************************************************* Robley J. Light Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Phone: (850) 644-3844 Florida State University Email: rlight@chem.fsu.edu Tallahassee, FL 32306-4390 Fax: (850) 644-8281 Home Page: http://www.sb.fsu.edu/~rlight [ Part 3: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:44:09 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Thornton response #2 PK/JG [ Part 3.2: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:32:14 -0600 (CST) From: Mail Delivery Subsystem To: pkelter@unlinfo2.unl.edu Subject: Returned mail: User unknown The original message was received at Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:32:13 -0600 (CST) from chem-502hah13.unl.edu [129.93.41.73] ----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors ----- (expanded from: ) ----- Transcript of session follows ----- .. while talking to unlinfo3.unl.edu.: >>> RCPT To: <<< 550 ... User unknown 550 ... User unknown [ Part 3.2.2: "Included Message" ] Reporting-MTA: dns; unlinfo2.unl.edu Received-From-MTA: DNS; chem-502hah13.unl.edu Arrival-Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:32:13 -0600 (CST) Final-Recipient: RFC822; chemconf.umdd.umd.edu@unlinfo2.unl.edu X-Actual-Recipient: RFC822; chemconf.umdd.umd.edu@unlinfo3.unl.edu Action: failed Status: 5.1.1 Remote-MTA: DNS; unlinfo3.unl.edu Diagnostic-Code: SMTP; 550 ... User unknown Last-Attempt-Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:32:14 -0600 (CST) [ Part 3.2.3: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 09:35:59 -0600 From: Paul Kelter To: chemconf.umdd.umd.edu@unlinfo2.unl.edu Subject: Thornton response Fwd: Paper 2 sjd Math ability....]] [ Part 3.2.3.2: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 98 08:16:33 -0600 From: Mel Thornton To: pkelter@unlinfo.unl.edu Subject: Re: [Fwd: Paper 2 sjd Math ability....] Paul: In regard to Dennis Swauger's message below: Apparently they did not consider changing what they do in the course which probably indicates they are certain they are teaching what they want at the level they want. I'm pleased they are not ready to dumb-down the curriculum. It would be interesting to know exactly what was it that did not allow the students to be successful. Was it really the use of mathematics in the chem course, or was passing the college algebra a filter that only allowed better problem solvers into the chem course. It's really hard to tell. Also I wonder if the three or four years of highschool math included two years of algebra and one of geometry. I would hope successful completion of those three years would prepare a student for most beginning chem courses. On the other hand a year of algebra one-half, general math, and topics in math or some such courses may not say anything about preparation for any abstract course. >Several years ago I analyzed the success of incoming general chemistry >students at Ulster County Community College (in upstate New York - home >of the almighty Regents curriculum) in reference to their background and >placement in math courses. At the time there was a prerequisite of >Regents Math Course III (roughly equivalent to our College Algebra >course) or a corequisite of College Algebra (for those who took little >or no high school math) for the first semester and Precalculus for the >second semester. Over a period of three years there was a glaring fact - >any student, just out of high school, who took three or four years of >math and then placed into our College Algebra course had absolutely no >chance of succeeding in general chemistry. All students in this category >either withdrew or failed. > >With his evidence in hand, I submitted a proposal to our curriculum >committee to change the prerequisites for the courses: College Algebra >for the first semester and precalculus for the second semester (we no >longer accept the high school math as prerequisite). The proposal passed >the committee by one vote!!! Comments in the discussion of the proposal >ranged from "It excludes too many students from the courses" to "Oh >well! Students have the right to fail if they want to." Since the change >students do have a better chance to succeed in the courses. There are >still too many withdrawls but very few students fail. > >Dennis Swauger >Coordinator of Chemistry and Physics >Ulster County Community College >Stone Ridge, NY 12484 Melvin C. Thornton Department of Mathematics and Statistics University of Nebraska-Lincoln Lincoln NE, 68588-0323 ph: 402-472-7234, email: mthornto@math.unl.edu FAX: 402-472-8466 [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 11:06:22 -0500 From: Jack Martin Miller Subject: Re: Paper 2 - JMM- questions on mathematical equations >Bob Bruner said: > >Comments, please, on the approaches. And it would be nice if others would >give examples of how they have improved the presentation of common equations. > >================================================================= Lynn Maelia replied >I derive the H-H equation from equilibrium principles and show the >students that they are the same thing. I don't stress the H-H equation >itself because I think it is easier to derive something than memorize it. >If I thought that people actually used this on a routine basis (as someone >remarked) then I would definately rethink and stress it more. > > As for the Rydberg equation, I show them how it works and what it shows >us, but I don't think that it helps students to know how to plug numbers >into an equation. I would much rather push the conceptual understanding >of what it means. > >I think that most students prefer the mathematic problem-solving part of >chemistry. My first test last year was almost all short answer with very >few numerical problems. The students were not comfortable with that _at >all_. > What do the participants think about the relative importance of examining, testing, measuring or whatever "(a.) derivation of equation" vs "(b) correct use of equations to provide numerical solutions to problems" vs "(c) discussion of a chemical phenomenon illustrated with numbers computed via (b). 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/ [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 12:36:17 -0500 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: Re: Paper 2 - JMM- questions on mathematical equations On Wed, 28 Jan 1998, Jack Martin Miller wrote: > >Bob Bruner said: > > > >Comments, please, on the approaches. And it would be nice if others would > >give examples of how they have improved the presentation of common equations. > > > >================================================================= > Lynn Maelia replied > >I derive the H-H equation from equilibrium principles and show the > >students that they are the same thing. I don't stress the H-H equation > >itself because I think it is easier to derive something than memorize it. > >If I thought that people actually used this on a routine basis (as someone > >remarked) then I would definately rethink and stress it more. > > > > > > As for the Rydberg equation, I show them how it works and what it shows > >us, but I don't think that it helps students to know how to plug numbers > >into an equation. I would much rather push the conceptual understanding > >of what it means. > > > >I think that most students prefer the mathematic problem-solving part of > >chemistry. My first test last year was almost all short answer with very > >few numerical problems. The students were not comfortable with that _at > >all_. > > > > > What do the participants think about the relative importance of examining, > testing, measuring or whatever "(a.) derivation of equation" vs "(b) > correct use of equations to provide numerical solutions to problems" vs > "(c) discussion of a chemical phenomenon illustrated with numbers computed > via (b). > On the surface, this sounds like a good idea. I am afraid that in practice it often ends up as memorizing a derrivation vs memorizing an algorithm. Water always follows the path of least resistance. /* 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 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 10:00:42 -0800 From: Bob Bruner Subject: Re: Paper 2 - BB reply re type of test question At 12:10 PM 1/27/98 -0500, Mike Epstein wrote: > >This is a very important point. General chemistry exams AND laboratory >reports are often lacking any significant requirement for writing skills. >There is, of course, a good reason for this: it is terribly time-consuming >for a faculty member to grade 40+ essay questions or essay-based laboratory >reports and qualified student aides may not be available to grade the >essays. On the other hand, single answer or multiple choice questions can >be graded by any student aide or quickly done by the faculty member. Several people have commented on various aspects of the use of multiple choice questions. I do agree that students should write in chem, but I am somewhat less concerned about that on tests. Tests are done under duress, and my standard there is "do I understand what the student meant." Higher standards can be applied elsewhere. But there is another important aspect to the broader question. One of the biggest messages we send students about what we expect is in the style of our tests. Most tests are answer-oriented, not reason-oriented. (This correlates some with use of multiple choice test, but there is more to it.) If we grade tests based entirely (or primarily) on answers, no wonder our students aim to get answers -- by any means, with no emphasis on the process of getting there. I insist on reasons on virtually all questions and problems, consistently from the very start (with few exceptions). [Showing clear work on a mathematical type problem, such as clear dimensional analysis, qualifies as 'reason' -- in general.] On tests, answers without reasons usually get no credit; good reasons that are somewhat deficient, somewhat flawed, etc are likely to receive partial credit. By sending this message consistently from the start, I move students towards reasons not just answers. The central theme of the discussion is the interplay of conceptual vs 'simply' algorithmic approaches. As all the discussion shows, this is complex. But if we can aim our student to think more about reasons rather than just answers, then we achieve more of the integration. I appreciate the problem faced by those with large classes. I have taught as many as 250 (in freshman biology), and grading the tests was not a light chore. I also recall that all my freshman and sophomore Math, Chem, Phys courses were in classes of 200 -- and we never saw a multiple choice test. One trick I have seen some use is to use the multiple choice (or other answer sheet format), but also require students to turn in their complete work. This complete work is spot-checked, usually carefully for a few selected questions. This may well be a practical compromise. (By the way, students have noted to me that my test style makes it hard to cheat by copying answers.) Other solutions? Bob Bruner Contra Costa College, San Pablo, CA and UC Berkeley Extension [ Part 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:52:19 -0500 From: Robley Light Subject: Re: #2 RL - undergraduate student input Here's another reply from a student in my senior level biochemistry course. Robley Light "As a biochemistry major I have a difficult time understanding any point of view that claims math has no place in a chemistry class. Even a general chemistry course is going to involve some mathematics. Chemistry is after all, a science which is firmly grounded in mathematics. Fortunately for the student of general chem, basic algebra is really all that need be used. Even the most "general" principles of chemistry cannot be explained without algebra. End of discussion. Taking the math out of a chemistry class would trivialize the learning experience. No student could firmly grasp any concept in this field of study, with any competence, in a class that abandons mathematics in favor of, I suppose, a concise verbal explanation. This method of teaching could possibly work for a social "science" course. Physical sciences, however, require a little more proof. Nobody said college would be easy, nor am I saying algebra is easy (even chemistry professors -gasp- mess it up occasionally) I'm merely trying to establish that it would be ludicrous to teach prospective science majors that chemistry can be taught, or explained without using a little math. And besides, as my general chemistry teacher used to say, "A day without math is like a day without sunshine. Let's brighten up the room, shall we?"" ************************************************************* Robley J. Light Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Phone: (850) 644-3844 Florida State University Email: rlight@chem.fsu.edu Tallahassee, FL 32306-4390 Fax: (850) 644-8281 Home Page: http://www.sb.fsu.edu/~rlight [ Part 8: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:07:23 -0500 From: Rosamaria Fong Subject: Paper 2 - RF - Math ability ... I teach in an Institute of Technology. One of the programs is a pre-entry program. Students who enroll in this program are usually those that do not have the necessary Academic Skills (i.e. Chemistry, Math, Physics, and/or Communication) to enter first year. Many of these students have been out of school and, most of them are learning studying skills as well as the concepts of science. The intent of the program is to bring the students to the level of grade 11/12, foster good studying habit and prepare students for their first year program. I have been teaching pre-entry Chemistry for several years. In the beginning, I stress the importance of significant figures because Chemistry is a quantitative science. I think my students understand that I don't bring out the math because it's there. But the math has to be brought out as a tool for treatment of data, whether that data is in the form of data collected from a laboratory experiment or in a problem assignment. I found that the quantitative side of Chemistry goes hand in hand with Physics and Math. Concepts like sig figs are taught both in Chemistry and Physics. Unit conversion is also something that students get in Chem, Physics, and Math. I feel that when students see the connections between Chem, Phys, and Math, it makes what they learn more coherent. Hopefully, when it is all integrated together, we are really fostering an analytical approach to problem solving. > >Lynn Maelia replies: >I do the same with the D-E (dilution equation MV=MV). We figure out a dilution problem and _then_ I show them that MV=MV is the SAME THING. I also give them dire warnings about using it for everything and anything since it is such a nice simple equation to remember, students tend to use it whenever they don't know what else to do. > I don't have a problem with showing the students the "formulas". In a Kinetics course that I teach, I used to derive all the rate laws from first principal. Then I find that I lose 90% of the students with this approach. Students are impatient and they want to know "what's the bottom line!". Now I am very upfront with my students and show them all the differential and integrated equations on a handout. With the formula sheet in their hands, I ask them if they are satisfied with understanding Kinetics. They all shake their heads and I proceed going through the derivation one at a time. Somehow, with the latter approach, there is an attitudinal difference for the better. Since I always provide a formula sheet at exam time, students are not required to memorize formulas. This helps them to concentrate on the concept a lot more. In fact, I always tell the students to go through in their mind the magnitude of the answer that they expect and compare that to the value of the answer obtained from number crunching. >Bert Ramsay replies: >Learning from the incorrect answers on a multiple choice exam: >Typically the incorrect answers on a multiple choice exam are >"anticipated" -e.g. they have made a decimal point error, used the wrong >chemical formula to calculate a molar mass (CaCl instead of CaCl2), etc. A >tutor (or teacher) on reviewing a test can usually help the student avoid >the same kind of mistakes by going over the incorrect answers. And then >suggest he/she work some additional problems until these errors are >elminated. >This approach while guaranteed to improve student performance has not >been practical until now because of the time and cost required to provide >every student with a tutor. My software has solved this problem. >You are welcome to look at http://www.Bizserve.com/c3 to get some idea >of how this is possible. > I share my view with Bert. I also know that given a lot of practice on solving problems, students get better and the concepts sink in more deeply. That was the reason for developing a Web-based study guide for my pre-entry students (Topic of discussion - Paper 6). My students learn from the interactive problems on the site, as well as from the weekly on-line multiple choice assignments. These weekly multiple choice choice assignments are for self test purpose. Students submit their assignments on-line, get their mark instantly and can study the hints which are returned for each question to guide them to the correct choice. Take a look at the URL http://nobel.scas.bcit.bc.ca/chemconf98/0010/ Regards, Rosamaria Fong British Columbia Institute of Technology Burnaby, B.C. Canada [ Part 9: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:21:05 -0500 From: "L. Peter Gold" Subject: Re: Paper 2 - BB reply re type of test question At 10:00 AM 1/28/98 -0800, Bob Bruner wrote: >I appreciate the problem faced by those with large classes. I have taught as >many as 250 (in freshman biology), and grading the tests was not a light >chore. I also recall that all my freshman and sophomore Math, Chem, Phys >courses were in classes of 200 -- and we never saw a multiple choice test. > The problems sometimes go beyond the obvious. For the past few years I have taught first-semester p. chem to about 230 students. I do not believe that multiple-choice tests are inherently evil, as some apparently do, but I do feel that they are not right for the p. chem course I want to teach so I decided to go use regular hand-graded problem tests. My department is willing to support this; the problem is finding willing and competent people to do the grading. With exploding enrollments in our chemistry courses, staffing lab courses plus recitations in the first semester of general chemistry uses all of our graduate student TAs, our good upper-level undergraduates, all available, qualified graduate and undergradate students from related departments, and qualified people from the community. In the end I have always been able to hire some competent people to help and so have been able to give hand-graded tests but it gets harder every year. Our organic courses, which are significantly larger than p. chem, have had to go to multiple choice tests and using hand-graded tests in general chemistry is simply unthinkable. With multiple-choice exams a necessity in many situations we need more discussion of how to do better with them. ------------------------------------------------------ L. Peter Gold phone (814) 865-7694 Professor of Chemistry fax (814) 865-3314 Penn State University 152 Davey Lab E-mail: LPG@PSU.EDU University Park PA 16802 ------------------------------------------------------ [ Part 10: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 13:59:09 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Re: Paper 2 - BB reply re type of test question Participants, I thought that Dr. Bruner's and Dr. Gold's comments were right on target. And I especially look forward to the discussions of Internet-based testing. After 17 years, I give my first multiple choice test tomorrow evening. My reference for advice on this stuff is an oldie but (real) goodie, "Educational and Psychological Measurment and Evaluation" by Ken Hopkins and Julian Stanley (Prentice-Hall, 1981). It is the best book on testing I've seen. Paul Kelter L. Peter Gold wrote: > At 10:00 AM 1/28/98 -0800, Bob Bruner wrote: > > >I appreciate the problem faced by those with large classes. I have > taught as > >many as 250 (in freshman biology), and grading the tests was not a > light > >chore. I also recall that all my freshman and sophomore Math, Chem, > Phys > >courses were in classes of 200 -- and we never saw a multiple choice > test. > > > > The problems sometimes go beyond the obvious. For the past few years > I have > taught first-semester p. chem to about 230 students. I do not believe > that > multiple-choice tests are inherently evil, as some apparently do, but > I do > feel that they are not right for the p. chem course I want to teach so > I > decided to go use regular hand-graded problem tests. My department is > willing to support this; the problem is finding willing and competent > people > to do the grading. With exploding enrollments in our chemistry > courses, > staffing lab courses plus recitations in the first semester of general > > chemistry uses all of our graduate student TAs, our good upper-level > undergraduates, all available, qualified graduate and undergradate > students > from related departments, and qualified people from the community. In > the > end I have always been able to hire some competent people to help and > so > have been able to give hand-graded tests but it gets harder every > year. Our > organic courses, which are significantly larger than p. chem, have had > to go > to multiple choice tests and using hand-graded tests in general > chemistry is > simply unthinkable. > > With multiple-choice exams a necessity in many situations we need more > > discussion of how to do better with them. > ------------------------------------------------------ > L. Peter Gold phone (814) 865-7694 > Professor of Chemistry fax (814) 865-3314 > Penn State University > 152 Davey Lab E-mail: LPG@PSU.EDU > University Park PA 16802 > ------------------------------------------------------ [ Part 11: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 14:20:36 -0600 From: sc18 Subject: Re: Paper 2 - BB reply re type of test question L. Peter Gold wrote: > At 10:00 AM 1/28/98 -0800, Bob Bruner wrote: > > >I appreciate the problem faced by those with large classes. I have taught as > >many as 250 (in freshman biology), and grading the tests was not a light > >chore. I also recall that all my freshman and sophomore Math, Chem, Phys > >courses were in classes of 200 -- and we never saw a multiple choice test. > > > > The problems sometimes go beyond the obvious. For the past few years I have > taught first-semester p. chem to about 230 students. I do not believe that > multiple-choice tests are inherently evil, as some apparently do, but I do > feel that they are not right for the p. chem course I want to teach so I > decided to go use regular hand-graded problem tests. My department is > willing to support this; the problem is finding willing and competent people > to do the grading. With exploding enrollments in our chemistry courses, > staffing lab courses plus recitations in the first semester of general > chemistry uses all of our graduate student TAs, our good upper-level > undergraduates, all available, qualified graduate and undergradate students > from related departments, and qualified people from the community. In the > end I have always been able to hire some competent people to help and so > have been able to give hand-graded tests but it gets harder every year. Our > organic courses, which are significantly larger than p. chem, have had to go > to multiple choice tests and using hand-graded tests in general chemistry is > simply unthinkable. > > With multiple-choice exams a necessity in many situations we need more > discussion of how to do better with them. > ------------------------------------------------------ > L. Peter Gold phone (814) 865-7694 > Professor of Chemistry fax (814) 865-3314 > Penn State University > 152 Davey Lab E-mail: LPG@PSU.EDU > University Park PA 16802 > ------------------------------------------------------ My $0.02 is that what we can accomplish with a multiple choice exam is to cause re-representation (or synthesis) of the problem. I give a series of statements as answers, which cannot be the entire answer, but a synthesis must be accomplished. These kinds of questions provoke re-representation of the problem until they find the right synthesis. The correct answer deals with which sequence of partial answers gives the best answer. Sincerely, KRFountain [ Part 12: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 16:35:45 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 2 - DR: Students and Course Content At Clarkson University there are: A. Students who are REQUIRED to take a year of General Chemistry AND additional more advanced chemistry courses: Chemistry Majors Chemical Engineering Majors Biology Majors Industrial Hygiene Majors B. Students who are REQUIRED to take a year of General Chemistry and MAY (but mostly don't) take more advanced chemistry courses: Physics Majors Engineering Students C. Students who are REQUIRED to take a science course which may or may not be chemistry: Math and Computer Science Majors School of Business Students School of Liberal Arts Students Interdisciplinary Engineering and Management Students The Chemistry, Engineering, Physics and Math Majors are all required to take a year of calculus in their freshman year. Clarkson offers two different chemistry courses. One course is for students in Group A (about 100 students). The other course is for students in Group B (about 400 students). Students in Group C mostly elect the course for Group B students. Since most of the students are taking CALCULUS, calculus is introduced when Kinetics is discussed in the second semester. What these students need to get from a chemistry course may be quite different for different students. At larger Universities where there are: Agriculture Schools Education Schools Nursing Programs Physical Therapy Programs Pharmacy Programs Music and Art Programs Forestry Programs Nutrition and Food Science Programs and many other programs I can imagine that there are many different needs and I know that many schools offer many different chemistry courses for different groups of students. At Clarkson we do not use Chemistry in Context. Of course, one trend in most textbooks is to include sections in chapters which have a Science - Technology - Society (STS) focus. So that students have some idea of how chemistry is relevant to life and society. Ideally, what should a chemistry course do for the student: In my opinion it should teach the student something about: The Nature of Science and the Nature of Chemistry The Importance of Mathematics The Interrelationship between Science, Technology and Society The relevance of chemistry to decision making The relevance of chemistry to many jobs and professions The course may be needed to provide the necessary background for some of their other courses, particularly when the course is required. One of our problems is that very often legislators and voters do not understand issues which have a science component. Incorrect decisions are made. As chemistry teachers we do have an obligation to make better citizens of our students. Clarkson has a component known as the Clarkson School. This program is intended for students who have taken three years of high school - done very well - have accelerated and are ready to begin college studies. Many of these students will take General Chemistry along with Calculus, Physics, English and another course. Some of these students take General Chemistry without having had High School Chemistry. They are among the best students we have had. Sometimes I wonder whether the fact that students have had a High School course very much like the college course makes General Chemistry less interesting (We had that in High School Chemistry!). Perhaps one solution to the the problem would be to take a ChemCom (STS) approach in High School chemistry. Perhaps this would even make Chemistry a more interesting subject to entering students. MATHEMATICS AND CHEMISTRY The statement has been made that students who have done well in mathematics are more likely to do well in chemistry. This I believe. However, something that I've noticed (particularly in more advanced courses) is that frequently there are students who are proficient in mathematics - if you give them a math problem they can solve it - however, they have great difficulty in applying mathematics to chemistry. Their problem solving abilities are limited. SOME ADDITIONAL COMMENTS Yesterday, Peter Gold made some interesting observations in a different forum (CHEMED-L). Peter stated: Penn State has about FIFTY-FOUR degree programs that require at least one semester of General Chemistry. "Penn State sends a survey to its incoming freshmen before they arrive on campus. One question asks them what subjects they expect to like and do well in and what subjects do they expect to dislike. For many years chemistry has been at the bottom of that list; students come here fully expecting to hate chemistry and this often becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Second, many departments with majors that require chemistry make no effort whatsoever to explain to their new students why they have to take chemistry. The students conclude, not unreasonably, that the requirement exists only for "weed-out" purposes." ------------------- There has been some discussion this week about the importance of writing in a chemistry course. Perhaps, it would be useful to ask students to research and write a paper about why chemistry is important in their major (if it is a required course for them) or why a knowledge of chemistry is important to them and society. ------------------- Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699-5810 ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU Quotation of the Day: "The tragedy of Science is the slaying of beautiful hypotheses with ugly facts." T.H. Huxley [ Part 13: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 16:10:54 -0700 From: Scott Donnelly Subject: Paper 2 sjd Mathematical and conceptual thinking... The recent discussion about the importance of conceptual and mathematical thinking in general and intro chemistry courses reminded me of an in-class exercise I use at the beginning of the semester. I am a big racecar and racing fan and oftentimes use situations found on the racetrack that involve conceptual and mathematical understanding and problem-solving. It also brings an exciting relevancy into the classroom. NASCAR stockcars use gasoline as fuel. Oftentimes a race is won by conserving fuel. Therefore, the pit crew needs to know ~ how much fuel a car burns at various speeds. But NASCAR rules do not allow gauges (like those used at the gas station or any other kind gauge for that matter) to measure how much fuel has been delivered into a car during a pitstop. So I ask students how does the pit crew figures out how much fuel is delivered. I have them write down their answers anonymously. Most answer that the crew measures the volume delivered. I tell them that this is reasonable but involves too much guesswork since the container which holds the fuel is not transparent and does not have volume markings on it. Also, dumping the fuel into another container takes too much time and any loss of fuel (accidently knocking over, dropping, or missing the container upon pouring, etc.) is too risky to have happen. The fuel lost may be the fuel needed to win the race. There is an easier way. With more thinking students usually figure out the conceptual part of the answer. Take the difference in weight before and after fueling, and using the density of the fuel (assuming uniformity), the volume of fuel delivered can be determined. After a few calculations (the more difficult part) that involve no more than simple ratio calculations, necessary conversions between units, and the average miles/gallon determined throughout the race, the pit crew has a fairly good idea how many miles the car can race. It's important in this real problem to have both conceptual and mathematical understanding in order to arrive at a reasonable conclusion. The thinking styles are complementary and necessary to solve the problem. Scott Donnelly Scott Donnelly Email: aw_donnelly@awc.cc.az.us Department of Chemistry Phone: 520 344 7590 Arizona Western College Webpage: http://www.awc.cc.az.us/chem/ Yuma, AZ 85366-0929 "In education it is not enough to be aware that other people may try to fool you;it is more important to be aware of your own tendency to fool yourself." -Paul G. Hewitt [ Part 14: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 18:58:04 EST From: Lucky bel Subject: Re: Paper 2 -WV-Re:-JMM- equations v derivations Wow, Derivations once held a major role in general chemistry. I think they have gone the way of the Buffalo except for a few cases in kinetics. I find that todays students have so much difficulty in general with "concepts", algorithms, facts, and mechanics that derivations are not an option. In my mind the good part about derivations was the demonstration of the assumptions and limits on the equations. The student learned that the equations were only an approximation to the way nature works. This seems to be out of style and out of reach today. This could be a result of the "dumbing down" of the content. I personally like the idea of deriving relationships. It avoids the problems associated with errors in memory. Things won't make sense in the derivation, but the memorized equation could be easily forgotten. The newest trend is to simply hand the equations to students and not bother to have do the evil rote memorization or the derivation. Students don't derive relationships and they are typically not memorizing them. In the "old" days both were required. Walt Volland Department of Chemistry Bellevue Community College Bellevue, Washington 98007 425-641-2467 [ Part 15: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 19:09:22 EST From: Lucky bel Subject: Re: Paper 2 WV- DR: Students and Course Content I was struck by the comment about requiring writing in the chemistry course. I agree whole heartedly with this idea. I order to incorporate more writing I've given assignments that require writing a short portfolio. I didn't originate the idea but picked it up from Tom O'Haver. I've used it for 8 different classes for the past year and a half with varying degrees of success. There is a brief description in my online syllabus at http://www.scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/wv/A101-140homepage If you are doing online chemistry instruction would you please contact me. Walt Volland Department of Chemistry Bellevue Community College Bellevue, Washington 98007 425-641-2467 wvolland@bcc.ctc.edu [ Part 16: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 19:21:59 EST From: Lucky bel Subject: Re: Paper 2 WV-Re: JMM literacy Paul, I agree with you that exams are the wrong place to ask for answers to questions that require lengthy analysis. I do think there is a place for simpler questions that still require a student to write out a brief answer in their own terms. This means definitions and rote response questions are off limits. The entire exam need not be like that but there should be room for one or two such questions. In the study guide I wrote to accompany "The World of Chemistry" I included writing exercises that were open ended. I also tied many of these to internet sources such as the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the EPA. Thanks, Walt Walt Volland Department of Chemistry Bellevue Community College Bellevue, Washington 98007 425-641-2467 [ Part 17: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 21:49:18 -0500 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: ROP Re: Paper 2 - BB reply re type of test question Has anyone noticed how often any discussion thread comes back to assesment? As I have said before, it seems to be the "Swiss Army Knife" of education. We use it for so much more than mere measurement. Indeed, it sets the standards of what students expect to learn, how much they study, how they study, how we teach, and much more. It is even a "signaling mechanism" for who should be admitted to professional schools etc. The idea of derrivations is a good one. as Walt Volland said < I find that todays students have so much difficulty in general with "concepts", algorithms, facts, and mechanics that derivations are not an option. In my mind the good part about derivations was the demonstration of the assumptions and limits on the equations. The student learned that the equations were only an approximation to the way nature works. This seems to be out of style and out of reach today. This could be a result of the "dumbing down" of the content. I personally like the idea of deriving relationships. It avoids the problems associated with errors in memory. Things won't make sense in the derivation, but the memorized equation could be easily forgotten. > I agree even though this does lead to "derrivation memorizing". I certainly did a lot of that in the physics courses I took way back when. Somehow, those memorized derrivations stirred cognition in many cases. Apparently, there are many ways into a students' mind. On the other hand, there are practical difficulties with testing etc. which will not go away anymore than tight budgets will go away. As Peter Gold stated: < With multiple-choice exams a necessity in many situations we need more discussion of how to do better with them. > IMHO, the problem with MC or short answer tests is not all how the students respond but rather the actual content of the questions. Peter is right. Unless we can change the way education is funded and administered, we are going to have to find ways to deal with the realities. It is more important to deal with the way things are rather than the way we think they should be. /* 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 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Part 18: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 23:25:54 -0500 From: Larry Rosenhein Subject: Paper 2--LR--Math and Concepts I hope this message isn't too redundant: I think the discussion is converging on the idea that both mathematical and conceptual understandings are important in chemistry. 1. The conceptual understanding enhances the math. We'll never settle the arguments about the H-H equation; I'm opposed to teaching it, mainly on the aesthetic principle of Occam's razor (the same problems can be solved without introducing it). It's true that some students will encounter it in more applied courses, but it should be presented there--hopefully with a qualitative explanation of its relation to pH. So I disagree with Bob Bruner about that but I agree about the dilution equation (and the main pitfall is much worse than flipping: it's applying it to _any_ problem dealing with molarity, including titrations). I can teach pretty much all my students to do simple stoichiometry, even limiting reagent problems, correctly. Partly that's because the problems are rather mechanical, but I think it's also because students can visualize amounts of pure substances, either as grams or moles. With solutions it's another story: intensive properties like concentration are intrinsically more difficult, and so are mixtures, and I find that even students who should know better may lapse at some point and assume that 50 mL of a 0.1 M solution of NaOH consists of 50 mL of pure NaOH. The dilution operation is hard to visualize, and although the math involved is no more difficult than anything else, dilution problems turn out to be much harder than "expected." I need to spend more time somehow, or provide more visually-based instructional material on the conceptual idea of concentration and dilution, and then the math will take care of itself. 2. The math enhances the concept. The Rydberg equation may not get much use in real life, but (since we can't do the Schrodinger equation) if we want to give students an idea of the underpinnings of everythying we tell them about periodic properties and bonding, I think we have to include it. It is really a marvelous example of the kiway nature has of telling us things, and often that way is mathematical. Someone mentioned Tobias' book, and as I remember, one of the things her expert learners wanted was just that: more of an idea of the logic of the theories they were being taught, as opposed to a collection of received wisdom. (I don't think they were particularly asking for real-world applications, although that is what _my_ students seem to want.) To take a more extreme example: although no one uses the Law of Multiple Proportions, and although I wouldn't make a 20-point test question on it, I do think it's worth presenting. The student who thinks hard about it will be rewarded with the (thrill of) realization of how 200 years ago when state of the art instrumentation was a good balance, something as non-obvious as the atomic theory could be deduced. Speaking more generally, I think we may beat up on math too much. I believe that a lot of our problems are not math related, although (just ot make life complicated) success in the conceptual are may be linked to math ability anyway. For example, why do so many of my students have trouble completing elementary metathesis reactions (where I may see a product written NaCl2)? I'm not sure that _balance_ between the two areas is necessarily the goal: I think perhaps _interaction_ between the two is what we need to aim for. Multimedia may help. Ideally the bridge between the math and the concepts should be seamless. Larry Rosenhein Indiana State University Terre Haute, IN 47809 chrosen@scifac.indstate.edu Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 08:00:46 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Last Day For Discussion of Paper 2 To: CHEMCONF Registrants From: Donald Rosenthal ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU Re: LAST DAY FOR DISCUSSION OF PAPER 2 It is 8 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time - 1300 GMT) on Thursday, January 29 This is the last day for discussion of Paper 2 - "Do I Really Need to Know this Stuff: A Dialogue between Teacher and Student on the Importance of Mathematics in the General Chemistry Curriculum" by Julie A. Grundman and Paul B. Kelter Short Questions for Paper 3 may be sent tomorrow (Friday) after 8 AM EST. [ Part 3: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 08:42:00 -0500 From: David Dozark Subject: UNSUBSCRIBE I apologize for sending this to the entire list, but I desperately need to unsubscribe from chemconf and I can't seem to get it done. Would someone please forward the instructions? Thank you so much. Dave Dozark ddozark@kirkwood.cc.ia.us [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 19:05:06 +0300 From: "Evgenii B. Rudnyi" Subject: Paper 2: less, less math ... Recently I have found a joke in Chemometrics Newsletter (http://www.iac.tuwien.ac.at/~namics/newsie16/jokes.html) I think it is rather appropriate for the current discussion. A HISTORY OF STORY PROBLEMS IN MATHEMATICS (From C&E News Newscripts, Jan. 23, 1995) In 1960: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of his price. What is his profit? In 1970: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is four-fifths of this price, or $80. What is his profit? In 1980: A logger sells a truckload of wood for $100. His cost of production is $80, and his profit is $20. Your assignment: underline the number 20. In 1990 (outcome based education): By cutting down beautiful forest trees, a logger makes $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? (Topic for class participation: how did the forest birds and squirrels feel?) Cheers, Evgenii Rudnyi -- Chemistry Department rudnyi@comp.chem.msu.su Moscow State University http://www.chem.msu.su/~rudnyi/welcome.html 119899 Moscow +7(095)939 5452, fax+7(095)932 8846,+7(095)939 1205 Russia [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:06:20 -0500 From: Don Jones Subject: Re: #2 PBK - Kelter team repsonses >CLASS SIZE! CLASS SIZE! > >I also feel that class size is important. We had some discussion about >class size on the CHEMICAL EDUCATOR forums in 96. (The posts are still >available, http://journals.springer-ny.com/chedr) > >The last word was that there is no evidence that there is a significant >effect of class size upon learning. I cannot help believe otherwise. > >Does anyone know of any statistical work on this important factor? > >/* Richard */ > We here at the Foundation have used for a long time the figure of 15 for precollege class sizes as being the break point between size and student learning. Below that figure the learning increases but above it there is little effect as you go from larger sizes down to about 15. Only below 15 is there a marked effect. Unfortunately I do not have a ready reference for you. I should also point out that these results were for classes generally and not college level. Don Donald E. Jones Program Director Teacher Enhancement Program Elementary, Secondary and Informal Education National Science Foundation the Internet: djones@nsf.gov Telephone (703) 306-1613 x6819 Fax: (703) 306-0412 NSF's home page url: http://www.nsf.gov Guidelines and announcements: http://www.nsf.gov/home/programs/recent.htm [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 10:40:00 -0800 From: John V Kenkel Subject: "dumbing down" vs relevance Fellow chemists, We all know how chemistry gets a bad rap, and it has for years, from the general public - students, parents, relatives, non-scientists. And we wonder why students don't like chemistry when we know it is an extraordinarily interesting "central science." I think the general chemistry curriculum needs a earth-shaking thorough overhall. At issue is RELEVANCE. I hear educators continuously expressing the need for students to be life-long learners so that they can understand and deal with current events as they appear in the newspaper. Whether it's the O.J. trial, global warming, the Exxon Valdez, radon in homes, ...... Citizens should be able to pick up a newspaper and have some understanding of the science involved. Students should also get a good feel for what chemists and technicians do and how important it is. Do our chemistry classes prepare students to be educated citizens? I don't think discussions of kinetics equation derivation, the Rydberg Equation, mathematical models, etc. (the list is quite long), contribute a thing to students becoming being science-literate citizens that can understand important societal issues and vote intelligently, etc. And it turns them off to the subject of chemistry! You may call it resistance to "dumbing down." I call it resistance to an important and necessary major paradigm shift. Can we please get these irrelevant, mind-boggling, difficult, unappealing topics out of the course and replaced with fascinating topics that are relevant to the lives of citizens? The NSF-sponsored systemic change projects would be perfect for such a change, but I don't see it happening. John Kenkel Southeast Community College Lincoln, Nebraska [ Part 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:00:49 -0600 From: Peter Lykos Subject: Re: Paper 2 WV- DR: Students and Course Content I was inspired by the comments on the importance of writing in the chemistry curriculum. I share with you the fact that for the past six or seven years, in PChem, I have been `requiring' undergraduates to not only turn in their problem solutions (from Noggle and definitely NOT plug and chug) but also to `volunteer' to present one solution to the class using their own made overhead transparencies and an overhead projector to present their solution - in the context of the principle(s) involved - to their peers. That is what I call a recitation. Amazingly, when I post the assignment, the students RUSH to the board to sign up. It is pure joy to watch their development of poise and self confidence as speakers in the classroom as the semester evolves. Over the past few years I have had to become more intimate with the medical profession - nothing life threatening but a nuisance never the less. Invariably when they learn I teach PChem they revert back to their college days - beyond my very eyes - talking to me as though they were once again college students in the presence of a PChm professor. The reactions are more or less - I avoided being a chem major because I was afraid of PChem. Can it be so many science majors gravitate to Biology because of their fear of PChem? Were we really helped and amused by the by now apocryphal bumper sticker sold by the ACS - honk if you passed PChem. It is such a BEAUTIFUL subject. We need to concentrate on improving its image. At IIT we have a greased way for outstanding freshmen who major in chem eng (and hence take PChem) to be admitted conditionally to the Chgo Medical School. They generally are the best PChem students. And many throw themselves into the open market instead of limiting themselves to the one medical school - and they succeed! Honk Proudly if You Passed PChem? Peter Lykos [ Part 8: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 09:23:07 -0800 From: George Wiger Subject: type of test questions Though we may have strayed a bit from the topic of paper 2, I thought I'd say a little about my testing approach, since it relates a bit to a number of topics addressed. What I do is divide my exams into two distinct parts, which are distributed separately. On the first portion, calculators are not permitted. Questions can range from short answer( sometimes a single word response suffices) to problems that require calculations, usually limited to integers, which I expect a student to do without a calculator. When the student finishes that first part, they turn it in and are given the second half, on which a calculator is permitted. They can return to the first part, later, if they wish. In general, the parts are equal weighted. George Wiger CSU Dominguez Hills gwiger@chemistry.csudh.edu [ Part 9: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:17:46 -0700 From: gary mort Subject: Re: "dumbing down" vs relevance I am by and large sympathetic to John's position. And I believe it is possible to teach a rigorous meaningful principles and applications course. Last week were doing bonding, chirality blah blah in my gen chem class and got off on a great sidetrack about drugs and anesthesia. Appropriate to the group since most are prehealth proffesionals of some stripe. But... Look at the MCAT, DCAT, PCAT. I could teach my students a lot of genuinely interesting relevant useful stuff. Then they will fail their qualifying exams and be well educated but frustrated. I don't know if it's our fault (exam writers follow what we teach) or not but I would bet the inertia to change will be tremendous in any case. I am all for reform. But we must be careful. gm [ Part 10: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 13:36:38 -0500 From: Don Jones Subject: Re: Paper 2 - JMM- questions on mathematical equations >What do the participants think about the relative importance of examining, >testing, measuring or whatever "(a.) derivation of equation" vs "(b) >correct use of equations to provide numerical solutions to problems" vs >"(c) discussion of a chemical phenomenon illustrated with numbers computed >via (b). > > >Jack Martin Miller When I was teaching in the classroom/laboratory I always preferred using the 'tool' and not the derivation. I formulated problems in such a way that it was not too likley that they could use a plug and chug mode but really had to use the equations as tools. Derivations did not seem then and do not seem now to be particularly useful in seeing if a student understands the concepts but only the derivation. Don Donald E. Jones Program Director Teacher Enhancement Program Elementary, Secondary and Informal Education National Science Foundation the Internet: djones@nsf.gov Telephone (703) 306-1613 x6819 Fax: (703) 306-0412 NSF's home page url: http://www.nsf.gov Guidelines and announcements: http://www.nsf.gov/home/programs/recent.htm [ Part 11: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 13:32:13 -0500 From: Bert Ramsay Subject: Re: type of test questions [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "ISO-LATIN" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ---------- George Wiger says: > " What I do is divide my exams into two distinct parts, > which are distributed separately. On the first portion, calculators are not > permitted. Questions can range from short answer( sometimes a single word > response suffices) to problems that require calculations, usually limited > to integers, which I expect a student to do without a calculator." ==== Please tell me why you do not allow them to use a calculator. I assume uour question is set up in such a way that you are as interested in the answer as you are in how they set up the solution. If the calculations are as simple as you say, the calculator won't help at all. And if they use it incorrectly, so what? But perhaps this is a question that is more appropriate for the next paper. ==== Bert Ramsay [ Part 12: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:48:07 -0700 From: Scott Donnelly Subject: Paper 2 sjd Chemical relevancy... John Kenkel recently wrote: "I think the general chemistry curriculum needs a earth-shaking thorough overhall. At issue is RELEVANCE." He ended with: "Can we please get these irrelevant, mind-boggling, difficult, unappealing topics out of the course and replaced with fascinating topics that are relevant to the lives of citizens?" My apologies if the following may seem tangental to the subject matter discussed in Paper 2. But it involves an exercise I use in class that attempts to answer the paper's title, "Do I Really Need To Know This Stuff?". Like the previous in-class exercise I wrote about yesterday it involves auto racing and "applied / relevant" problem solving. I ask students this question: "Why do NASCAR stockcars use gasoline as a fuel but Indy cars use methanol?" Prior to asking the question I give them a handout that has the following information taken from Peter Atkins and Loretta Jones' text entitled, "Chemistry- Molecules, Matter, and Change" 3rd Edition. The data are found on page 204. The table title is "Thermochemical properties of four fuels" Here are the data. It's probably best to expand this email over the entire screen in order to view the data in pseudotable form. I tell the students to approximate the octane (hydrocarbon) data with gasoline (a mixture of hydrocarbons). Heat of combustion specific enthalpy (kJ/g) enthalpy (kJ/L) density hydrogen -286 142 13 methane -890 55 40 octane -5471 48 38,000 methanol -726 23 18,000 Students go back and forth with the data. What data column is important to answering the question? Should all data be considered equally? Or unequally? Which data are relevant to solving the problem? I stress to students throughout the semester that not all data are useful all the time. You have to know what it is you're trying to answer. And some data may contradict other. I go on and on with this spiel. The data suggests that Indy cars SHOULD use octane (~gasoline) since the objective is to go faster than any one else. To do this the car needs energy to turn the pistons, etc. The more energy the fuel can give to the car's drive mechanism, the faster the car can go. Columns two and three support this overwhelmingly. But for some reason Indy cars use the "less desirable or energetic" (predicated on columns two and three) fuel. Does the data in column one then shed light on why Indy cars use methanol? It does. The data show that methanol "burns" considerably cooler than gasoline. This means that Indy car engines can run at higher rpm at a lower temperature. Higher rpms translate into more energy delivered to the driveshaft per revolution. Also, the need for an efficient and large cooling system (which in turn takes up space and adds weight to the car which in turn means that some of the energy is wasted overcoming friction...) is less of a priority than in stockcars. So there is a tradeoff but the end result is that both cars obtain speeds over 200 mph. That in turn leads to differences in engine and aerodynamic design which is more for physics. Other relevant questions I ask include: Why is dry nitrogen gas preferable to ordinary air in filling the tires? The water vapor content in air can cause problems with the tire losing or gaining pressure too quickly because of rapid cooling or heating while racing around a track. If a track is partly shadowed this can become a big problem. I'm not sure what the NASCAR or Indy car rules are concerning tires. It's just a thought I came up with one day in class. Generally, airport runways are longer in the western than in the eastern US. Why? Differences in air density contributed to temperature and altitude variations. Of course, space concerns are also relevant. Why do pilots prefer to take off in the morn' or at night? Again air density. The greater air density in the cooler morn' and night environments provides greater lifting force on the wings. Many of my students travel to Mexico which is only ~8 miles from Yuma, AZ to buy goods. Glazed pottery is a favorite. I asked students one day how do they know if the glaze is lead based. Laws between the two countries prohibit Mexico from selling glazed pottery to Americans but it's done nonetheless. I told them to add vinegar to the pottery in question and let it sit overnight. The next morn' add salt to the solution. If a white precipitate (lead chloride) forms, it's possible that the glaze contains lead. Students enjoy the exercises (based more on their positive reaction and involvement than data). I am always interested in questions such as these. I'd like to hear what others do. Cheers. Scott Donnelly Email: aw_donnelly@awc.cc.az.us Department of Chemistry Phone: 520 344 7590 Arizona Western College Webpage: http://www.awc.cc.az.us/chem/ Yuma, AZ 85366-0929 "In education it is not enough to be aware that other people may try to fool you;it is more important to be aware of your own tendency to fool yourself." -Paul G. Hewitt [ Part 13: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 11:20:42 -0800 From: Mario Maldonado Subject: Re: Paper 2 bb reply to sjd Math ability.... At the end of a long week of arguments. I think Bob Bruner states the best. Math is after all a tool in the chemistry teaching. His diagnostic test covers what he is going to need on the course, so it's intended to find out student's lacks. Well done!. Mario Maldonado Facultad de Quimica. UNAM. [ Part 14: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:19:31 -0500 From: Leon Combs Chemistry Subject: Re: Paper 2 - JMM- questions on mathematical equations Sorry, but I don't agree with Don at all. For 31 years I have been teaching physical chemistry as well as freshman chemistry and graduate courses. At all levels I have tried many different approaches. Derivations, done properly and different for different levels, allow the students to be able to derive formulae from basic concepts of physics and chemistry and then they understand the _meaning_ of the equations AND under what conditions the equations can be applied. Anyone who has seen someone try to apply the VDW equation to the liquid state will understand what I mean. I don't want my students trying to use a saw to drive a screw into a board. Derivations _are_ the application of concepts. There is definitely a need for a course to teach non-science majors general topics of chemistry, physics, biology, etc. so that they can better understand the basics of our society. However, our majors should end their undergraduate career not only with an understanding of the societal effects of our science, but also with the ability to derive equations needed for a particular application and to know when to use certain equations that they look up, or are given. <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< Leon L. Combs, Ph.D. Professor and Chair Tel: 770-423-6159 Dept. Chemistry FAX: 770-423-6744 Kennesaw State University e-mail: lcombs@ksumail.kennesaw.edu 1000 Chastain Road http://science.kennesaw.edu/~lcombs Kennesaw, GA 30144-5591 CARPE DIEM ---- CORUM DEO <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< <>< [ Part 15: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:12:06 -0600 From: Donald Wink Subject: Zielinski, Kelter, Volland: On the nature of chemistry In a message a little later I will share some reflections on math and chemistry, pertinent to the general discussion and to the Grundman / Kelter paper. First, I have some comments in the wake of a thread that I _think_ started with Zielinski, on the nature of chemistry, chemical education, and science. Three exerpts are relevant: ****Zielenski**** >Might we actually need to create a need to know chemistry >as a way of knowing rather than a body of information in >the form of equations. Would such an approach >actually let students see science as a way of knowing. ****Kelter**** >The key we need to teach is, in fact, the nature of science, >because that really reflects a rational approach to ideas. >In an ideal world, I think that we ought to focus on how chemists learn what they know based on this way of knowing. ****Volland**** >Do most general chemisty students hunt for >patterns, make conjectures, justify conclusions, and try to generalize? >Probably not. And of course most calculus students don't yet either. > I will weigh in with a definition of "chemistry" that I think covers all of these comments: Chemistry is a science that studies and attempts to explain the interactions of atoms in chemical substances and chemical reactions. I did this because I think that any discussion of what we can and should teach ought to begin with a definition of how we view chemistry. It is a two-sided thing, as most sciences are: a study and an explanation. My experience in my classes (the ones that I've taken and the ones, I'll admit, that I've taught) is that the classes are almost exclusively "explanation" classes. How many times have I caught myself saying "It turns out that...", and yet said it anyhow, because I needed to transmit information? I am not giving students en experience of chemistry. I am giving them an experience of _my_ knowledge about chemistry. Don't get me wrong. It is essential in most learning that there is some transmitted understanding or facts that go into the mind along with the learner's own experiences. Authority is a valid source of information for rational thought. However, as these three quotations suggest, it is wrong to expect learning to occur when authority is the _only_ source of information. Yet that is how we often teach, especially when we provide equations that we allow the students to work blindly, without understanding. On the other hand, chemistry is very much a science that infers the behavior of invisible atoms based on observations--in part mediated through quantitative observations that imply trends, etc. What, after all, is the "true" meaning of the mole concept? Not the value of Avogadro's number, that's for sure. It is the concept that we can measure atoms based on procedures other than actual counting, for example through weighing. But this tactic is rooted in the proportionality that exists between the mass and the amount of a substance--a proportionality known as the molar mass. Thus, if we are to give a student an understanding of how chemists work, mathematical relations are, I think, essential. But they are not the "stuff" of science. They are an essential part of its method of studying and explaining. In parallel with math, however, another part of how chemists study and explain is by observation of qualitative properties. Color, density, hardness, phase, temperature, etc. are all examples of this. We too readily jump to quantitative explanations of these, however, when we should dwell at greater length on the information that can still be inferred or transmitted qualitatively. Donald J. Wink Associate Professor University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Chemistry (m/c 111) 845 W. Taylor Street Chicago, IL 60607 TEL 312-413-7383 FAX 312-996-0431 dwink@uic.edu http://www.uic.edu/~dwink [ Part 16: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:16:58 -0500 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: Re: "dumbing down" vs relevance I think there is more room for things like this in the non-majors course. Most of the public who take chemistry should be taking the non-majors course rather than Gen. Chem etc. Most of the non-majors books that I have seen have a lot of highly appealing public interest material. It is really difficult to cover all the things they should know in the regular classes. (I hope that most students are not going to be science majors or chemistry majors; there are not enough jobs.) /* 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 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Part 17: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 14:19:42 -0600 From: Donald Wink Subject: Teaching math with chemistry I know this is late in the last day of the discussion, but I want to add a few thoughts from the experience I've had in a program to teach preparatory chemistry and intermediate algebra (the UIC MATCH program--you can find out more about it off my Web page). This program had us work with math on a single nine-credit hour curriculum to teach prep chem and algebra to a single group of students. It's goal was to get them more comfortable in using math in chemistry, and more able to learn mathematics because they would know why it was important. It was born of the observation that many students with reasonable math skills had trouble applying math in chemistry (such as rearranging equations, and certainly in the manipulations of logarithmic and exponential functions). One of the great successes from the earliest stages was the unity we could bring to the teaching of direct proportion and the use of proportions in solving chemical problems. Molar mass, molarity, density, and even the sacred Avogadro's number are just proportionalities between different measurement systems. Nothing less, and, we emphasized to the students, nothing more. This went a long way to demystifying these proportionalities, and made the eventual development of dimensional analysis less of a black box. One of the great problems we have had, though, is that students can distort their learning of mathematics to focus on only the things that make sense in chemistry. I think we have addressed this problem (and our data support my thinking), but it really showed that in learning math it helps to have a reason. This means that we all must be _very_ careful that students who have learned math without a lot of connections may not have the experience to transfer it out of x's and y's into n's and M's. Our experience also points out, along the same lines, that chemists are liable to get _very_ sloppy in their presentations of mathematics. I noted Paul in the article said "Students won't flip the log term" Well, gee, mathemetician's don't flip the log term, either! They may takes its inverse. They may raise two sides of an equation to common power that allows us to "undo" a log. But they don't "flip" the log term. Does this mean we should all be trained in "mathematical correctness." Well, I don't think so. (Though my colleauge Sheila McNicholas in math sure tried it on me!) But it behooves us to listen to how students express themselves about mathematics. They may have more understanding than we think, if we communicate with them. That would also go a long way down the road of addressing learning styles (or, as I prefer, their "learning history"). Anyway, my apologies again for my late contribution to a very good discussion. Donald J. Wink Associate Professor University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Chemistry (m/c 111) 845 W. Taylor Street Chicago, IL 60607 TEL 312-413-7383 FAX 312-996-0431 dwink@uic.edu http://www.uic.edu/~dwink [ Part 18: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 16:52:26 -0500 From: Don Jones Subject: Re: Paper 2 - JMM- questions on mathematical equations >Sorry, but I don't agree with Don at all. For 31 years I have been >teaching physical chemistry as well as freshman chemistry and graduate >courses. At all levels I have tried many different approaches. >Derivations, done properly and different for different levels, allow the >students to be able to derive formulae from basic concepts of physics and >chemistry and then they understand the _meaning_ of the equations AND under >what conditions the equations can be applied. Anyone who has seen someone >try to apply the VDW equation to the liquid state will understand what I >mean. I don't want my students trying to use a saw to drive a screw into a >board. Derivations _are_ the application of concepts. The key above is "Devivations, done properly..." If the derivations are done without a real world context to which the student can tie meaning then they are nearly useless as a teaching tool. It is only when they are tied to real problems that the student really has that moment of 'EUREKA'. I have much too often seen derivations without this context and they do not work for most students. Only those who already have a mathematical sense can effectively deal with it. The rest just glaze over and memorize it without understanding. Yes, you are quite correct if you understand the derivation adequately you can do so many more things but it is very hard to get to that level of understanding merely from the derivation. I have had similar conversations with some of my mathematics colleagues. Those that show applications with the mathematics do so much better in bringing their students into understanding. Don Donald E. Jones Program Director Teacher Enhancement Program Elementary, Secondary and Informal Education National Science Foundation the Internet: djones@nsf.gov Telephone (703) 306-1613 x6819 Fax: (703) 306-0412 NSF's home page url: http://www.nsf.gov Guidelines and announcements: http://www.nsf.gov/home/programs/recent.htm [ Part 19: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 16:54:29 -0500 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: Re: Paper 2 - tjz - questions on mathematical equations I think it was Berthelot or one of those guys who applied the VDW equation to the problem of the tensile strength of liquids. ........ I will check tonight for the reference. And how many of us are still using the VDW equation in our research? Perhaps equations like chance favor a prepared mind. With experience we can appreciate equations and derivations more. But there remains that potential barrier that many students face, math anxiety. They need to be shown that they can do it and we need to create a desire to do it. 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) [ Part 20: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 15:51:24 -0700 From: Scott Donnelly Subject: Paper 2 sjd relevancy in chemistry... Richard Pendarvis recently wrote in response to John Kenkel's call for more relevancy in the general chemistry curriculum: "I think there is more room for things like this in the non-majors course. Most of the public who take chemistry should be taking the non-majors course rather than Gen. Chem etc." Hmmm...why not general chemistry? If the reason is because there is too much material to cover in general chemsitry, then that's a poor excuse. It does not take great effort nor much book space to find examples of the relevancy of chemical principles. Even a mundane but necessary topic as predicting the products of simple reactions coupled to stoichiometry can be highly relevant. For example, I use the example of the problems encountered on the Apollo 13 mission with buildup of carbon dioxide in the lunar module. I give students a series of reactants (LiOH, NaOH, KOH, RbOH). They determine the products upon absorption of carbon dioxide, and then determine which is more effective in removing the carbon dioxide on a per gram basis. I don't tell them what the other reactant- carbon dioxide- is. I have them figure it out. There is usually one student who remebers there biology. They are then asked to determine how much of the "winning" hydroxide is needed for a journey a week long in a capsule of some given volume that will accomodate 3 astronauts working in 12 hour shifts but with varying respiration rates during the day/night. A real problem with real consequences based on a simple understanding of chemical reactions. General chemistry students need this type of relevancy. We will continue to fight an uphill battle in turning people on to chemistry (or at least not thinking it's evil) unless we bring more relevancy into the classroom. In the example above there is no sacrifice of content. What about the fantastically popular Mars Pathfinder expedition last summer? Certainly there is some chemistry that was done that can be added into the general chemistry curriculum. Check out the following website- http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/ops/science.html. Limiting this to non-majors chemistry courses only is a mistake. Cheers. Scott Donnelly Scott Donnelly Email: aw_donnelly@awc.cc.az.us Department of Chemistry Phone: 520 344 7590 Arizona Western College Webpage: http://www.awc.cc.az.us/chem/ Yuma, AZ 85366-0929 "In education it is not enough to be aware that other people may try to fool you;it is more important to be aware of your own tendency to fool yourself." -Paul G. Hewitt [ Part 21: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 19:07:07 -0500 From: Robley Light Subject: Re: #2 RL - undergraduate student input One final student comment--from an upper level biochemistry student: Robley Light "As an upper level chemistry student-- a Biochem major who will graduate in the spring of 1999, I can't say that I support taking "real math" out of the general chemistry classes (1045, 1046). Yes, I admit that sometimes it seems more relevant to learn how to use a formula on the night before the test, than to see how this might fit into the grand scheme of things.... What I gained from my general chemistry classes was a solid introduction to concepts I would come to learn and study later in more depth. Thermodynamics, kinetics, reactions, stiochiometry, and on and on are all concepts that are essential to higher level chemistry and biology classes. Perhaps, the general chemsitry students think it's difficult to learn how to manipluate numbers and reactions now. I can't imagine how lost they'd be in any upper level chemistry class without such a background. General chemistry, as Lucas said, involves mostly college algebra. Granted, this is difficult for some students to master, but it is a bare minimum for what Chemistry, Biochemistry, Physics and even Chemical Science majors will see later on. Physical Chemistry requires all the calculus you ever wanted to know, and then some. I realize that other science oriented majors also take 1045-1046 but I don't think you could interview any upper level engineering major and hear them complain about the mathematics they used in general chem. Compared to E-math, I think they'd consider algebra a blessing. I've never considered general chemistry a weed-out course for science majors (i think organic is more of a challenge), but in some cases it is. If you can't see beyond mere plug-and-chug thought, perhaps science isn't the place you belong. I'm not directing that statement at anyone personally, please don't take it that way! And I'm not saying that every future chemist should absolutely ace general chemistry. Everyone struggles sometime. (Well, almost everyone.) Almost all science involves some math, some calculation, some analysis, some reasoning. There are some areas of biology that use relatively little actual calculation, but in any true science, for which these classes serve as a background, analysis and reasoning are crucial. Those are skills which are learned in the process of studying the real material, in the "non- watered down" version. Without trying to insult anyone, their motivations, or their choices, I would like to suggest that Lucas is right... in that, 'Chemistry for general concepts' is available as Chemistry for Liberal Studies. Anyone who is required to take 1045-1046 may not be thankful for it later, but will certainly be relieved they were introduced to the full version of the material. I can't imagine the way it would weaken upper level chemistry courses (although it certainly would) to leave the mathematical realms out of the curriculum. Pchem, Biochem, and Analyt would suffer greatly, (or at least the students would.) Perhaps the underclassmen, the majority of 1045/1046 students, aren't worried about medical or graduate schools or getting employment after graduation or any of those worries which rapidly associate with upperclass status. But, it is a real concern, among those of us who are about to be evaluated by the real world, about how our school and educational background are judged. Certainly, my graduate school admission is, as much or more, dependent on my personal record as on where I went to school. But, better grades from a school known to have weakened its classes (as removing calculations would undoubtably do) would hurt me far more that average, or above average, grades in a school where the courses are rigorous. My overall feelings on the matter can be stated simply; I think it would weaken the background, credibility, potential opportunities, and overall education of our (chemistry and other sciences) undergraduates as well as weaken the reputation of Florida State. ************************************************************* Robley J. Light Professor of Chemistry Department of Chemistry Phone: (850) 644-3844 Florida State University Email: rlight@chem.fsu.edu Tallahassee, FL 32306-4390 Fax: (850) 644-8281 Home Page: http://www.sb.fsu.edu/~rlight [ Part 22: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 19:59:08 +0000 From: pankuch Subject: Math ability I teach at liberal arts college. My students generally have difficulty in solving problems with math. For that reason I spend a lot of time teaching problem solving skills involving math. I also go through the experiments that allow us to find electrons, their charge and mass, etc., when we still can't 'see' them! We do this mostly to show what neat things you can do by being clever, and to lay a framework for abstract ideas in quantum theory. Part of it though is to be able to share a feeling of wonder that scientists like Newton, Einstein, Feynman, Pauling, etc. could use math to look at and learn about the universe. Most of my students will not use math in this way so in that sense it is not practical, but some do share my feeling of wonder at this power of math. Any time you can strengthen a weakness such as problem solving using math, that's part of a liberal arts education. If you can genralize the ideas and methods so students get a better sense of how the big steps are taken it is important for long term understanding of how science can work. Brian Pankuch [ Part 2: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 03:16:54 EST From: Walt Volland Subject: Paper-2-WV-RE:-"dumbing down" vs relevance On Thursday Gary Mort wrote >I am by and large sympathetic to John's position. And I believe it is >possible to teach a rigorous meaningful principles and applications course. >Last week were doing bonding, chirality blah blah in my gen chem class and >got off on a great sidetrack about drugs and anesthesia. Appropriate to >the group since most are prehealth proffesionals of some stripe. >But... >Look at the MCAT, DCAT, PCAT. snip I agree with John that course content should relate to student's life experiences. The fact is that necessary ideas and skills can be taught even if relevant topics are included as the examples. The "key" items don't have to be sacrificed. For example, ozone depletion can be part of discussions on kinetics, bonding, bond energies, acid deposition is a natural fit with discussions of acid-base and pH, ir spectroscopy and bonding can tied to greenhouse gases, etc. Likewise other interesting topics can be incorporated into or tied to mainstream ideas. Walt Walt Volland Department of Chemistry Bellevue Community College Bellevue, Washington 98007 425-641-2467 wvolland@bcc.ctc.edu luckybel@aol.com http://www.scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/wv/a101-140homepage.html [ Part 3: "Included Message" ] [ Part 12: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 15:53:16 -0800 From: Evelyn Palmer Subject: Re: EP reply to paper 2 RP, re class size Sorry if this is too late for the paper 2 discussion, but I asked one of my colleagues in our Faculty of Education about class size: >At 05:18 PM 1/26/98 -0500, Richard Pendarvis wrote: >> >>CLASS SIZE! CLASS SIZE! >>The last word was that there is no evidence that there is a significant >>effect of class size upon learning. I cannot help believe otherwise. >> >>Does anyone know of any statistical work on this important factor? Hi reply is: Go to http://eln.bc.ca/WWW.SFU.erccij/select or http://eln.bc.ca/WWW.SFU.PSYABS/select and enter class size as title into the first field, click go. You'll be "served" with a host of articles in education and psychology journals about class size. Regards, Evelyn Evelyn Palmer telephone: (604) 291-3537 Department of Chemistry fax: (604) 291-3765 Simon Fraser University e-mail: evelyn@sfu.ca Burnaby BC V5A 1S6 CANADA www.sfu.ca/chemistry/personel/palmer.htm [ Part 13: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 18:14:05 -0800 From: Evelyn Palmer Subject: EP second reply to paper 2, re class size Dear Colleagues, About two hours ago I mentioned sources of research in education concerning class size. You may not be able to access them. I just learned that these URL 's are available only to people at my university, SFU. However, if you have access to ERIC from your institution, you may be able to getthem. [ERIC is an abstract service for instututions subscribing to it.] I apologize for any inconvenience. Upon reading several of the abstracts I did not see any specific to science classes in High School or University, but some of the articles looked like interesting reading. Evelyn Palmer, Chemistry Department Simon Fraser University Burnaby BC Canada [ Part 14: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 21:41:59 -0800 From: "K.R.Fountain" Subject: Re: EP reply to paper 2 RP, re class size [ Part 15: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 30 Jan 1998 20:47:07 -0800 From: Jack Bell Subject: Re: "dumbing down" vs relevance >Fellow chemists, > >We all know how chemistry gets a bad rap, and it has for years, from the >general public - students, parents, relatives, non-scientists. And we >wonder why students don't like chemistry when we know it is an >extraordinarily interesting "central science." > >I think the general chemistry curriculum needs a earth-shaking thorough >overhall. At issue is RELEVANCE. I hear educators continuously >expressing the need for students to be life-long learners so that they >can understand and deal with current events as they appear in the >newspaper. Whether it's the O.J. trial, global warming, the Exxon >Valdez, radon in homes, ...... Citizens should be able to pick up a >newspaper and have some understanding of the science involved. Students >should also get a good feel for what chemists and technicians do and how >important it is. Do our chemistry classes prepare students to be >educated citizens? I don't think discussions of kinetics equation >derivation, the Rydberg Equation, mathematical models, etc. (the list is >quite long), contribute a thing to students becoming being >science-literate citizens that can understand important societal issues >and vote intelligently, etc. And it turns them off to the subject of >chemistry! > >You may call it resistance to "dumbing down." I call it resistance to >an important and necessary major paradigm shift. Can we please get >these irrelevant, mind-boggling, difficult, unappealing topics out of >the course and replaced with fascinating topics that are relevant to the >lives of citizens? The NSF-sponsored systemic change projects would be >perfect for such a change, but I don't see it happening. > >John Kenkel >Southeast Community College >Lincoln, Nebraska John, We've planted some seeds, but it's not spring yet. A harvest of students whose course or job performance is superior to their traditional counterparts will be the proof. Jack Jack Bell, Ph.D. Chemistry Instructor Contra Costa Community College District and ModularCHEM Consortium at http://mc2.cchem.berkeley.edu Office Phone/FAX 510/939-4657 email: jackbell@value.net mail: 2950 Windtree Ct., Lafayette, CA 94549.