Discussion archive for Paper 5 Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 07:57:49 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Begin SHORT QUESTION Period for Paper 5 To: CHEMCONF Registrants From: Donald Rosenthal Re: SHORT QUESTIONS FOR PAPER 5 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It is 8 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time - 1300 GMT) on Friday, February 13. During the next 24 hours you may send SHORT QUESTIONS about Paper 5 - "FIRST, DO NO HARM . . . The (Moral) Obligation of the Faculty" by Brian P. Coppola to the author 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, February 16 DISCUSSION of Paper 5 will begin on Monday, February 16 and continue ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ through Thursday, February 19. The paper can be retrieved from the Conference World Wide Web Site: http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Chemistry/ChemConference/ChemConf98/ 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 5 - IJ: The Clash Between Moral Obligation and 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 3: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 08:03:34 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 5 DR: How Do You Incorporate these Principles? Re: Paper 5 - DR: SQ - How Do You Incorporate These Principles into Your Courses? Some Short Questions ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 1. In your most interesting paper you state: "Every precollege science teacher and all future faculty members are in our introductory science courses. . . Science faculty are the sole caretakers for what constitutes acceptable practice in the educational and professional development of students in science courses . . . . Every decision we make and every action we take as educators contains an ethical lesson. . . . Decisions about course content, pedagogy, even scheduling . . communicate a sense of values. . ." Can you describe more specifically what you do in one (or more) of your basic courses to convey an ethical lesson and communicate a sense of values? 2. "We instructors do change the worldview of our students, including their beliefs about science. . . . help them learn how to critically examine and, in most cases, broaden their beliefs . . . develop an appreciation and respect for things outside of their immediate experience . . . modify their motivations . . . change their minds . . . science instructors make clear the full range of educational goals for students in science classes as well as how the instructional plan seeks to achieve these goals . ." Again can you describe more specifically what you do in one (or more) of your basic courses to accomplish these objectives? 3. "If development of critical thinking and expert problem solving skills are important objectives, then the exams should not only test those skills but also anticipate and preclude undesirable strategies such as the solitary reliance on memorization." Please share with us an examination from one of your courses which accomplishes these objectives. Donald Rosenthal Department of Chemistry Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699-5810 ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 08:07:35 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 5 DR: Providing the Needs of Future Faculty Re: Paper 5 - DR: SQ - Providing the Educational Needs of Future Faculty A quote from your paper: ". . . how can we attend to the broad educational needs of future faculty in a meaningful way? Our current system is highly inefficient . . . where is the infrastructure to support the scholarship of teaching . . discipline-centered scholarship in instruction and learning is an area that emerges from the discipline itself . . . What I have described here is part of a program that my institution plans to institute in 1998. We are not alone." Can you describe some of the details of this program? Will all chemistry graduate students participate? Donald Rosenthal Department of Chemistry Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699-5810 ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 08:09:59 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 5 DR: Laboratory Experiments Please describe specific laboratory experiments designed to achieve some of the objectives you outline in your paper. Date: Sun, 15 Feb 1998 09:49:10 +0000 From: George Long Subject: Paper 5 GRL: Faculty disdain for pedagogy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In you paper you state: >University faculty, outside of schools of education, are notorious for their disdain of >pedagogy. As scholars we seem to feel that knowledge of content is all that matters. If >we provide a good course, full of the latest developments in our field, students will >learn. We focus on teaching rather than learning, often with disastrous results. Lunch >table conversations about how our courses are going are filled with destructive >nostalgia about how much better students were "in the old days." Facilitating a >broad-scale conversation about pedagogy is a difficult task, particularly in a research >university where faculty are engaged in exciting scholarship, but a morally reflective >educational practice (which is a type of content) demands that pedagogy be taken as >seriously as factual content. My question is, why should faculty (outside of the education college) take pedagogy (that is the modern research on pedagogy) seriously? First, A significant fraction of the research I've seen in this area has been very poor, with terrible misuse and missinterpretation of statistical data. Research on pedagogy is very subjective relative to research in the physical sciences, so it is extremely difficult for a researcher to find a truly definitive experiment. Worse yet, modern pedagogy is filled with jargon which seeks to "sell" the concept rather than facillitate discussion (as most jargon in the hard sciences does). For example, one might say that "Fuzzy Logic" is jargon, but it is used to repreasent a set of particular statistical methods. On the other hand I have heard education researchers use "Organic environment" to describe certain types of organizational schemes. Of course, since I'm a chemist, this one is particularly annoying, but it would be just as easy to use something like adaptive environment, or developing environment. The purpose of using "organic' is clearly aimed at adding glitz to the idea to "sell" it. **************************************************************************** Dr. George R. Long grlong@grove.iup.edu http://www.iup.edu/~grlong/ Department of Chemistry Indiana University of PA Indiana PA, 15705 **************************************************************************** [ Part 2: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 07:55:00 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Begin Discussion of Paper 5 To: CHEMCONF Registrants From: Donald Rosenthal ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU Re: BEGIN DISCUSSION OF PAPER 5 It is 8 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time - 1300 GMT) on Monday, February 16. The next 96 hours will be devoted to discussion of Paper 5 - "FIRST, DO NO HARM . . . The (Moral) Obligation of the Faculty" by Brian P. Coppola The paper can be retrieved from the Conference World Wide Web Site: http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/Chemistry/ChemConference/ChemConf98/ Messages 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 5 - IJ: The Clash Between Moral Obligation and 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. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Appropriately labelled subject lines will be useful in sorting out the various discussion threads. Only discussion which is sent from the SAME MAIL ADDRESS from which you subscribed will be accepted and distributed to participants. Place your name, affiliation and e-mail address at the end of your message. Remember that messages sent to CHEMCONF will be distributed to all participants. 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I shared the manuscript with a few correspondents and received a couple of replies that I thought I would also share with you. The first is from Jeff Kovac at The University of Tennessee-Knoxville. You may recognize Jeff's name as someone who has written in the area of bringing research ethics into the undergraduate chemistry curriculum. Jeff published (via UTK) a wonderful collection of Case Studies on ethical practices in science ("The Ethical Chemist") that can be used with undergraduate students. I have used and adapted a number of these over the last few years, and I am also be contributing some new Cases to the revision of The Ethical Chemist that relate to TA and Faculty Training. Jeff Kovac wrote: I have had a chance to read, "First, do no harm..." and have found it quite provocative. I do have a rhetorical point for you to consider concerning the "Do no harm" metaphor that you use to organize the essay. My understanding of "do not harm," which I think is probably broadly shared is that when the physician encounters a patient in distress that the first rule in intervention is the cautionary, do no harm. In other words, the treatment should be no worse than the disease. In the early days of medicine when intervention was even more risky than today, this was very good moral and medical advice. As any good family doctor knows, most things get better after three days. With that understanding of the metaphor, I'm not sure it is the best organizing principle for the ideas you present which are designed to reform and reorganize the profession. Many of our colleagues would turn your metaphor on its head and point to the many successes of science education and research (Nobel prizes, the wonderful research being conducted, etc.) and say, "since it ain't broke, don't fix it." For them, your ideas (which I share!) are intervention that might do more harm than good. Your intention is to alter the well-oiled machine of science and science education to make it morally reflective and inclusive of the needs of more students. *Reply from Coppola: * *No doubt, there will always be successes and efficiencies in all systems, to one degree or another, and the evaluation thereof rests squarely on a value system. * *Your point about how our colleagues would react strikes me as the same position that would have been offered by 18th C slave-owners and 20th C industrial slave-labor sweatshop owners. At what price does "the many successes of science education and research" come? Some of the examples about abusive research directors in "First, Do No Harm..." are, as you might expect, from my department. This version of the essay folded in a letter I had drafted about one such individual in the event that the department actually offered this person tenure even after such untenurable behavior (fortunately, there were other problems). * *The standard "cure" to the "disease" our students bring to us, the need for intellectual (and moral) development, does indeed make matters worse for them, not better. The fact that some succeed in spite of the treatment is more a reflection of their own character (or maybe just those who learn to become good at recycling the abuse). I cannot buy any kind of ends-justify-the- means argument. * * *Jeff Kovac replies, in turn: * * * * The problem, of course, is that our colleagues do not recognize that the student bring the "disease" with them. * * * *Your position is one with which I agree, but unfortunately it is not one that is broadly shared. For example, look at the current debate about the US economy. The system is booming, but at the same time is creating a two-class system of wealthy and poor and driving lots of people out of stable jobs into temporary or other low-paid positions. A popular (and provocative) book during my college days was E.F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" which is subtitled, "Economics as if people mattered." In an interesting chapter called Buddhist Economics, he make the point that economic success ignores the human costs. You are making the same point in a different context. * * * * I like the analogy between slave-owners and graduate research directors, but I don't think I would raise it in the next department meeting. * * * * * *Coppola replies, in turn: * * * * * * * *Very astute. I agree. Indeed, when one thinks of the informal two-class faculty system that exists in many places, it resonates, too. I guess this is just our side of the story. * * * * Jeff Kovac original comment continues: What I have not yet been able to do is think of a way of expanding the notion of "do no harm" so it works better to organize the excellent stuff that follows or to think of an alternate metaphor. I think that one of the two is needed to make the essay a more coherent and powerful presentation. I found my understanding of "do no harm" as a negative principle contrasting with the positive suggestions for change of a flawed enterprise. I hope these comments are useful in some way. The ideas and overall message are terribly important, so they need to be taken seriously by the broadest possible audience. I will be rereading your piece from time to time in an effort to provide some additional ideas. End of Kovac's comment. Roald Hoffmann wrote: I think the beginning is excellent, with its focus on our moral responsibilities as teachers. I think what you need as a good ending is some return to the moral discourse - it seems to me that the teaching/research subject takes over at the end. One thing I would add is that you neglect the place where a lot of moral and judgmental education takes place, and this is the research group meeting. It's like a family, barriers are gone, research directors say "This research is crap", "I don't trust this that guy", "look at that pile of hype", etc., all judgments they would not allow themselves in public. One interesting implication in the Hippocratic Oath, hidden in the word "First" implying a "Second", is that intervention must follow, safeguarded by the "first" imperative. The physician is morally bound to act, to intervene. Would you lie to trace out the consequences of that to education? *Reply from Coppola: * *I am always happy to receive comments on the rhetorical structure of any argument I am attempting to make, especially in a piece like this one. The next two comment are good ideas for elaborating the argument by (a) giving some more specific examples of HOW the behaviors are learned, and (b) in elaborating some of the recommendations by this notion Roald raises about the "Second" that follows the "First" * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 09:16:23 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: Providing the Needs of Future Faculty Donald Rosenthal wrote: Providing for the Needs of Future Faculty "Can you describe some of the details of this program (to provide students with an infrastructure to support the scholarship of teaching)? Will all chemistry graduate students participate (in the graduate aspects of the structure)?" *Coppola replies: *It is not prudent to discuss the details of a proposal that is currently under review. I will say that this is a program cast in a training grant format. This is, there will be a cohort of graduate students who are recruited and supported in the same way we do for students in other emergent areas at the interface of the chemical sciences (like chemical biology and materials science). Students will take cognate courses outside of chemistry, as they always do, but these will be in educational psychology or education science. Ultimately, the work that is done could comprise a chapter in the PhD thesis. If funded, we will certainly have a great deal of information available at the chemistry department's web site (www.umich.edu/~michchem). I would also refer conference participants to check out The Future Faculty Program that is a part of the University of New Hampshire's Teaching Excellence Program, http://unhinfo.unh.edu/teaching-excellence/. * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 09:15:30 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: How Do You Incorporate these Principles? Donald Rosenthal wrote: How do you incorporate these principles? (1) "Can you describe more specifically what you do in one (or more) of your basic courses to convey an ethical lesson and communicate a sense of values?" (2) "Can you describe more specifically what you do in one (or more) or your basic courses to achieve the objectives (changing worldviews, learn how to critically examine beliefs, modify motivations, make a full range of goals in science classrooms)?" (3) "Please share with us an examination from one of your courses which accomplishes these objectives (develop critical skills, anticipate and preclude undesirable strategies such as solitary reliance on memorization)?" * Coppola replies to Questions (1-3): * *I must begin by reiterating what I am trying to point out in this section of the paper: It is not a choice between transmitting values and not transmitting values. It is only a matter of what values you choose to transmit, and whether or not your classroom rhetoric is congruent with your practices. To a degree, these three questions are all related, so I will give a combined answer. * *Let's begin with a familiar topic: grading. Starting with the assumption (and we can look at this, too) that your examinations are fair and representative expectations from the kind of instructional environment you have created for your class. You have a choice for your grading scale: normative (at the outset of the course, a preconceived fraction of students will get A's, B's, etc) or non-normative (an absolute scale). Normative grading inspires a higher incident of unethical behavior at the direction of the person who creates the system because (a) cheating is highly productive, (b) not helping other students is beneficial, (c) sabotaging other students is beneficial. There are an amazing number of times when a faculty member who uses normative grading nonetheless urges students to work together. Normative grading practices transmit a message; as do non-normative grading practices. Non-normative practices need to be highly informed by historical understanding of how certain kinds of instruction and testing are linked in the course. It is remarkable to simply declare "90-100 is an A" without knowing what "90-100" means in the context of your course. In my experience, it also takes a great deal of work to get students to understand and believe me when I say that non-normative grading is my practice. This is a recurring point of discussion in my course (a real part of the "subject matter" or "content", actually), and one that I want my students to understand about the course. I also provide my students with disclosure: they (and you) can find past grading distributions at the web sites for either of the courses I am typically involved with (Chemistry 210 or Chemistry 215H) at http://www.umich.edu/~chem210 and http://www.umich.edu/~chemh215 under the link labeled "General Information". * *Now to the examinations themselves: It is easy to create an exam that no one can pass; and all examinations can be used to select and sort students. The question is: on what basis is this sorting done? What are the values that are being reinforced by any given testing situation. All testing situations are value-laden. As a faculty member, you may hold an intent on which your testing is based, but this means nothing if the strategy that students learn to be successful with is different. In an attempt to improve student performance in our one-term General Chemistry course, one of my colleagues who uses multiple choice examinations decided to extract all of the examination questions from the assigned problems. Student performance plummeted on the exams. Students were being told by the course that becoming familiar with the questions, and not the chemistry, was the pathway to success. In our first-year course based on organic chemistry as a vehicle to learn an introduction to chemical principles, we have found that we can clearly transmit the learning values we are interested in by (a) using the primary literature as a source of questions, (b) never having used multiple choice exams, (c) including the citation along with the problem so that it is clear that "the answer" is not something that could have been "found" in the book, (d) providing an extensive "coursepack" of about 4 years worth of old exams that reinforce these ideas (in 1994, the problems had 1994 references, etc), (e) publishing and teaching about our non-normative grading practices, and also (f) providing guidance on the use of the coursepack from the very first day of class as a way for students to work together (solution manuals are not available to the coursepack) and judge their own progress. Answer keys for the Fall, 1997 Chemistry 210 exams can be found at the Chemistry 210 Web Site (under "Exam Keys"; as of 2/16/98, these had not been updated at the Winter, 1998 site; if they have, go to a Winter Exam Key link and replace the "/Winter_1998/" by "/Fall_1997/" in the URL. The first exam from this term's Chemistry 215H course is also available at the ~chemh215 site. Warning: these are in PDF format. If you cannot access these, drop me a line and I can send you the full URLs. If you would like a copy of a current coursepack, I have a limited supply of print overruns available on first-come basis. Finally, I have created a non-PDF page for you (http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola/exams.html). * *Let's move on to laboratory work: The classical prep and analytical labs asks for the impossible: students need to do something they have never done before, and they need to do it correctly the first time, often with less than ideal circumstances with less than pristine equipment. In synthetic labs, what is the message we send if both yield and purity are used as grading criteria? Every practitioner knows that these two are orthogonal: if you want to purify something you will always sacrifice yield. Is it any surprise, then, that students learn (We.Teach.Them) that cheating wins? Falsify the lab notebook. Take more starting material than you report to use. Steal some product from another student and spit in their sample while you're at it (after all, there are only so many A grades to go around). Within the last two weeks, a student who just completed a quantitative analysis course told me a story and asked me a question: * *"I just could not do what so many of the students did: fudge my numbers. Everyone told me that you can always tell the honest students in that class because they get "B" grades. The Professor didn't even know some of the students just grouped their information and only worked half-way through the term because he didn't even collect or check our notebook pages...just those 25-page reports! I want to be a good scientist. Damn it, I am a good scientist. Remember when we discussed those cases of research ethics in your course? I always knew the right thing. What can I do about this? Do you think I should appeal this grade?" * *How would you answer this question? * *During a recent visit to a chemistry department at a private, liberal arts institution, I listened to a remarkable dialog between some of the faculty and the group of visiting consultants (of which I was a part). After one of the visitors had already described a number of pedagogical strategies for getting to know students in large introductory classes, one of the local faculty members simply declared that "My students think I am an S.O.B. and it's because I am. I don't want to know their names...I don't want to know them. If I get to know them it will just interfere with my objectivity. Sure, sometimes they come up to me and tell me how much they liked my class...but I know what they really want, they are just premeds who want a letter of recommendation." I didn't have the heart to point out that these were the same faculty who requested advice to answer the question about why there were so few majors in their program. * *There are many lessons in science that I want students to experience. One that deserves continual reinforcement is how we use experimental information to modify our scientific models, and how the level of complexity of a model is tied to its operational utility (in other words: Occam's Razor). As our students begin to assemble models for understanding what we are saying, they will always be less complete than ours (after all!). How we react to their model-building is crucial. After looking at the correlation between electronegativity and the Bronsted acidity of compounds constituted by main group elements of the second row, what is your reaction to students who predict that HF should have a lower pKa than HI? Your values, and the message you will send, are embedded in your answer. As a training exercise for graduate students and faculty, I have used the multiplication problem example that appears in "First, Do No Harm...". In my experience, students come to college with notions of science as one of the last bastions of truth; the idea that even facts are mutable is a truth that few are ready to simply integrate and move on from. * *There have been a number of opportunities to introduce more formal lessons in research and professional ethics into the program. Honors students in the first-year course have a chance to consider, in a focus group format, cases and modified cases from Kovac's "Ethical Chemist". One of the capstone activities for these students is to construct their own cases. These groups are led by undergraduate juniors and seniors. Interestingly, being an instructor in ethics may have an even more profound effect than for the students. One of my senior leaders a few years ago was apparently tempted to be creative during one early morning writing session for her thesis. I say this because I got a simple e-mail message from her that was sent at 3 am: "Damn you for making me think ethically!" * *In conclusion, I will return to what I consider to be the most important idea: it is not a question of whether or not values are transmitted, it is only a question of which ones are transmitted. * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 09:17:16 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: Laboratory Experiments Donald Rosenthal wrote: Laboratory Experiments "Please describe specific laboratory experiments designed to achieve some of the objectives outlined in the paper." *Coppola replies: * *Some of the principles about what we have tried to avoid are outlined in the first, lengthy answer. We have also moved toward using a more "diary" based method of student assessment in the laboratory courses, which requires the graduate assists to examine notebook pages, to look for innovation in our more open-ended exercises, to keep note of attendance and engagement, and so on. Students in the lab course who fulfill the expectations of the course start with a "B" grade and move up or down from there depending on their participation according to these other criteria. * *In all cases, we have attempted to take advantage of modern instrumentation in order to construct labs where students are accountable for their own individual work but where their individual work contributes to a larger understanding. A number of the details have been published already: J. Chem. Educ. 1997, 74, 74-83; and J. Chem. Educ. 1995, 72, 1120-1122. * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 09:18:07 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 GRL: Faculty disdain for pedagogy George Long wrote: Faculty disdain for pedagogy "Why should faculty (outside of the education college) take pedagogy (that is, the modern research on pedagogy) seriously? First, a significant fraction of the research I have seen has been very poor, with terrible misuse and misinterpretation of statistical data. Research in pedagogy is very subjective relative to research in the physical sciences, so it is extremely difficult to find a truly definitive experiment. Worse yet, modern pedagogy is filled with jargon that seeks to "sell" the concept rather than facilitate discussion (as most jargon in the hard sciences does). For example, one might say that "Fuzzy Logic" is jargon, but it is used to represent a set of particular statistical methods. On the other hand I have heard education researchers use "Organic Environment" to describe certain types of organizational schemes. Of course, since I'm a chemist, this one is particularly annoying, but it would be just as easy to use something like adaptive environment, or developing environment. The purpose of using "organic" is clearly aimed at adding glitz to the idea and "sell" it. *Coppola replies: * *Following our thousand-year search for the Philosopher's stone, we chemists have ended up as one of the most privileged groups that examine the natural world. Our biggest advantage, in my opinion, is the fact that we can observe the action of populations that not only usually number greater than 10 to the 20th particles, but that also involve non-cognating systems which re-equilibrate regardless of removing any portion of the population. According to one study conducted at the University of Michigan a few years ago, graduate students in chemistry were the only group whose skills at using statistical methods of analysis declined over the course of graduate training. I was not surprised to read this and my interpretation of this has not changed: chemists involved in preparative work can only stand back and count on the statistical behavior of the molecules with which they work. As the German language constructs the idea: we do not "run reactions", rather we "allow reactions to run." * *As you have nearly stated, we are accustomed to the advantages of statistical phenomena that can be constrained by experimental boundary conditions and ultimately produce correlations in the R-squared = 0.99 range. By almost any measure I can imagine, we are an advantaged group! * *I do not share the same assumptions (and perhaps also the experiences) as you with respect to the work that goes on outside (and maybe even inside) of chemistry. Intellectual progress in any area relies on a highly culturally embedded sense of what constitutes evidence. The collaborators whom I have worked with, and learned from, have taught me how carefully they collect and analyze concurrent information from a variety of sources. Ironically, there is an amazing rhetorical inversion in the descriptions we use for different areas of inquiry: the so-called "hard" sciences are actually the easier ones to do, while the "soft" sciences are the more difficult. To what degree is a trait suggested by a survey's R-squared value of 0.30? It depends on how well it can be independently and congruently modeled from information gathered through observation, interview, and artifacts...and it is not is not easy work. But it cannot be dismissed cavalierly simply because it is different than a system shepherded by Boltzmann. * *Indeed, it is the physical scientist pretending to be an experimentalist in pedagogical areas whom I see misusing and overinterpreting statistical information. It is simple intellectual arrogance to think that collecting student feedback on an unverified questionnaire and running a t-test tells you anything. The closest analogy I can give you to how this kind of analysis compares with the work of a thoughtful educational psychologist is the following: imagine recording the NMR, IR and MS of the dissolved homogenate derived from putting one of hundred different species of ants in a blender, and then claiming to identify 2-butanone because the proper peaks are present in the continuous picket-fence of absorptions and abundances. *What we need are opportunities for chemists to work and learn with our colleagues in the rest of the Academy. We chemists can help to create the kind of performance-based assessments that can produce meaningful understanding about learning, but we have to be as willing to learn about the interfacial areas of education and chemistry as we have been to learn about those of biochemistry and materials science. Next week, I am participating in a forum sponsored by the National Institute for Science Education that is devoted to the question of assessment. NISE is located at UW-Madison (www.wcer.wisc.edu/nise); a copy of the paper that I contributed to the forum can be found at www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola/NISE.html. * *I really disagree with your notion of how and why jargon is used in the physical sciences. Scientists try to sell their science all the time, and they do it through the language they use. Was Rolf Huisgen simply trying to honor Munich when he coined the term munchnone, or was he staking a claim as well as taking a jab at the group in Sydney that had named their mesoionic compounds sydnones? Judith Swan, who trained as a PhD in Biochemistry, has turned her career to the rhetorical analysis of contemporary and historical writings in science, and she and others have some compellingly clear and convincing analyses that speak to this point (see: Creager, ANH and Swan, JA "Fashioning the Virus as a Chemical Object", forthcoming; Gopen and Swan, "The Science of Scientific Writing" American Scientist, vol 78, p 550, 1990; and see also: Charney, Davida " Understanding Scientific Prose" Jack Selzer, Ed., U Wisconsin Press, 1993) The annoyance that you feel over another discipline's use of the term "organic" to mean something outside of your comfort zone reminds me of the two older architects I overheard on an airplane once: they were aggravated to learn that chemists had appropriated the name of Buckminster Fuller. * *Back to your original question: Why should faculty (outside of the education college) take pedagogy (that is, the modern research on pedagogy) seriously? * *I am quite seriously concerned that this is exactly the kind of question more indicative of a problem facing universities than it is a pointer to the good health of higher education as we head into the 21st century. When faculty stop taking seriously the work of their colleagues, it diminishes greatly the chance for progress because communication stops. As I have written elsewhere (Coppola and Daniels, "Mea Culpa. Formal Education and the Dis-Integrated World" Science and Education, 1998, 7, 31-48), the last century of progress has come with a cost: DIS-Integration. Specialization inevitably leads to compartmentalization, then to separation and finally isolation. After only one generation, fundamentally oral traditions for transmitting values can change the way we think about others outside of our experience, especially those with whom we perceive we are competing for any type of resources (space, students, budgets, respect). Debate is at the core of intellectual progress, and well-crafted argument is our most productive mode of inquiry. * *Let me state my real answer clearly: "We" should take "their" work seriously for the same reasons "they" should take "our" work seriously. *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 8: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 11:21:04 -0500 From: George Long Subject: Re: Paper 5 GRL: Faculty disdain for pedagogy At 09:18 AM 2/16/98 -0500, you wrote: >George Long wrote: Faculty disdain for pedagogy > >"Why should faculty (outside of the education college) take pedagogy (that >is, the modern research on pedagogy) seriously? First, I want to admit to being a bit of a provocateur asking this question. Generally, because I get asked this question a significant amount of the time - and I was interested in How Dr. Coppola might respond to the given the statement. So, I, personally do take the modern research on pedagogy seriously. I Do have some follow up though. >*As you have nearly stated, we are accustomed to the advantages of >statistical phenomena that can be constrained by experimental boundary >conditions and ultimately produce correlations in the R-squared = 0.99 >range. By almost any measure I can imagine, we are an advantaged group! Absolutely true, >Ironically, there is an amazing rhetorical inversion in the descriptions >we use for different areas of inquiry: the so-called "hard" sciences are >actually the easier ones to do, while the "soft" sciences are the more >difficult. To what degree is a trait suggested by a survey's R-squared >value of 0.30? It depends on how well it can be independently and >congruently modeled from information gathered through observation, >interview, and artifacts...and it is not is not easy work. But it cannot >be dismissed cavalierly simply because it is different than a system >shepherded by Boltzmann. Well, yes and no. It is true that it is much more difficult to put a good definitive study in the soft sciences, perhaps impossible, as you point out above. But, the true complexity of the subjects of interest in the soft sciences is generally avoided (IMHO) while in the sciences, the more detail and complexity the better. Putting it another wy, in the "hard " sciences, the answers are easy, but the questions are hard, while in the "soft" sciences, the questions are easy, but the answers are hard. I heard someone suggest at a meeting that quantitative research was so difficult and the systems studied were so complex, that it perhaps should even be avoided. Do you have an opinion on this ?? >* >*Indeed, it is the physical scientist pretending to be an experimentalist >in pedagogical areas whom I see misusing and overinterpreting statistical >information. It is simple intellectual arrogance to think that collecting >student feedback on an unverified questionnaire and running a t-test tells >you anything. Very true as well, perhaps it isn't important where this kind of thing comes from. But don't you think it makes "hard" scientists skeptical ?? shouldn't it ?? I have seen people apply factor analysis to a questionaire (which had only 5 choices/question -terrible quantization error), and then apply factor analysis to the data set, and then claim that they knew what each factor meant !?!. This makes it difficult for the good stuff to gain credibility ?? >*Back to your original question: Why should faculty (outside of the >education college) take pedagogy (that is, the modern research on >pedagogy) seriously? >* >*Let me state my real answer clearly: "We" should take "their" work >seriously for the same reasons "they" should take "our" work seriously. > Thanks for the thoughtful answer, you make some excellent points (things I will keep in mind when I'm asked the same question). Yet, the hard scientist may answer that they have earned respect (in general) for their work from the obvious success it brings in terms of the creation of technology. On the other hand, people are generally dissatisfied with educational practice (perhaps wrongly), and there is no perceived improvement gained through educational research. Is this a perception problem ? What could be done to change this, if anything ?? --Last note, I enjoyed your paper, and think you have pointed out some important issues that chemists largely avoid. Sorry if my questions seem edgy or harsh, I perhaps enjoy playing devils advocate too much. **************************************************************************** Dr. George R. Long grlong@grove.iup.edu http://www.iup.edu/~grlong/ Department of Chemistry Indiana University of PA Indiana PA, 15705 **************************************************************************** [ Part 9: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 12:26:55 -0500 From: Marcy Towns <00mhtowns@BSU.EDU> Subject: Re: Paper 5 GRL: Faculty disdain for pedagogy George wrote in his reply to Brian, On the other hand, people are generally >dissatisfied with educational practice (perhaps wrongly), and there is no >perceived improvement gained through educational research. Well, I tend to disagree with this statement. One area I would point out are efforts in science both in the classroom and out of the classroom to recruit and retain more women and minorities. Much of the research which pertains to this area of science education research is "soft" in nature. It took listening to student voices to build an understanding of what was unwelcoming or what was "turning them off" to science, not boatloads of statistical data which became tied to issues of causation (a poor practice to say the least). I think some might be convinced that educational research has had a positive impact on attraction and retention strategies. Is this a >perception problem ? What could be done to change this, if anything ??> Definately. Going on with the idea of attraction and retention of women and undererersented groups in science, what I have seen/heard done is a re-orientation of the arguments for changing what goes on in the classroom. Rather than discussing why women or minorities leave the sciences and what turns them off in the classroom, the discussion centers on learning styles. Research which supports the notion that not all students learn in the same way is presented and generally seen as valid. The discussion on learning styles then involves all students (males and females), and it is better received by some faculty who resist "changing" anything in their classrooms to accomodate women and minorities because this would mean a "lowering of standards. " Finally, IMHO people (all citizens who vote, not just faculty) are looking for a holy grail in education. They are looking for that one strategy which will work will all types of students. Well, students are not all alike in the first place. Thus, looking for one objective truth in education may only lead to frustration . Sorry Brian, I know this is a bit off your paper, but I wanted to respond to George's comments. 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 10: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 11:52:10 -0600 From: "Dr. David Ritter" Subject: Re: Paper 5 GRL: Faculty disdain for pedagogy At 09:18 AM 2/16/98 -0500, you wrote: >George Long wrote: Faculty disdain for pedagogy >...snip..... >* >*Let me state my real answer clearly: "We" should take "their" work >seriously for the same reasons "they" should take "our" work seriously. > > >*************************************************************************** >Dr. Brian P. Coppola I find much puzzling. Alas, such is the nature of science. Both here and in the paper, rationale and motivation seem to play a central role in what the author calls "questions of value." As, perhaps, it should. Since obtaining a motivation may need to preceed remedy, may I ask a question along that line. "First Do No Harm" (FDNH) begins >In the late nineteenth century....progress was acompanied by .... a(n) >increase in sophistication in the educational training programs...." >"The primary goal of the liberal arts education was the development of >character"....."In the twentieth century.... The teaching of... character... >(has been) left to others..." and goes on to later note how (in the present time) >"Lunch table conversations... are filled with... nostalgia about how much better students were 'in the old days.'" but later says that >"Concluding that the good old days were simply better is hardly a strategic response." And yet >"...we are providing them 'by example' rather than 'as example.'" So, while it may be true that students do not do what I say, but follow my example, does the primary need for change arise because students were better in the good old days (when, I presume, they also followed example)? Or were the scientists? For I would strongly disagree that today >"...scientists readily accept and see science as a superior form of scholarship because they have already made the decision to do so...." I think that this is a much more nineteenth-century philisophy. Rather, I believe that many more twentieth-century scientists hold to the concept that Carl Sagan eloquently describes in "Candle in the Darkness" that science is the superior way of knowing because of the self-correcting mechanisms within the nature of science. And is it not this perspective that more students need to internalize? DR David Ritter Department of Chemistry Southeast Missouri State University dritter@semovm.semo.edu [ Part 11: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 16:23:44 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 GRL: Faculty disdain for pedagogy George Long wrote: It is true that it is much more difficult to put a good definitive study in the soft sciences, perhaps impossible, as you point out above. But, the true complexity of the subjects of interest in the soft sciences is generally avoided (IMHO) while in the sciences, the more detail and complexity the better. Putting it another way, in the "hard " sciences, the answers are easy, but the questions are hard, while in the "soft" sciences, the questions are easy, but the answers are hard. *Coppola replies: * *Another way to look at this is to go all the way back to Aristotle and move forward. Naturalistic phenomena attract our attention and we ask questions of Nature that we presume to be answerable. We have mustered our forces at what have now been called the "hard" sciences precisely because we can produce answers. We agree, within this context, that the answers are easy (we are brave, too, to make this claim: our colleagues might take umbrage at this idea...our facts are hard-earned, after all!...but we can take comfort in the idea that these facts are within our knowledge). Over time, of course (as we stand on the shoulders of those mythic Giants), the questions do indeed become more difficult (the easy ones we have passed and built on). In the so-called soft sciences, we have not been able to make anywhere near the progress; the tools we bring to the problem are like clubs and stones, so the questions are still easy because we cannot even think about the hard ones yet. My purpose is to not leave you with the idea that the questions that the soft sciences will answer will always be easy...itUs just where we are right now. * George Long wrote: I heard someone suggest at a meeting that quantitative research was so difficult and the systems studied were so complex, that it perhaps should even be avoided. Do you have an opinion on this ?? *Coppola replies: * *If I could think of a good way to represent a raspberry sound with my keyboard, I would. * *There are 2 distinctive takes on this that strike me as worthy. First: there is the group of people who believe (and rightly so) that our technological growth has so outstripped our sociological maturity that there should be a moratorium on supporting technological growth until we can catch up, as a culture. I do not agree, by the way, with the conclusion, but I do agree with the supposition. You might recall this wonderful NOVA program a few years ago "The Nobel Legacy", with Dudley Herschbach. Dudley quite rightly took on the commentator who declared that, because there were enough Styrofoam cups in the world already that we did not know how to deal with, that the manufacture of these cups should be suspended (speaking metaphorically, the commentator extended this idea to technological advancements, in general). Dudley reminded the viewers that it is not the technology that is the area for scrutiny, it is who asks the technology to do what (or as he so cleverly put it: the problem was not what the Genie did, it was what Alladin asked him to do). There is an issue here, though, worth contemplating. Herschbach advises full steam ahead! The problems that using technology creates still outstrip the consequences from the problems it solves, and the solutions lie in more better technology. The second take I have on this is related: resources are indeed finite. It is no so much that the complex systems we study are so complex that they should be avoided...it is a cost-benefit analysis question we seem to face with increasing frequency. I have been, and remain, supportive of basic research and the underlying and unseen benefits of simply being human: following millenia of inquiry by the species. I am also, at the same time, sensitive to the more obvious and pressing short term problems that need to be dealt with so that some sense of "future" can be comfortably forecast. I will not digress any more here than I have to in order to make my point (it is out of the scope, as they say), but how much longer can population growth and resource management on a finite planet be ignored in the mainstream education of youth? Technology can squeeze another generation or six out of the current resources by improving efficiency of energy extraction, but the raw materials for the survival of the species are declining like crazy. You cannot put the Genie back in the bottle...but what happens when the Genie eats you out of house and home? You think it is hard to turn the Titanic? What about changing the course of ten billion years of reproductive imperative? Well, that sure covers a distance from the question. The short answer (you notice I always end with the short answer?) is that I think that you cannot intervene with humanity's desire to "know". * George Long wrote: Perhaps it (the disdain for pedagogical research done poorly) isn't important where this kind of thing comes from. But don't you think it makes "hard" scientists skeptical ?? shouldn't it ?? I have seen people apply factor analysis to a questionaire (which had only 5 choices/question -terrible quantization error), and then apply factor analysis to the data set, and then claim that they knew what each factor meant !?!. This makes it difficult for the good stuff to gain credibility ?? *Coppola replies: * *It is an interesting chicken-and-egg question: The only results from pedagogical research that can capture the hard scientists attention long enough to make a comment is the bad stuff (that which can be digested, disdained and discarded in between issues of JACS. The good stuff, of course, is too complex and defies sound bites in the same way good hard science does. Believe me, I consider myself semi-literate and it has taken 10 years to get there. My colleague, Paul Pintrich, an educational psychologist with whom I have collaborated, declares the need for "translators" who can survive in the academic mileau long enough to forge a few connections. This scratches on another BIG area of discussion, but let's agree to say that there is always somebody ready to sell you snake-oil, and maybe there have been some near-charlatans who, while filled with good intention, have done more harm than good. * Geroge Long wrote: Thanks for the thoughtful answer, you make some excellent points (things I will keep in mind when I'm asked the same question). Yet, the hard scientist may answer that they have earned respect (in general) for their work from the obvious success it brings in terms of the creation of technology. On the other hand, people are generally dissatisfied with educational practice (perhaps wrongly), and there is no perceived improvement gained through educational research. Is this a perception problem ? What could be done to change this, if anything ?? *Coppola replies: * *I guess I would return to what I have already said in the "Concerning the Current Faculty" section of the paper. Cultural changes are long, difficult and negotiated. No less so in science. If I had to choose (and I am glad that I do not) between putting my resources into changing the existing faculty compared with developing the next generation of faculty, I know where I would put my money. It is a losing proposition to continue down the path of "scratch and dent" repair of faculty once they are in the professoriate. It is not the research...it is the behaviors and beliefs. As I also at least alluded to and describe more fully in the NISE paper, the nature of evidence is culturally embedded and requires expertise to be convincing to the observer. Let me quote myself: * *<> * *There is more, but you get the point. * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 12: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 16:55:22 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 GRL: Faculty disdain for pedagogy David Ritter wrote: So, while it may be true that students do not do what I say, but follow my example, does the primary need for change arise because students were better in the good old days (when, I presume, they also followed example)? Or were the scientists? *Coppola replies: * *Sticking with the kinds of problems I have described in the section titled "The Obligations of Self-Governance and Self-Regulation", it is my postion that these behaviors were learned at the knee of the mentors, so I come down on the side of scientists having been "better" (or perhaps just different). Students are learners, and although not tabula rasa, are encultured into the scientific society by *us* (hold up the mirror). I suggest that the pressure to change values in the mid-20th Century was enormous, and we can go down that road for a while if you want. Faculty researchers are now placed into high-risk, high-demand positions for which they are sometimes barely able to accommodate. What is a research director? Advisor...collaborator...personnel manager...motivator...CEO...major fund-raiser...and so on. I was so happy when I created the 42-hour day that I forgot about the part where there was now only a 4-day week. On top of it all, the culture in higher education shifted from ascriptive (faculty don't need to justify their position, they are born to it) to a meritocratic (needing to prove one's worth). The former was not all rosey, by any means, and tended towards its own abuses. But there was the notion of "school" as a place primarily devoted to learning and the development of potential in the individual student for a much more altruisitic set of reasons (after all, the faculty member had nothing to prove). Jim Wilkinson, who directs the Derek Bok center at Harvard, has lots of good thoughts on this subject. * David Ritter wrote: For I would strongly disagree that today >>"...scientists readily accept and see science as a superior form of scholarship because they have already made the decision to do so...."<< I think that this is a much more nineteenth-century philisophy. Rather, I believe that many more twentieth-century scientists hold to the concept that Carl Sagan eloquently describes in "Candle in the Darkness" that science is the superior way of knowing because of the self-correcting mechanisms within the nature of science. And is it not this perspective that more students need to internalize? *Coppola replies: * *We do not disagree here. In the context of the paper, I am arguing against the 19th C. ascriptive mind-set, as are you. You have then provided a direction to head. Yes! Internalization of these ideas is precisely the goal. Now the question is how to get there? Forceful telling? Repeating it many times? Giving an "A" if you repeat the words? You have set out a challenge for curriculum design: can you create an instructional context in which the student can experience the depth of meaning in your words without you replying on telling them to believe it because you say so? Can you ensure that some large fraction of them cannot end-run your design? To return to what you might expect I use as an example all the time: you don't get smokers to stop smoking by telling them to believe you. * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 13: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 17:10:41 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 5 DR: The Ethical Chemist and Grading You mentioned Jeff Kovac's collection of case studies - "The Ethical Chemist". Can you provide us with a reference? You mentioned that "cheating is highly productive" when normative grading is employed. Surely, the same can be said for non-normative grading. If 90-100 is established as an A in a non-normative grading scheme then the number of A depends upon the difficulty of the examination (and how well we prepare our students for these examinations). You imply that the development of critical thinking and expert problem solving skills are important objectives which should be tested on examinations. Doesn't this lead to fewer As? I basically used non-normative grading in my courses and announced at the beginning of the semester that 80 or better would be an A. Compensating for the fact that my examination questions were more difficult than in the usual course. Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University ROSEN@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU [ Part 14: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 19:33:30 -0500 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: ROP Paper 5 There are a number of issues here which are interesting even though they are not necessarily educational issues. On Mon, 16 Feb 1998, Brian Coppola wrote: > *There are 2 distinctive takes on this that strike me as worthy. First: > there is the group of people who believe (and rightly so) that our > technological growth has so outstripped our sociological maturity that > there should be a moratorium on supporting technological growth until we > can catch up, as a culture. I do not agree, by the way, with the > conclusion, but I do agree with the supposition. You might recall this > wonderful NOVA program a few years ago "The Nobel Legacy", with Dudley > Herschbach. Dudley quite rightly took on the commentator who declared > that, because there were enough Styrofoam cups in the world already that > we did not know how to deal with, that the manufacture of these cups > should be suspended (speaking metaphorically, the commentator extended > this idea to technological advancements, in general). Dudley reminded the > viewers that it is not the technology that is the area for scrutiny, it is > who asks the technology to do what (or as he so cleverly put it: the > problem was not what the Genie did, it was what Alladin asked him to do). > There is an issue here, though, worth contemplating. Herschbach advises > full steam ahead! The problems that using technology creates still > outstrip the consequences from the problems it solves, and the solutions > lie in more better technology. Our current record with scientific ethics seems inconsistent with this approach. For example, I find it a little scary that we are contemplating complete elucidation of the human genome within the next decade. As a society that cannot even responsibly handle credit information, what will enable us to deal with this? I do not think we can or should even contemplate restricting the development of technology. I think that improved scientific background in the ethical and legal communities is a crucial part of dealing with the future. What is the answer? I do not think it has one. IMHO, this is an insolvable problem. Another thing which strikes me about reading education writing in general is that actual (lab) research is not thought of as education. My graduate research was the most intensive educational experience I ever had. Although it benefits a small number of people (one might argue about who), it is a very effective (if expensive) method. There is another side to chemical education in general. We in fact have a significant surplus of people with chemistry degrees at all levels, particularly with the Ph.D. We continue to crank out more because there is an economic incentive for faculty and schools. IMHO, this is not consistent with the idea of "DO NO HARM". The idea of "DO NO HARM" has a nice ring to it. We need to think about ALL the aspects of this slogan. /* 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 15: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 19:39:06 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: The Ethical Chemist and Grading Donald Rosenthal wrote: You mentioned Jeff Kovac's collection of case studies. "The Ethical Chemist". Can you provide us with a reference? *Coppola replies: * * "The Ethical Chemist" by Jeffrey Kovac Revised Edition, 1995 University of Tennessee Jeff is at UT-Knoxville KOVAC@novell.chem.utk.edu * Donald Rosenthal wrote: You mentioned that "cheating is highly productive" when normative grading is employed. Surely, the same can be said for non-normative grading. *Coppola replies: * *Sure, of course. I rather intended to emphasize the difference in the classroom when everyone, at least in principle, can achieve their own level of performance without a comparative cost to others. I recall quite vividly being a student in a culture where classmates deliberately misled others...stole samples...and so on. This kind of behavior, which is more characterisitic of curved grading scales, is just plain demoralizing. * Donald Rosenthal wrote: If 90-100 is established as an A in a non-normative grading scheme then the number of A depends upon the difficulty of the examination (and how well we prepare our students for these examinations). *Coppola replies: * *There is agreement among long-time practicioners that one cannot know where to set the breaks a priori, and probably not for a good three years of fairly consistent instructional practice. As you may have seen, we use very information-rich examinations. We also only offer common examinations in our multisection courses, so there is a kind of historical leveling that takes place from year to year (especialy given the literature-based strategy). For the first three years or so, we really used the science...the chemistry...of the examinations to guide our thinking about the A versus B question. Even today, our system of accounting for "improvement" relies on imspecting the final exam papers to make some judgment based on the chemistry. It is also common to use the published cut-off as a "guideline" that has a degree of flexibility. Many use the published cut-off as a value that could go lower, as might be warranted. I have adjusted both ways. * Donald Rosenthal wrote: You imply that the development of critical thinking and expert problem solving skills are important objectives which should be tested on examinations. Doesn't this lead to fewer As? I basically used non-normative grading in my courses and announced at the beginning of the semester that 80 or better would be an A. Compensating for the fact that my examination questions were more difficult than in the usual course. *Coppola replies: * *I know how many "A"'s there are after the scores are tallied; you can compare the numbers at the web sites and see the exams where I have described them to be previously (The PDF files at the web sites also include whatever modest partial credit schemes we use). Without the constant reinforcing language and "hang in there" and here's another 17 suggestions and have you read the advise in the coursepack, and so on, and so on, I don't think the students would do as well (I don't know because I would consider it immoral to ignore these dimensions in my teaching). According to an educational psychologist who used my course (among others) as part of a term-long anthropological study that ended up as a part of her thesis, one of the key components of my course was its CONGRUENCE. The goals were clear and explicit, the classroom rhetoric reinforced these ethics, the instruction was consistent with the words, the study and learning advice was geared to these goals, and the exams were reflective of all of the above. * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 16: "Included Message" ] Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 19:45:53 -0500 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: ROP Re: Paper 5 DR: Laboratory Experiments On Mon, 16 Feb 1998, Brian Coppola wrote: > *Some of the principles about what we have tried to avoid are outlined in > the first, lengthy answer. We have also moved toward using a more "diary" > based method of student assessment in the laboratory courses, which > requires the graduate assists to examine notebook pages, to look for > innovation in our more open-ended exercises, to keep note of attendance > and engagement, and so on. Students in the lab course who fulfill the > expectations of the course start with a "B" grade and move up or down from > there depending on their participation according to these other criteria. Is setting the beginning grade as a "B" a sort of normative grading? /* Richard */ #include - - ____ | | _ | | Organic Chemistry / \ |_| | | || CAI Programming / \ | | / \ || Pizza / \ / \ | | _||_ Star Trek (_________) (_____) |______| _/____\_ Doberman Pinschers --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Richard Pendarvis, Ph.D. 3001 W. College Road | | Associate Professor of Chemistry Ocala, FL 32608 | | Central Florida Community College EMAIL: afn02809@afn.org | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 01:14:53 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: ROP Re: Paper 5 DR: Laboratory Experiments Richard O. Pendarvis wrote: Is setting the beginning grade as a "B" a sort of normative grading? *Coppola replies: * *No, not really. There is no limit or indication that there will be any percentage of one grade or another. It is really a large scale version of the "grading contract" kind of system. Because the students do not earn points in the traditional sense of testing, it is not possible to try and make judgments on the basis of numerical scales. Instead, like most contract systems, if a student fulfills the contract at the nominal level, we offer this as a "B". If they demonstrate the kinds of engagement that is spelled out as an "A", then they get that. It is possible to get a "D", too. There are mid-Term grades assigned along with some detail for the basis of the assignment, and there is periodic notebook feedback for the other monitoring. Faculty who are assigned to this course really have to earn their pay, I tell you, in order to keep a kind of controlled chaos in check. The labs must be regularly visited to make sure the graduate student instructor is staying engaged. THe sections taught by our juniors and seniors are invariably among the better sections, although a number of the grad students do an excellent job. Others do not. Consistent with our goals, we want these students there in lab for the whole time period; we want them to be asking independent questions and designing tasks outside the (sketchy) guidelines they have; we want to reinforce an idea you would like: lab is never "done", there is always more to do than you have time for; there is ample opportunity to choose to repeat things if you want to test things out, perhaps swapping starting materials with another student to check your "hands" on a procedure. * *On the other hand: every student will not have done everything, and not one of them will have (a) extracted caffeine from tea leaves, (b) added dry ice to phenylmagnesium bromide, (c) acylated ferrocene, (d) performed a fractional distillation of cyclohexane from toluene...they may or may not be able to pick out "aniline" by name from a line-up, but they can know its chemistry given the structure, and they sure don't even hear the words "Crossed Cannizzaro Reaction" cross my lips (although given a just amount of experimental information, they could produce a mechanism for the observation...). They have never done a DNP derivative, and I am not sure that I could do a sodium fusion test without a script; they have been collecting and comparing spectral data since the second week of college... ... ... There is a kind of "Cultural Literacy" mentality that runs through introductory science courses, and more faculty than students, in my experience, obsess over the content of standardized examinations. * *Are there students who fall through the cracks in our lab program? Sure there are. Are there as many who simply go through the motions, emulating expertise and not integrating the experience? Not a chance; the choice has been more effectively removed from the menu of options. * *Perhaps a bit more than your comment this time around asked for, but your previous comments, which were interesting, alluded to lab work too. * ------------------------------ From: Marcy Towns <00mhtowns@BSU.EDU> Subject: Re: Paper 5 Certification? Brian, In part B, Concerning Future Faculty: Near the end you describe UNH's program which has been in place for 3 years. You refer to it as a certification program. In what sense do they administer it as a certification program? Is it tied to P&T? 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 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 09:58:04 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 Certification? Marcy Hamby Towns wrote: In part B, Concerning Future Faculty: Near the end you describe UNH's program which has been in place for 3 years. You refer to it as a certification program. In what sense do they administer it as a certification program? Is it tied to P&T? *Coppola replies: * *Hi, Marcy. The UNH program is a graduate training program. You should contact them for more details (I gave the web address). Chris Bauer, a frequent NARST participant, is a chemistry faculty member who is involved in the program. I will do my best to give my understanding of their program from reading their materials. Some of what I say may be extrapolation. Students who are getting their PhD in a disciplinary have the opportunity for an intensive cognate experience (coursework, mentoring/shadowing, curriculum development I think, and so on) that is meant to tie the disciplinary training of the PhD to this alligned area. After successfully satisfying these requirements, the PhD is awarded along with "certification". This is a model that many programs use prior to the time when actual PhDs are awarded, or where keeping with alligned areas makes more sense. At the University of Michigan, our graduate school offers five different certification, including "Culture and Cognition" and "Women's Studies". A PhD in Psych that I knew, for example, atteched part of her thesis work to the "C&C" area, and it comprised a chapter in her thesis. * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 14:41:31 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 5 DR: Freshmen Taking Chemistry 210 Am I correct in assuming that most students taking Chemistry 210 are freshmen who have had high school chemistry but no college general chemistry? Are there also students who have taken high school chemistry and Michigan's General Chemistry course (Chemistry 130?)? How does the performance of the two groups compare? How do you explain this? Do many non-chemistry majors take Chemistry 210 as an introductory college chemistry course? Apparently, you use undergraduate juniors and seniors as assistants in your Chemistry 210 course. You imply that on the average they are better instructors than your graduate students. Why is this? Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 15:27:15 -0600 From: "David W. Brooks" Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: Freshmen Taking Chemistry 210 Don Rosenthal wrote: >Apparently, you use undergraduate juniors and seniors as assistants in >your Chemistry 210 course. You imply that on the average they are better >instructors than your graduate students. Why is this? > Although my experience is now 15 years old, it was very much the case that undergraduate TAs outperformed graduate TAs in the early 1980s. The BEST TAs were graduate students in their 3rd, 4th and 5th years working in research groups that were poorly funded and whose faculty leaders were generally in sympathy with offering quality undergraduate instruction. (That could be easily interpreted in terms of much of the discussion about faculty roles set forth in paper #5 and the ensuing discussion). In general, undergraduates outperformed first year graduate students. One could analyze this is a dozen ways. Undergraduates were selected on the basis of their performance in a system in which they were being asked to teach. Graduate students were judged by success in courses -- and were not well advised to spend much time on anything else. A few of our BEST TAs were sophomores that were specifically recruited -- usually from majors like electrical engineering or something quite far from chemistry. The kids we recruited as sophomores were REALLY smart and were genuinely nice people. Pre-meds tended to be excellent TAs. At the time, the stipend (then $540 per class) was a very big attraction because, although low, it was more than nearly any other hourly campus job. There was a sense of comraderie among the TAs. Many sought evaluations, and those evaluations could be written on a very informed basis. In other words, there were MANY reasons why an undergraduate might want to take the job. At that time, the use of undergraduates as TAs was a widespread practice on my campus, and most departments had similar experiences. Finally, my son went to a small college that tried to specialize in small class instruction. The family joke was that he paid $3500 to learn organic chemistry during the year, and they paid him the same amount to teach it during the following summer. His school was seeking a student to teacher ratio in the lab of 9 during the summer. As a result of changes in the enrollment patterns, he ended up with just 4 students (they kept all the undergraduate TAs that were promised jobs on the payroll). As the parent of an undergraduate TA, I can tell you that a great deal of time was spent with him asking Mom and Dad questions about the classroom, etc. He really cared, and really spent time. He went on to other teaching assignments during his junior and senior years. Whatever the reasons for using undergraduates may be, and whatever the reasons for their success may be, the practice of using undergraduate as TAs is one for which, in chemistry at least, the track record seems fairly positive. Some schools have rules that preclude the use of undergraduates as TAs. They might be well advised to read some of the community of scholars (learners) literature -- and reconsider the position from that perspective. Dave Brooks David W. Brooks dbrooks@unlinfo.unl.edu 118 Henzlik-UNL (402)472-2018 Lincoln, NE 68588-0355 FAX (402)472-8317 http://www.cci.unl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 17:34:37 -0500 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: Freshmen Taking Chemistry 210 On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, David W. Brooks wrote: --snip-- > Whatever the reasons for using undergraduates may be, and whatever the > reasons for their success may be, the practice of using undergraduate as > TAs is one for which, in chemistry at least, the track record seems fairly > positive. > > Some schools have rules that preclude the use of undergraduates as TAs. > They might be well advised to read some of the community of scholars > (learners) literature -- and reconsider the position from that perspective. This has been a good practice even at the 2 yr college when the money was available, 7 years ago. The students did not teach formal classes but did a lot of individual or small group tutoring and helped with laboratories. It helped our program a lot but did more for the students involved. I am wondering what sort of supervision etc. undergraduate assistants receive at larger institutions. Our program is so small that we had little. /* Richard */ #include - - ____ | | _ | | Organic Chemistry / \ |_| | | || CAI Programming / \ | | / \ || Pizza / \ / \ | | _||_ Star Trek (_________) (_____) |______| _/____\_ Doberman Pinschers --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Richard Pendarvis, Ph.D. 3001 W. College Road | | Associate Professor of Chemistry Ocala, FL 32608 | | Central Florida Community College EMAIL: afn02809@afn.org | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 21:27:06 -0500 From: "Richard O. Pendarvis" Subject: ROP Paper 5 Ethics of Grading In the paper, it is stated that a non-normative form of grading is followed. How widely do grading practices vary at the University of Michigan or in the chemistry department? I ask this because I do not use normative forms of grading myself. Given the fact that our distribution of abilities is very wide, small (70 or less) make a normal distribution of achievement unlikely. However, the other chemistry faculty person at my school does grade "on a curve" (but gives more difficult exams). I think disagreement on this is fairly common. The ethical problems with this are evident. The same grade will generally NOT mean the same level of achievement. When we give a lower grade for the same achievement, the student will be unfairly judged by those who use these grades to make critical decisions about the student's future, e.g. professional schools, jobs etc. Most professional schools use a matrix of information on each applicant to make decisions. One medical school that I know of actually uses a weighted formula in which GPA, MCAT scores, healthcare experience, etc. are all factored. The unequal grades DO figure into it but not as much as in other areas. I wonder how many schools actually publish a grading scale in their catalog. We are required to do this by our accrediting agency. It would be interesting to know what % of the instructors actually follow these published standards. We all realize that even this gives a large margin of deviation. How many who use these grades consider 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 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 00:40:46 EST From: Walt Volland Subject: Re: -WV- Paper 5 Grading; To curve or not to curve The use of normalized grade standards at small institutions seems out of place. The use of a curve in small classes, 20-40 seems absurd. It may be reasonable to normalize grades at larger institutions. At Bellevue Community College instructors have the freedom to use any grading scale they choose. Most of the chemistry faculty publish a definite set of standards. Few use normalized grades. There is no guarantee that grades are really comparable between classes if instructors differ. I feel there are probably differences between sections of the same class, taught by the same instructor. When I have taught at larger schools, I still used a straight point & percent grading scale. Am experienced instructor who is in touch with his/her class should have an accurate sense of the state of understanding that exists in the class. The nature of the class discussion, performance on homework, answers on laboratory exercises, questions asked in office hour sessions, all are indicators of the comprehension level of students. I am very troubled by faculty who wish to use their exams as measures of intelligence instead of comprehension of course content. 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" ] Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 22:04:52 -0800 From: Maureen Scharberg Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: Freshmen Taking Chemistry 210 > > On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, David W. Brooks wrote: > > --snip-- > > Whatever the reasons for using undergraduates may be, and whatever the > > reasons for their success may be, the practice of using undergraduate as > > TAs is one for which, in chemistry at least, the track record seems fairly > > positive. The most critical factor that influenced my decision to pursue a career in chemical education was that I taught a freshman chem laboratory section as a senior undergraduate chemistry/bio major at UC Irvine. So, in my case, teaching this laboratory section opened the door for a career in chemical education that may not have opened until much later in my graduate school years. I think the track record is positive because I understood what the expectations were from both the instructor and student points of views. Students may be able to relate to senior undergraduates better than graduate students. Also, I worked extremely hard to teach this lab the best I could because I felt so fortunate to be given this opportunity. My mentors were the laboratory coordinator, Connie Suffredini, who instructed the undergraduate TA's on the same level as the graduate student TA's, and Dr. Mara Taagepera, who strongly urged me to seek a research-oriented Ph.D. in chemistry and teach as much as possible. Maureen Scharberg Department of Chemistry San Jose State University [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 06:44:11 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: Freshmen Taking Chemistry 210 Donald Rosenthal wrote: Am I correct in assuming that most students taking Chemistry 210 are freshmen who have had high school chemistry but no college general chemistry? Are there also students who have taken high school chemistry and Michigan's General Chemistry course (Chemistry 130?)? How does the performance of the two groups compare? How do you explain this? *Coppola replies: * *This is a bit to the side of the paper, but I am happy to answer. An average of 60-65% of the class of 1000-1200 each Fall are first-term, first-year students. About 35% of the class has taken the AP examination and are pretty evenly distributed as AP3 and AP4 with somewhat fewer as AP5. The average SAT in the class is 1150. In the rest of the class, about half have taken the one-term General Chemistry course (Chem 130), and the others simply waited until they were sophomores or juniors to take Chem 210. There are just a few seniors. About 65% of the Chem 130 class are Engineers who need to satisfy their one-term ABET requirement. Most of the future science majors and premedical students are in Chem 210 (along with the Chemical Engineers). * *Using multivariate analysis, there is a slight negative correlation between having taken Chem 130 and performance in Chemistry 210 (controlling for as many background variables, etc., as we can). We have conducted some pretty in-depth classroom observation and interview work with our students in Chem 130 and 210 over the last 10 years. Taking "another" high school course as the introduction to chemistry is a real problem for first-year college students. Regardless of how well they have done, or how well they are going to do, the effect of "having seen it before" is a lose-lose situation. Those who can do these kinds of problems show little change over the course (even in the year-long classes); those who need to improve have cast their lot in the subject in terms of their beliefs about how they can do. We might wish for otherwise, but as they say: if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. We shape our impressions of our students within the context of these odd 50-minute interactions called classes, and we appreciate so little of the changes they are faced with every day as first-year college students. Every other aspect of their university experience is fulfilling the promise of the college life. If the first-year courses look like high school, then it is we who are not completing our part of the bargain, not them. The arguments are made: the courses are different, that the perspective is different, etc etc. These are not relevant. It is just a remake, at best. * *So the students who start off in Chem 210 learn the broader lessons about science we intend. We also know we are fulfilling the promise of college. This past year, we had a group of 35 students in an identifiable programmatic cohort, 10 of whom had placed in Chem 130, another 10 were intermediate, and 15 were strongly advised to Chem 210. Typically, the program would have put 10 into Chem 130 and the other 25 in Chem 210. The most recent term, the program required all 35 students to take the Honors option for Chem 210, which involves "Structured Study Groups." At the end of the term, the "low 10" had done just the same at the "mid 10" and these 20 were, as a group, about 6-8% below the "top 15". As you might expect, the anxiety level in the "low 10" was quite high for about 3 weeks ("we placed into 130 and we're taking Honors 210 instead!"), but then what they were doing impacted their learning and all of a sudden they began to think they could do it, after all. There is a powerful lesson, perhaps a reminder, that when you tell students they cannot do something, that they are less capable, and so one, that you will invariably get this outcome (noted Stanford psychologist Claude Steele describes situations like this as one of the origins of the institutional prejudices that hinder the advancement of many of our underrepresented groups of students). * * Donald Rosenthal wrote: Do many non-chemistry majors take Chemistry 210 as an introductory college chemistry course? *Lots and lots. As I said, the Fall Term offering has had between 1000-1200, the off-cycle (trailor) course has maybe 600, and another 100 during the summer. We graduate between 60-70 certified majors per year in Chemistry, and another 40-50 in Biochemistry, a degree offered through our department. A separate section of the second term first-year course (Chem 215H) for science and research-oriented students ends up with about 100 self-selected students in it. The majority of the future science folks are here. As some may know, the University of Michigan still graduates the greatest absolute number of students who attend professional schools, including the highest number of premedical students. Some September surveys in the first term Chemistry 210 classes gives 60-70% of the students declaring their first or second choice interest in a medical science career. The ultimate yield is pretty high, according to the University. The other common majors are Cellular and Molecular Biology, Biology, and the multidisciplinary group of non-science premedical students. * Donald Rosenthal wrote: Apparently, you use undergraduate juniors and seniors as assistants in your Chemistry 210 course. You imply that on the average they are better instructors than your graduate students. Why is this? I am wondering what sort of supervision etc. undergraduate assistants receive at larger institutions. Our program is so small that we had little. *Coppola replies: * *I did not mean to imply this. I meant to say it outright and loudly. Undergraduates play a role in the teaching program in a few contexts. Informally, they are volunteer study group leaders in a system set up to "matchmake" students in this way via our Science Learning Center. About 25% of the students in the intro courses form groups this way. Anyone who wished to lead a group can, starting from the second term first-year students who return to the first term course right away. It is a real measure of our success in Chemistry 210, actually, that we often end up with more leaders (at an 8:1 ratio) than we have students looking to form groups. The role of teaching in learning is an important part of my courses. We also hire about 30 students at a modest hourly rate to supervise the training in and use of the instrumentation rooms that adjoin our teaching laboratories. These students are the primary instructors for other undergrads in the use of GC, IR, UV, and submitting NMR samples. This staff of undergraduates is recruited, trained and supervised by two graduate students whose teaching assignment is this job. The two grad students report to one of our lab managers. Why are these students better? Easy: they do the right job better than graduates students. We tried grad students in these instrumentation rooms, and they saw themselves not as instructors but as impatient technical staff. They would take the samples and run them themselves! They could not accommodate to the students using these instruments. * *At a higher level, a hand-picked and cultivated (by me) group of about 10-15 juniors and seniors also provide two other modes of instruction. Each term, I have an 11-student staff of facilitators who assist with the Structured Study Group program (see the SSG link at the web sites, or also www.umich.edu/~michhem/SSG) that comprises the Honors option in Chem 210 and 215. Yes: the primary classroom instructional contact for Honors uses undergraduate instructors. These students can be counted on to be proactive and to assist in actual curriculum development. Our undergraduates end up with an incredible sense of identity as members of our department, both in the teaching program and the research program, where they also start quite early. As first-year students, they saw the junior/senior leaders as incredibly powerful role models, and some aspire to these positions. We are identifying the potential for instructional excellence in the same way we do it for research. Ability...aptitude...ambition...the undergraduates do a professional job at this, and we pay them an appropriate salary. Many of these same students also take on the typical TA role for one undergraduate lab section. As often as possible, they have the same group of Honors students for both. * *David Brooks and Maureen Scharberg have some nice observations about this subject that mirror my experiences (not only as a faculty member...but as an undergraduate lab instructor back at the University of New Hampshire in 1977-78, while I was a senior there). * *There is a hidden agenda on my part about why I involve the undergraduates in instruction. Yes, they do a good job. Yes, they do a better job. Yes, there are simply things I assign my Honors class that would be impossible without the infrastructural support of my "lieutenants" to do some of the real work. But more than these practical issues, my weekly organizational meetings with my leaders (over lunch paid for by the Honors office, I might add!) constitute an informal seminar on pedagogy. Although they rarely notice as Juniors how I am acting only as a facilitator to get them to think through some significant issues about teaching, some of the Seniors, watching how I interact with the Juniors, begin to see behind the curtain and give me a satisfying, knowing smile as they realize what was going on the year before! * *We discovered early on that supervising the teaching staff was a key issue in a reform-minded era. The degree and kind is matched, as descibed above, to the task. This same ethic extends to the graduate students, of course, but it is less successful. The tendency towards interpreting "academic freedom" as "academic anarchy" is something that begins to fester early. A number of graduate years use our undergraduate teaching program as an appropriate learning experience, and develop skills and understandings that are quite nice. Others remind me of some new faculty who know that the way they did it was best, there is no reason for doing it differently...or for even having the conversation. There is a mixture of obstructionism for belligerence sake and an honest (yet misplaced) belief that no undergraduate laboratory student should ever, as a matter of principle, participate in an activity that is not entirely prescribed and for which a certain outcome is known. * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 06:45:36 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: Freshmen Taking Chemistry 210 Richard O. Pendarvis wrote: In the paper, it is stated that a non-normative form of grading is followed. How widely do grading practices vary at the University of Michigan or in the chemistry department? *Coppola replies: * *An interesting groundswell of movement towards not only non-normative grading but also more public disclosure about past practice as a way to make the argument to students that the practice is actually followed! Some of the most interesting fictions I have ever encountered are the oral histories and urban myths surrounding my own course. I have certainly had the experience as listening to students leave my office as reinterpret what I just said according to their preconceived notions or prior rumor. It is easy to imagine the rise in group work as being a factor in the non-normative movement (this is true for our Calculus program). I also think the greater articulation about practices in higher education have contributed. I have a few chemistry colleagues who still look at the %A as a way to think about assigning grades, but not many. * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 12:40:01 -0600 From: Donald Wink Subject: Paper 5 DW: The Harm of Making Changes I will pick up a couple of threads later, but I want to get a flagrantly provocative question of my own out before it is too late: In the original paper, under "The Obligations of Self-Governance..." Brian wrote: The content and direction of an undergraduate course should not be unilaterally changed because a faculty member, acting alone, prefers to offer his or her graduate specialty instead because less preparation time is required. These are uncomplicated issues of right and wrong. Change "graduate specialty" to "reform ideas" and and you may see why I think this also raises a question about classroom reform. The question is: "When am I justified in making a change in a particular class at a particular time when, in all honesty, I do not know if it will work well with these students and with me, a novice at reform?" OR: "I am comfortable in teaching with these goals in mind; my assessment is valid, my instruction well-focused. But is it OK to spring it on students have never seen this before, and who know damned well they may never see this again." This problem is exacerbated by (a) institutional context, (b) student development, and (c) student goals. (a) concerning institutional context: I am pondering (not asserting, at least not yet) that if the students are already in a "mode" of learning and studying in college, or if a particular mode is expected of them, then a course that deviates from that too much will, in fact, harm them by its very uniqueness. This connects with two threads already in place--that of student high school experiences and that of faculty disdain for pedagogy. I do not teach students to work certain "standard" calculations, because I have incorporated concept knowledge instead. But when a faculty member comes to me and says "hey, your students can't...." I can defend myself "only" with pedagogical rationales. They see, instead, a students harmed by pedagogical nonsense, not students with a richer concept knowledge of chemistry. Have I harmed _these_students? (b) Concerning student development: Is intellectual and personal development a real issue on our campuses? Certainly it forms an important part of the standard pedagogical theory for children. But what about an eighteen-year old? If development is a real issue, then how, why, and when do we offer particular kinds of instruction? What Brian and Seyhan Ege have done with Chem 210 is show that literature-based organic chemistry works well with new college students. That is an important finding, but then the question arises: are all students "ready" for that? Do I harm students who are not developmentally prepared for a topic? (c) student goals I have worked quite a bit on a freshman seminar program here, and one of the nice things is that in it I can be honest about the differences between my goals and the students. Students will admit, once they are "safe" (i.e., it won't affect their grade), that they are confused and intimidated by the faculty, the graduate students, and even advanced undergraduates. Why? Because we are really interested in chemistry, French, sociology, etc--and they have to meet the goals we set for a course. Occasionally, they buy into our goals, and it is nice. But often student clearly have another agenda--a legitimate one--that lacks the intellectual goals of a course. And the farther we move from their goals, the more likely they will skid off the side of our road and crash. Again--are they harmed? I don't think any of these are answered in the paper. Maybe I am being unfair, but these are ethical and moral struggles for me. I know what I believe is right. But I see the underside of reform in a non-reform context, as well. Interestingly, I think that Brian and Roald Hoffmann ("Some Heretical Thoughts on What Our Students are Telling Us", Journal of College Science Teaching, May 1996, p. 390-394) have already spoken to this. I would be interested in what Brian, and others, say about this view of "harm". 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 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 12:58:39 -0600 From: Donald Wink Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: How Do You Incorporate these Principles? Brian replies, to the question of faculty attitudes with a quotation from a faculty member that he visited: >"My students think I am an S.O.B. and it's because I am. >I don't want to know their names...I don't want to know >them. If I get to know them it will just interfere >with my objectivity." Contrast with the rather similar person (I think) described by Primo Levi in "The Periodic Table" (Shocken Books: New York, 1984, p. 30). "I liked P. I liked the sober rigor of his classes; I was amused by the disdainful ostentation with which at the exams he exhibited, instead of the prescribed Fascist shirt, a comic black bib no bigger than the palm of a hand...I valued his two textbooks, clear to the point of obsession, concise, saturated with his surly contempt for humanity in general and for lazy and foolish students in particular: for all students were, by definition, lazy and foolish; anyone who by his rare good luck managed to prove that he was not became his peer and was honored by a laconic and precisous sentence of praise." Now, didn't we all have some Professors like this? Those who were so in love with the purity of their chemistry that, despite the blindness that accompanied it, we admired for their single-hearted devotion? _I_ and, I daresay, a lot of the audience could never be like P. But let us understand, and enter into discussion with, those who may be like him by habit, and yet maybe still valuable. I do not mean to countenance the behaviors Brian lists in his closing paragraphs. But an irascible insistence on the "right answer" is, I think, a component of all excellence in research. And, to drive my point home: if you read Levi, you will see clearly there are far worse "bastions of truth" than colleagues and students who cling to a reductionist view of chemistry. 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 8: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 13:18:36 -0600 From: Donald Wink Subject: Re: Paper 5 GRL: Faculty disdain for pedagogy >*Coppola replies: >* >Our biggest advantage, in my opinion, is the fact that >we can observe the action of populations that not only usually number >greater than 10 to the 20th particles, but that also involve non-cognating >systems which re-equilibrate regardless of removing any portion of the >population. But there is another problem with the numerical part of social science research, which has recently been driven home to me: the sheer magnitude of the standard deviations in the data. It has been written (by William Manchester in "The Glory and the Dream") that Kinsey's interest in sex research came from the very large variation in reported values (usually, frequency). Well, he could have chosen educational achievement instead, in my thinking. If one looks at any statistical analysis, once the s.d. climbs to more than 10-20% of the possible range of values (say, 1 grade on an A-F scale), then the demands of separation required for "signficance" become very large indeed. In other words: we are looking for changes in a very wide range of outcomes. Standing on just quantitative differences is tough, indeed. Later in the day Brian wrote: >The only results from >pedagogical research that can capture the hard scientists attention long >enough to make a comment is the bad stuff (that which can be digested, >disdained and discarded in between issues of JACS. The good stuff, of >course, is too complex and defies sound bites in the same way good hard >science does. Believe me, I consider myself semi-literate and it has >taken 10 years to get there. Well, I think one solution is to point out that the "good stuff" in "hard" science is often awfully complex as well. Certainly there are examples of elegant, clear, easily understood explanations. But things like the Woodward-Hoffmann rules may be the exception, not the rule--yet we chase the illusion of simplicity in all things. Sometimes, physical and chemical systems just won't simplify themselves for us...as is apparent in a careful reading of Hoffmann's work in the solid state (and, I think, shown more often in Jeremy Burdett's related work). One of my favorite quotations in chemistry comes from a comment Lou Hegedus made when I asked how he came to switch from studying the addition of amines to olefin complexes. He said "Once I realized that the mechanism for diethylamine differed from that for dimethylamine, and that ethylmethylamine was probably different from those two, I knew it was time to move on." 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 9: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 19:36:01 -0500 From: Bill Church Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: Freshmen Taking Chemistry 210 *Coppola replies: * Anyone who wished to lead a group can, starting from the second term first-year students who return to the first term course right away. It is a real measure of our success in Chemistry 210, actually, that we often end up with more leaders (at an 8:1 ratio) than we have students looking to form groups. The role of teaching in learning is an important part of my courses. I agree whole-heartedly with the importance of teaching in learning (that's why I am not in industry-- I like to learn). We have had a problem with TAs " doing more harm than good" (to paraphrase the last paper).What kind of quality control do you have for students "wishing to lead a group"? Bill Bill Church, Ph.D. Dept. of Chemistry/Neuroscience Program Trinity College 300 Summit St. Hartford, CT 06106 email: william.church@mail.trincoll.edu "If an experiment does not hold out the possibility of causing one to revise one's views, it is hard to see why it should be done at all." P.B. Medawar, 1979 [ Part 10: "Included Message" ] Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 21:12:55 -0600 From: Paul Kelter Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: Freshmen Taking Chemistry 210 Bill Church wrote: > (that's why I am not in industry-- I like to learn). > Bill, I know this is off the topic a bit, but I wanted to make sure I didn't misinterpret your statement. Are you implying that when you were in industry, you were in a culture where learning about things was discouraged? What was your industry experience like? Did you work for a large or small company? Were you there for many years, or just a few? Paul _______________ Paul Kelter Associate Professor of Chemistry University of Nebraska - Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68588-0304 402-472-3512 [ Part 2: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 01:11:06 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: Freshmen Taking Chemistry 210 Bill Church wrote: What kind of quality control do you have for students "wishing to lead a group"? *Coppola replies: * *The first amd second years, it was a matter of my personal knowledge and cultivation of people with potential, and to really work hard at the weekly meetings to ensure the vision-thing. In addition, the curriculum of the Structured Study Group work is indeed structured, so "I" am there in spirit. My leaders are not quite asked to be composers extemporaneously (unless it is with me directly on specific tasks) as much as they are to be conductors. Individual expression within the context of my script. * *As I mentioned, one of the things the leaders are responsible for is helping to identify the next generation of leaders. There has always been one person (at the leader level) who was my first-in-confidence, in whom I place a great deal of trust to help sort these things out from within the ranks. Once the potential leaders are targeted as first year students, we get to see them as sophomores. These are people who also naturally gravitate to the ACS Affiliates, AXE, Students of Biology, etc. So far, finding 11 really competent people per year (mix of Junior/Senior) has been quite easy. The pool is larger than that but not considerably larger. * *Finally, it is worth repeating that although they are doing this professional job, I have an active part in pulling the quality out of the potential (i.e., when you have good starting materials, the potential for good product goes up). I don't mean to overlook their participation in the course itself as a source of their own inspiration, either. I am not at all sure that every type of first-year course could cause enough of an emergence. * [ Part 3: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 08:00:40 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 5 - Last Day for Discussion of Paper To: CHEMCONF Registrants From: Donald Rosenthal ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU Re: LAST DAY FOR DISCUSSION OF PAPER 5 It is 8 AM EST (Eastern Standard Time - 1300 GMT) on Thursday, February 19 This is the last day for discussion of Paper 5 - "First, Do No Harm . . . The (Moral) Obligation of the Faculty" by Brian P. Coppola Consideration of Paper 6 will begin at 8 AM EST tomorrow - Friday, February 20. [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:06:43 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 DW: The Harm of Making Changes Don Wink wrote: Change "graduate specialty" to "reform ideas" and and you may see why I think this also raises a question about classroom reform. The question is: "When am I justified in making a change in a particular class at a particular time when, in all honesty, I do not know if it will work well with these students and with me, a novice at reform?" *Coppola replies: * *Everyone should be so fortunate as to have Don Wink in their audience. He and I have orbited around a number of these topics over the last 8 years or so, and every time we interact I learn something new. So let's see where we end up this time... * *(I hate to pick apart a rhetorical construct, but the "graduate speciality" to "reform ideas" swap is an interesting but not relevant exercise. It makes no sense that reform ideas would be adopted because less time is required.) Be that as it may, I do understand the spirit of your suggestion. I will make your implication even clearer: you can put anything in the space occupied by "graduate speciality", including "anti-reform plans", "traditional content", or "obstructionist viewpoint". As Don knows, this evokes some of my favorite questions in higher education: How is ownership of a course partitioned between an instructor and the unit responsible for course design and approval? It speaks to whether there is a notion of curriculum. It raises the issue of what sorts of goals are there in instruction and who sets them. It raises the conflict between having different types of goals. * *I consider the role of the faculty as instructors in courses to be fundamentally different than the role of faculty in the pursuit of profesisonal scholarship. This is not a law, it is an opinion. If an academic unit at the departmental (committee then faculty) level agrees to set a direction through a due process, what is the obligation of the individual faculty member to fulfil whatever is set out? Perhaps the unit can only specify a course title and number. In chemistry, we do not face the kind of thorny issues that our colleagues who wrestle with evolution and creationism issues in curriulum have had to deal with, never mind what constitutes an introduction to Classics, etc. As a member of our College Curriculum Committee, I am amazed, actually, at how often courses we see for approval that arise from the humanities are tied to an individual by name...even at the level of College level approval. This or that major conceptual area gets taught only insofar are that faculty member is around to give "her" or "his" course. This is not a concept that sits well with me. Then, within the course, we seem to know there is a line, somewhere, about fulfilling expectations. If I went into my course with a reading list from Goethe, Chavez and Angelou, and told my students to use their chemistry book to press autumn leaves, then I daresay their would be big trouble. An AAUP/ACLU hardliner might actually support my right to do this because it is next to "god's law" for me to be able to do so. I disagree. * *So now we may or may not have our parameters: one side of the ownership issue and the other. If we move towards the center we can get to the interesting parts. Where is the line, how wide is it, and how close to this line can you get? * *Let me stick with Change at the structural level for a moment before getting to the level of the individual within a course. The faculty member or a group of faculty constructs a new course, by any definition (change in content and/or approach and/or objectives). The approval within the department may not be consensus. The department or it charged committee carries out its due process for discussion and approval responsibility, as does the college body. So, too, the laws of Society, which underlies Don's point. We now have the same problem that has concerned writers and thinkers for millenia, from Plato and Sophocles to Martin Luther King: what happens when the rights and obligations of the individual's self-expression or freedom (including answering to any perception of "god's law", "civic responsibility", "humanity") come into conflict with the practice and interpretation of a Society ("government", "man's law", and so on)? Unfortunately, the same questions plague Manson, Speck, Goetz, and so on. * *Running quickly back to curriculum. I think the concept of a due process governance is the most defensible position. I think well-articulated goals and expectations that have been subjected to debate, where outcomes in all three appropriate domains are debated and balanced to a local agreement and expectation (3 goals: (1) professional technical, or subject matter mastery; (2) professional intellectual, or the ability to encounter new and unfamiliar inforamtion and make understanding; and (3) general intellectual, or the development of strategies or tools on which analogies for problems outside the discipline can be based and used). Articulation on how each of these is to be assessed (or not), and the reasons for these choices, and examples of performance expectations: these are all are better than a syllabus. We may not have the best version of this system in place, but I think it is the system we are trying to achieve. If so, then the system implies its stand on the duties and obligations of the faculty. In this system there is due process. The faculty member has all the freedom in the world to shape the path. I would also argue that there is an undeniable flexibility to meet the spirit of the balance between goals, and that these are always a miminum expectation. There is more than one way to skin a cat; but in the end we better have a version of a cat pelt (maybe even better than the plan; sometimes worse, that's okay). If you tell me squirril is better, then I want this to be subject to the same examination. In fact, each year...every term...I want to revisit and scrutinize the cat, too. * *The first-year reform in my department was the result of due process. Individuals did not work in secret or in an obstructionary way. Chemistry 210/215 and their laboratories started as an explicit experiment in an isolated section, with full (as possible) prior debate and full (as possible) disclosure to its students. Afterwards, it evolved and grew over a period of time. Faculty subcommittee and full faculty disclosure and discussion was the norm. Neither the decision to move forward not the decisions about the details have ever been unanimous; neither, of course, was a decision not to change, which was held by a minority. If you know me, you might not believe what I say next: if the decision was made to use validation laboratories and multiple choice exams, and this was the collective will of the unit, then I would comply. I now have a choice to try and help work to change the Society in which I am a part (now you will have to believe me, because this is what has happened, after all) or I can look for a Society to defect to whose rules suit me better; I might change my mind, but throughout I would do the best job I could do to fulfill the obligations as set forth as a minimum requirement. * *The next part of Don's comments are remarkable. He has taken the concept of the paper and done some smooth running with it. I have lots to say about this. But right now I have to go to class and find a way to connect learning about lithium aluminum hydride reductions with making moral choices about reproductive freedom. So, go out and grab yourself an Oreo cookie, rip open the lids and scrape that creamy filling under your front teeth, and I'll see you on the other side. Ta. *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:00:33 -0600 From: "Dr. David Ritter" Subject: Re: Paper 5 GRL: Faculty disdain for pedagogy At 01:18 PM 2/18/98 -0600, you wrote: >Later in the day Brian wrote: > >>The only results from >>pedagogical research that can capture the hard scientists attention long >>enough to make a comment is the bad stuff (that which can be digested, >>disdained and discarded in between issues of JACS. The good stuff, of >>course, is too complex and defies sound bites in the same way good hard >>science does. Believe me, I consider myself semi-literate and it has >>taken 10 years to get there. > >Well, I think one solution is to point out that the "good stuff" in "hard" >science is often awfully complex as well. > Donald J. Wink Approximately 25 years ago, in a Provocative Opinion, Davenport put it thus: "Popular education with its assumption that many things can be widely taught has distracted attention from the truth that not all such ideas can be easily understood." The struggle with these issues has gone on for longer than many of us will readily admit. David R David Ritter Department of Chemistry Southeast Missouri State University dritter@semovm.semo.edu [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:06:16 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 5 DR: Do No Harm Donald Wink raises some interesting questions in his message of 2-18-98 12:40 - "The Harm of Making Changes" > When am I justified in making a change in a particular class at a > particular time when . . . I do not know if it will work well with > these students and with me, a novice at reform? . . . > is it OK to spring it (changes or reforms) on students (who) have never > seen this before, and who know damned well they may never see this again. > . . . > This problem is exacerbated by . . > > (a) institutional context > . . if the students are already in a "mode" of learning and studying in > college, of if a particular mode is expected of them, then a course that > deviates from that too much will, will in fact, harm them by its very > uniqueness. ^^^^^^^^ > . . . a faculty member comes to me and says "hey, your students can't . ." > > (b) Concerning student development: > . . . are all students "ready" for that? Do I harm students who are not > developmentally prepared for a topic? > > (c) student goals > . . . they are confused and intimidated by the faculty, the graduate > students, and even advanced undergraduates. Why? Because we are really > interested in chemistry . . . and they have to meet the goals we set > for a course. . . . the farther we move from their goals, the more > likely they will skid off the side of our road and crash. Again - - > are they harmed? . . . Some of these comments might be used as a basis for not making ANY changes in courses. Yet change is an important part of education, science and society. Most of us expect (or at least hope) that education, science and society will improve - improvement implies change. On the other hand, change just for the sake of change is not useful. There are consequences of change - some consequences may be good and others bad. Hopefully, all courses should change with time. University courses taught by the same person saying exactly the same thing year after year are notorious. It seems to me that changes in courses and curricula should be carefully thought out. Harm can be done to the education of our students if we introduce changes which make our courses "worse". Courses can be made which will benefit many (but not necessarily all) of our students. Specific comments to Professor Wink's comments: (a) institutional context - what is "too much" (b) Concerning student development - Are students "ready"? I believe that teaching is a balancing act - with a wide spectrum of students we can neither cater primarily to the bottom of the class nor to the top of the class. Everyone needs to be challenged. The student is primarily responsible for learning. Teachers can help. ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ (c) student goals - Hopefully, students go to a college or university to learn from their teachers. Ideally, students should be inspired by their teachers. It would be a mistake to let the students set the goals. The faculty must set reasonable goals. ^^^^^^^^^^ -------------------------------------------------------------------- Brian Coppola is responding to Donald Wink (2-19-98 9:06) makes an interesting statement: > This or that conceptual area gets taught . . (when) . . that faculty > member is around to give "her" or "his" course. This is not a concept > which sits well with me. This CAN be a problem - when one faculty member OWNS a course to the exclusion of all other faculty members - particularly when the faculty member is not doing a particularly good job in teaching the course. On the other hand, some of the best and most popular courses which I took in college were taught year after year by the same faculty member. It does seem to me that the faculty should have a great deal of autonomy in the courses which they teach - particularly if the course is an elective rather than a required course. That's what academic freedom is all about. On the other hand there needs to be some evaluation. If students complain, course evaluations are very poor, or faculty teaching other courses find students are not learning something which they should have learned, someone needs to look into the matter - perhaps talk to the faculty member and in some instances change teaching assignments. However, any action needs to be handled judiciously. [ Part 7: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:07:55 EST From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 5 DR: Teaching a Diverse Group of Students HANDLING A DIVERSE GROUP OF STUDENTS It seems to me that handling a thousand students in a course such as Chemistry 210 would be an horrendous problem. There are future chemistry and other science majors, engineers, math majors, business school students, music and french majors and ag school students. How can one course best meet the needs of such a diverse group of students? Are the different students grouped in any special way? I would thing that music and french majors would generally do more poorly and perhaps need special help. At some schools different students are offered different courses. Is this not done at Michigan? [ Part 8: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 12:44:26 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: Teaching a Diverse Group of Students Donald Rosenthal wrote: There are future chemistry and other science majors, engineers, math majors, business school students, music and french majors and ag school students. How can one course best meet the needs of such a diverse group of students? Are the different students grouped in any special way? I would thing that music and french majors would generally do more poorly and perhaps need special help. At some schools different students are offered different courses. Is this not done at Michigan? * *The beauty of the program is that by using highly mechanistic, modern, literature-based course, the field is leveled in a few short weeks. As long as the students have a passing familiarity with atoms and molecules, the applciation of these ideas is so startling unusual that we see some interesting things. But let me get to the much more important point. Everyone is together. Everyone gets the same message: you can do this, it is not intrinsically difficult (give me 5 minutes and I will tell you why this subject ia significantly easier than the traditional General Chemistry course), but it does require change in the following way...and so the first days of class go! "Pay attention, here..old assumptions about chemistry are meant to fall away." And so on. I have alluded to Claude Steele's work once before. Tracking and pigeon-holing causes students to buy into the negative aspects of lowered expectations. All our students are together in the same course for a reason. If we are looking at such a selected group of individuals to begin with, and then start to make these kinds of judgments based on what...their ability to retake a class they have already taken?...we will stand a good chance of communicating and affirming inability, not ability. At the same time, you cannot set the bar and say: JUMP. You cannot let an early failure devastate the term. You have to provide the kind of...I don't use the coaching metaphor any more, I use the term "spotter", as in weightlifting or gymnastics...spotting required to get them engaged. * *Interestingly enough, the way-out-front did-it-great-in-High-School crowd gets divided pretty early on in those who don't want to change (or cannot) and those who can (I will be visiting these kinds of "harm" in my other answer's to Don Wink's comments). The group of people who are somewhat unsure but capable do amazingly well, as do the approximately 10% of students in class who are simply taking the course as an elective...including art/theatre types who excel like crazy in a narrative/pictorial oriented course, by the way. * *I can imagine no basis on which to divide them; the ones who needto experience change need to be with the ones who do...the trick might be to better and better understand strategic differences for people who can self-identify themselves as having a tendency towards this or that behavior, and allowing them to customize the way they get to where *I* want them to be. Yes, I want *my* culture (the scientific culture) to be as respected by them I as need to respect theirs (more on this in other replies to D Wink, see you there). * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 9: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 16:54:42 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: How Do You Incorporate these Principles? Don Wink continues: "I am comfortable in teaching with these goals in mind; my assessment is valid, my instruction well-focused. But is it OK to spring it on students have never seen this before, and who know damned well they may never see this again." This problem is exacerbated by (a) institutional context, (b) student development, and (c) student goals. (a) concerning institutional context: I am pondering (not asserting, at least not yet) that if the students are already in a "mode" of learning and studying in college, or if a particular mode is expected of them, then a course that deviates from that too much will, in fact, harm them by its very uniqueness. This connects with two threads already in place--that of student high school experiences and that of faculty disdain for pedagogy. I do not teach students to work certain "standard" calculations, because I have incorporated concept knowledge instead. But when a faculty member comes to me and says "hey, your students can't...." I can defend myself "only" with pedagogical rationales. They see, instead, a students harmed by pedagogical nonsense, not students with a richer concept knowledge of chemistry. Have I harmed _these_students? (b) Concerning student development: Is intellectual and personal development a real issue on our campuses? Certainly it forms an important part of the standard pedagogical theory for children. But what about an eighteen-year old? If development is a real issue, then how, why, and when do we offer particular kinds of instruction? What Brian and Seyhan Ege have done with Chem 210 is show that literature-based organic chemistry works well with new college students. That is an important finding, but then the question arises: are all students "ready" for that? Do I harm students who are not developmentally prepared for a topic? (c) student goals I have worked quite a bit on a freshman seminar program here, and one of the nice things is that in it I can be honest about the differences between my goals and the students. Students will admit, once they are "safe" (i.e., it won't affect their grade), that they are confused and intimidated by the faculty, the graduate students, and even advanced undergraduates. Why? Because we are really interested in chemistry, French, sociology, etc--and they have to meet the goals we set for a course. Occasionally, they buy into our goals, and it is nice. But often student clearly have another agenda--a legitimate one--that lacks the intellectual goals of a course. And the farther we move from their goals, the more likely they will skid off the side of our road and crash. Again--are they harmed? I don't think any of these are answered in the paper. Maybe I am being unfair, but these are ethical and moral struggles for me. I know what I believe is right. But I see the underside of reform in a non-reform context, as well. Interestingly, I think that Brian and Roald Hoffmann ("Some Heretical Thoughts on What Our Students are Telling Us", Journal of College Science Teaching, May 1996, p. 390-394) have already spoken to this. I would be interested in what Brian, and others, say about this view of "harm". *Coppola replies: * *Wow. That was great. * *I have at least three answers. I will start with the shortest one, go to the mid-sized one, and then you might need that whole bag of Oreos if I get started on the long one. * *The short answer: Don already knows there is no "solution" here. The purpose of the paper is to help raise the possibility that there is indeed a more complex moral dimension to the professoriate than one sees raised to public discourse. My examples...Don's examples...and some of the other comments...all represent dilemmas (di-lemma: "two stories" or "two propositions") that are as rich as any facing medical practice (to borrow from my own construct, selected for its familiar impact but not because these are the only meaty dilemmas). There is all the world of difference between active and often surprising conversation and assuming that because we did not learn it in graduate school it mustn't be important. All of these situations and ideas are our responsibility...our obligation. That was my point. As we all know...if there were easy answers to all this, we would not be having the discussion! * *The medium-sized answer: In terms of useful principles for framing discussion, I like the following ground rules: (a) The concept of moral defensibility. I know that the dilemma will not balance all factors in the "plus column" over all dimensions. I even know that others will value differentially. What is necessary is to be cognizant of as full a set of dimensions and ramifications as possible, to free yourself from ego as much as possible, and examine all points-of-view as valid possibilties. My favoriate operational version of this is to ask someone how many topics they have an opinion about (thousands), and whether any 50 people are going to share the same opinons on all these topics (not a chance), and whether or not the someone I am talking to thinks that they are correct, have the "right" answer, for 100% of these topics...(well, no)...How about 50%...(well, no)...and so on. If you admit that most of what you currently think is not fully the correct thing and that you still seek truth, then it stands to reason that you need to continually learn *and* end up changing the way you think. An operationally cute way to define a critical thinker is someone who has changed their stand of defensibility on an issue of personal significance at least once in the last 6 months. * *(b) Multiculturalism: Somewhere along the way, the culture of Chemistry and the culture of Science...indeed all of the "Intellectual Cultures" got neglected in preference to the "Social Cultures". This is not at all to diminish, it is only an appeal to rationality and fairness. I am a multicultural instructor; so are you. The respect that is rightfully due to an individual on the basis of their socio-cultural perspective, and the point-of-view represented thereby, has dominated discussions of justice and fairness for a number of years. By virtue of socio-cultural criteria, whether by gender, race, national heritage,or sexual orientation, I agree with the severe need for diligence in respect, understanding and non-discrimination. I also want that to be true for the intellectual cultures; in fact, the need is severe and I demand it. I do not want to assimilate my students by having them lose their (broadly defined) cultural identity, but I do want them to understand and, if they want to, to integrate my culture with theirs...as I expect to learn and broaden from interacting with them. But the land being visited is mine: chemistry/science/inquiry, and so there is a tacit contract that this is the germane topic. I want students to use all resources at their disposal...for them to understand themselves well enough, and perhaps with my help...to plot a course that can take them from where they are to where I am, and back again, without loss. But with gain: greater understanding. If someone decides to convert herself or himself, fine; if not, fine too. But I want to arrive at a kind of mutual respect. What if it is not there to begin with? Worse yet, when the dis-respect is brought to the table (that is, prejudicial discrimination against me for my cultural orientation). It is part of my job as a human to deal with this all the time, including the education of others. There is an uneasy tension between ascribed respect (you will respect me because I say so) and having to continually spend energy to fight active disrespect. I want a fair chance...and I don't want to squander it. * *(c) Doing harm: what is the frame of reference? It is not useful to find a single decontextualized aspect of harm and then disallow any context for it. So, is it harmful to poke someone in the arm with a needle? Sure. What if it is a syringe needle filled with a vaccine. That's okay? What if it's live culture and you know that .05% of the vaccinated will develop the disease? And so on. We're always balanacing. The same is true, I think, for benefits. Is any goal so beneficial that it is worth any price? As I meant to be provocative previously, there were people who benefitted from slavery, but it is not enough to make slavery a morally defensible stand. Can I imagine a context in which the benefits are so high that the larger personal liberty issues are subsumed? I am willing to be open to the possibility (call it a microstate, if you will) but only because I am not willing to reject options, only ranked them. Is carrying concealed firearms always and irrevocably 100% the indefensible choice? Cannibalism? Curriculum Reform? * * *Well, I guess that was more than medium...so I will just continue... * *So, Don has created some valuable scenarios for moral reflection. He has identified a "harm" but not the benefit, nor the framework for discussion. In our program, we learned that not doing General Chemistry came with a cost, and this speaks to the power of assessment, too. We learned from both survey and interview work that higher cognitive skills were coming at a cost: higher test anxiety and lower levels of self-efficacy for the students. Knowing this, it caused us to rethink how to retain the benefits while minimizing the damage. Talking more about it, preparing the students, making the issues less private and more public, suggesting explicit strategies and even how to react to whatever the individual perceived as failure, how to use the elaborate coursepack, etc etc, all were in response to (a) what we learned, and (b) our desire to minimize harm (in the Wink sense). For some of the faculty whose situations I referred to in the paper (all of which are actual), I return to the question of Tenure...At What Cost? When the collateral damage (harm) to the careers of EVERY (EVERY!) young and hopeful scientists who joins a research group is the price for professional success, and when it extends to nearly every interaction with others except when it is peceived to enable the individual's career...then I cannot put that benefit against the loss. I don't mean to make it as simple as cost/benefit analysis, or to take Don's cases and just justify the harms that concern him as "no pain, no gain". That is no productive. Returning to the point: moral reflection makes people think about the actions and consequences of those actions...both theirs and others. Would we have returned to General Chemistry if there was real, net and lasting pain observed in the pilot classes of Chemistry 210? Or modified (which we did and continue to do)? Or shifted to another subject matter? It has worked out. But there are other models. Ours is intimately tied to our institutional and departmental context. Yet the principles are universal. * *What about my colleague the obstructionist? We disagree on what constitutes harm, and it has been next to impossible to get past the impasse. All of the strategies (punishment and reward and encouragement and so on) have not produced any progress in even having discourse. One of my colleagues in Math (also deep into reform) said that this stuff was everywhere and that the only way out is a two-part solution: (a) patience and (b) a good early retirement program. I think this is completely unacceptable. The harm to the program is too high. * *I think that many of Don's scenarios are acceptable risk, given the larger context. He is beginning to outline the sources of risk and possible harm, and can then begin to create strategies for dealing with these. Informed consent is a realistic way to approach this, because it is always quasi-informed anyway: you always know more after the next intervention. The same is true, in my experience, for the question about student goals. We did some interesting interview work on the first days of class in Chem 210 and Chem 130: all of the students agreed : their goal was to get an "A". By the end of 130, the students hadn't budged, and their conception of getting an "A" was no richer. In 210, the students had no budged either..they still wanted good grades...but they also elaborated the values and ideas that getting a good grade meant. (most of us want raises, too, and it is reasonable to tie this to the prevailing value system; students, too). *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 10: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 17:14:39 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 GRL: Faculty disdain for pedagogy Don Wink wrote: Now, didn't we all have some Professors like this? Those who were so in love with the purity of their chemistry that, despite the blindness that accompanied it, we admired for their single-hearted devotion? _I_ and, I daresay, a lot of the audience could never be like P. But let us understand, and enter into discussion with, those who may be like him by habit, and yet maybe still valuable. I do not mean to countenance the behaviors Brian lists in his closing paragraphs. But an irascible insistence on the "right answer" is, I think, a component of all excellence in research. * Coppola replies: * * ...at what cost? * * I am certainly not willing to discard the irascible insistence that characterizes excellence. But I am also not willing to pay any price in the professoriate for it. There are irascibly insistent people who can inspire without harm; what about the individual, as you get to, who is inspired by the irascible harmfullness? Isn't this just the cycle of abusive behavior, in action? Is the social culture of Chemistry willing to have nothing that counts as anti-social behavior? Can this overwhelm whatever benefits and gains are derived from the other scholarship to the extent that the professoriate is not the place for this person? Are there obligations to faculty citizenship? I think most would agree that yes, there are. Can the health of the enterprise take a first seat in the actions of the individual? Oops! We're right back to that, again. * *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 11: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 17:24:26 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 GRL: Faculty disdain for pedagogy Don Wink wrote: If one looks at any statistical analysis, once the s.d. climbs to more than 10-20% of the possible range of values (say, 1 grade on an A-F scale), then the demands of separation required for "signficance" become very large indeed. In other words: we are looking for changes in a very wide range of outcomes. Standing on just quantitative differences is tough, indeed. *Coppola replies: * *I could not agree more. I have two compounds, one has a boiling point of 46 degrees and the other 58 degrees. That is all I know. Tell me which is more structurally similar to a drug model for ... blehbleh...you get the idea. * * And Don also wrote: Well, I think one solution is to point out that the "good stuff" in "hard" science is often awfully complex as well. Certainly there are examples of elegant, clear, easily understood explanations. But things like the Woodward-Hoffmann rules may be the exception, not the rule--yet we chase the illusion of simplicity in all things. Sometimes, physical and chemical systems just won't simplify themselves for us...as is apparent in a careful reading of Hoffmann's work in the solid state (and, I think, shown more often in Jeremy Burdett's related work). *Coppola replies: * * I couldn't tell if you were agreeing or not! I was also saying that the "good stuff" in "hard" science was complex and defied the kind of simplification that would impress my mother. * *Yes, true, within the context of the scientific enterprise we always value this elegance that borders on the aesthetic. The biggest complements you can get in research often revolve around statements like: "a deceptively simple idea, I already know it will work"..."what a paper, I wish I had written it"...Or even taking a page from the preface of the second edition, I think, of On the Origin of the Species: "How amazingly stupid not to have thought of this before" (or something like this). I also think these are the exceptions, and that like the Nobel Quest, too often overwhelm the course of science. *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 12: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 17:33:04 -0500 From: Marcy Towns <00mhtowns@BSU.EDU> Subject: Re: Paper 5 DR: How Do You Incorporate these Principles? Brian, Please do not share this reply with others. It is "local" not "general" in its examples. You wrote: One >of my colleagues in Math (also deep into reform) said that this stuff was >everywhere and that the only way out is a two-part solution: (a) patience >and (b) a good early retirement program. I think this is completely >unacceptable. The harm to the program is too high. I hate to say it, but we are stuck on the horns of this dilemma. When we have professors who are harmful to students, but are tenured, then we are stuck with them. We tend to minimize the cost in terms of students by making them in charge of lab for example. Then what we have is a 50 or 60,000 per year lab assistant. Although it is costly in a financial sense, it is the "best" we can do for our students. It might surprise you that some advocate tossing this prof back into the classroom and letting the horrible student evaluations force the person towards option (b) above. The entire situation is repulsive. There are some who would give up tenure, institute a yearly (or every three years) performance review, and get rid of those who operate in a harmful fashion. Any comments? >* 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 13: "Included Message" ] Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 21:07:35 -0600 From: Donald Wink Subject: Paper 5 DW: Faculty Disdain / Levi In my response on the pedagogy issue, I quoted a selection from Primo Levi's Periodic Table. From Brian's response, and another sent privately, it is clear I didn't make my point well. And I am very afraid I served Levi poorly. Rather than get in the way of Paper 6, let me just leave it with this: I am very sorry I may have misled anyone about Levi's view of learning or his own history. The Periodic Table, in my opinion, is probably one of the few books from the twentieth century that will be read in the twenty second century. It is that good--and precious to me. So please do not take my out of context quotation as an example that keeps you from the book! The Periodic Table is a book that may be a worthy topic for a future CHEMCONF, but only if we can get enough humanists to participate and keep us in line! [ Part 2: "Included Message" ] Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 00:49:02 -0500 From: Brian Coppola Subject: Re: Paper 5 DW: Faculty Disdain / Levi Coppola writes: Let me underscore Don's comment, actually. Levi's Periodic Table is a must read item as far I am concerned, also. It is one of those books you give undergrads and grad students as gifts for events, etc. While you are at the bookstore, you might also order a copy of "The Tacit Dimension" by Michael Polanyi, and "The Physicist's Conception of Nature" by Werner Heisenberg. It's just past midnight on Thursday evening, EST. THanks to all for a fun week. Brian *************************************************************************** Dr. Brian P. Coppola bcoppola@umich.edu Department of Chemistry 930 North University Avenue Vox:734.764.7329 The University of Michigan Room 2403 Chemistry Bldg Fax:734.647.4865 Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 http://www.umich.edu/~michchem/faculty/coppola ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras:"One goes as one goes, then one shall see" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [ Part 3: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 10:57:16 -0600 From: Kenn Harding Subject: Inquiry-based laboratory Instruction Since discussion on paper 6 has been slow, I thought I would bring up an item more related to Coppola's paper 5 that appeared in our student newspaper yesterday. The following quote is the beginning of a Feb. 23rd story listed as Special to The Battallion by Lisa Brown titled "New Learning Style Raises Questions". "A chemistry student asked her professor to tell her what was wrong with her experiment, but the professor instead asked her questions to guide her to the conclusion. The student became angry and upset, turning the professor in to the dean. Alexandra Hilosky, a professor at Harcum College, shared this example of inquiry-based laboratory instruction at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting on Feb. 14." See http://battalion-web.tamu.edu/web/archives/98a/2-23/e1.html for full story. Brian, Have you had students react this negatively? Kenn Kenn E. Harding Professor and Coordinator of Organic Laboratory Courses Department of Chemistry Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77840 409-845-5433 http://www.chem.tamu.edu/organic/orgmain.html [ Part 4: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 12:47:17 -0800 From: "K.R.Fountain" Subject: Re: Inquiry-based laboratory Instruction Recruit the dean!! Let him know what is happening in your class, document the worth of discovery learning and bring him/her aboard the enterprise. Ken Fountain [ Part 5: "Included Message" ] [ Part 6: "Included Message" ] Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 18:11:54 EST From: Walt Volland Subject: Re: -WV- 5: Inquiry-based laboratory I hope adding this comment on inquiry learning is not infringing on discussion of Rosamaria Fong's paper, but the discovery method of instruction is a question mark in my mind. My students have similar concerns. A quarter based class lasting 10-11 weeks is a very short time to reorient students. What is true is that inquiry learning is only one method for students to learn. It fits only one learning style that is not as common as others in the population. The adoption of this style of teaching creates a conflict with student expectations for education and potentially with their individual learning style. A truly unique approach would be to leave the choice open to the student. Let them determine what process they seemed to work for them. I'm idealist I guess. Did all of the present conference participants learn their basic chemistry using inquiry learning? I doubt that they did. Was the previous system so bad that it must be replaced completely with the new approach? Again, I doubt it. Perhaps all of our collective experiences were so terrible that we went into education to revolutionize the profession. I doubt that premise as well. I like the view that we should ".. Do no harm... " but I also think it should be replaced with one that says we should "Do some good." We are not neutral disinterested parties in the education process. We have an obligation to our students. They should be better off for having participated in our courses. They shouldn't merely have gotten through without scars. 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" ] Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 08:30:24 -0500 From: Theresa Julia Zielinski Subject: Paper 5(?)- DS- response to WV Dear Colleagues I am forwarding this for Deb Sauder who's email system has just changed. I concur with Deb's comments below. >Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 08:37:21 -0500 >To: theresaz@localnet.com >>From: Debbie Sauder >>Subject: Paper 5(?)- DS- response to WV >> >> >>Well Walt, I am sure your comments will lead to a lively exchange! >> >>I have used inquiry methods in General chemistry for 4 years. Was I >taught chemistry that way- NO! not in the classroom BUT- Did I learn >chemistry that way- YOU BET! I converted to inquiry based pedagaogical >techniques BECAUSE it so obviously formalized the techniques that I and my >classmates used in our informal study groups to succeed in our >undergraduate science courses. (mid-70's) To me, it allows ALL students in >on the "secret" approaches of successful science students- and I think that >is a good thing! >> >>>A quarter based class lasting 10-11 weeks is a very short time to >reorient study. >> >>Perhaps so- but we have come to the following conclusion here at Hood- >you can do ANYTHING you want in a freshman level class and as long as you >start out there on Day One and follow through- most students will never >realize that this is a "change" in pedagogical approach. "This is just the >way it is done at college!" >> >>>creates a conflict with >>>student expectations for education and potentially with their individual >>>learning style. >> >>How is inquiry based teaching unique on these issues? We create conflicts >with student expectations every time we set the "bar" higher than they >would like to jump. At least with inquiry based approaches they learn to >do science by doing it- not "hearing" it or "seeing" it. The more you >allow the student to determine the thought process used to come to a >conclusion, the less likely you are to lead to conflicts- esp. when >compared the standard lecture approach, IMHO. >> >>The failures of traditional science education are all around us- from the >exodus of qualified people from the field- to the failure of general >population to grasp issues of science in puplic policy- to people who walk >away from my colleagues and I at parties when we respond to a "And what do >you do?" inquiry. >> >>Since my department has converted to an inquiry-based format in general >chemistry we have seen the following benefits- no one falls asleep in the >back row anymore, class attendance is better than 95%, the number of >students who drop general chemistry declined immediately, and the number of >students who fail has also declined. >> >>I like to hear myself talk as much as any faculty member I know- but I >have learned the benefits of restraint so I'll stop here! Thanks for the >soapbox! >> >>Deb >> >* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * >Deborah Sauder (301)696-3678 >Assistant Professor of Chemistry sauder@hood.edu >Hood College >Frederick MD 21701 > >"For to be possessed of a vigorous mind is not enough; >the prime requisite is to rightly apply it." Descartes >* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * > 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)