University Chemistry Education
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University Chemistry Education The Higher Education chemistry journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry November 2001 Volume 5, Issue No 2 ISSN 1369-5614 Pages 42 - 91 Contents Statement of Editorial Policy Instructions for Authors Review Learning in the laboratory; some thoughts from the literatur e............................................42 A.H. Johnstone and A. Al-Shuaili Paper Preparing the Mind of the Learner – Part 2..........................................................................52 Ghassan Sirhan and Norman Reid Proceedings Who Is Asking the Question?.................................................................................................59 David Phillips Teaching Chemists to Think: From Parrots to Professional s................................................62 Tina L. Overton Can Problem Solving Be Taught?..........................................................................................69 A. H. Johnstone Experimental Design – Can It Be Taught Or Learned?........................................................74 John Garratt and Jane Tomlinson Teaching Chemists to Communicate? Not My Job!.............................................................80 Patrick D. Bailey Letters Is Your Web Site Legal?.........................................................................................................89 Roger Gladwin Learning in the Laboratory....................................................................................................90 Daniel S Domin Response by A.H. Johnstone...................................................................................................90 A.H. Johnstone and A. Al-Shuaili Review Learning in the laboratory; some thoughts from the literature· __________________________________________________________________________________________ *A.H. Johnstonea and A. Al-Shuailib a) Centre for Science Education, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ e-mail: [email protected] b) Sultan Qaboos University, College of Education, Muscat, Oman e-mail: [email protected] Introduction Such ideas have been under discussion for decades, especially in places like Britain, where a great deal Laboratory work and other forms of practical work of time and money has been spent on using have gained wide, but not universal acceptance as practical activities in science teaching.1 The one of the most important and essential elements in important aims and objectives of practical work the teaching and learning of science. For the have been considered from as far back as the early purposes of this paper we concentrate on laboratory nineteenth century.2 work, but many of the principles addressed apply equally to the range of practical work encountered Special attention to this has been given in the post in the sciences. World War II period by teachers and science education researchers. The need was recognised for This paper provides a brief overview of the a list of practical aims to help laboratory teachers to literature on laboratory work as a means of helping think clearly about their intentions and to ensure to answer three fundamental questions: that all the important goals of the course had been · What are the purposes of teaching in pursued. There is also an awareness of the need for laboratories? a list of aims or objectives on which to base the · What strategies are available for teaching in assessment of practical work.3 If the desired laboratories and how are they related to the outcomes are not clearly stated how could any kind purposes? of objective assessment be applied by teachers and · How might we assess the outcomes of understood by students? laboratory instruction? Before examining the aims and objectives, which Researchers at secondary school level have have been produced by researchers, the terms generated much of the literature, but their findings ‘aims’ and ‘objectives’ should be defined. In the have importance and application at tertiary level literature on practical work the two terms are often also. used synonymously to give a general description of the intentions of the practical work. Sutton4 defined aims as general statements of what the teacher What is the purpose of laboratory work? intends to achieve, while objectives are specific statements of what the students should be able to This could be answered superficially by saying that, accomplish as a result of being taught in the “Chemistry is a practical subject and so we must do laboratory. We shall adopt this useful definition and laboratory work”. If pressed further, we might say examine the aims of practical work in some detail that the purpose of laboratory work is to teach hand because they can be generalised. The objectives are skills and to illustrate theory. But is this the end of largely specific to given experiments and are the story? If we are going to look at the variety of generally so numerous that we shall not consider strategies available for laboratory work, we shall them in any great detail. have to be clearer about the purposes of the laboratory to enable us to decide which of these Aims of practical work strategies lend themselves best to the achievement of our purposes. Similarly, if we are to try to match Kerr5 carried out an important study of practical the assessment to the outcomes, we will have to be work in 1961. Over a two-year period he clear about the outcomes we desire to see in our conducted a survey of practical work in England students. and Wales asking teachers to give information about the nature, purposes, assessment, and views ·This is a revised version of the review originally posted on the Web on September 17, 2001, modified by Professor A H Johnstone following receipt of the letter from Professor D. S. Domin, (see p. 90 of this issue). U.Chem.Ed., 2001, 5 42 This journal is © the Royal Society of Chemistry A.H. Johnstone and A. Al-Shuaili about practical work they had encountered in schools. As a result of this he compiled a list of ten Manipulative skills aims for practical work. These were: · To encourage accurate observations and careful It is true that laboratories are the only place to learn recording. hand skills, but many of the skills depend upon the · To promote simple, commonsense, scientific particular piece of equipment available. Not all methods of thought. infrared machines are the same, each having its · To develop manipulative skills. own peculiar ‘flicks of the wrist’ to make it operate · To give training in problem solving well. Although the student has to learn the manual · To fit the requirements of practical exam skills with the apparatus available, what is requirements important is to know how to handle and interpret · To elucidate theoretical work so as to aid the spectra from any machine and this can be done comprehension. without a laboratory! Manipulative skills have to be encountered often if they are to be well established. · To verify facts and principles already taught. A large gap between learning to operate a particular · To be an integral part of the process of finding balance and using it again requires almost total facts by investigating and arriving at principles. relearning. Problems with facility in manipulative To arouse and maintain interest in the subject. · skills can seriously get in the way of other desirable · To make phenomena more real through actual skills (Wham22). A student struggling to operate a experience. piece of equipment may fail to make important observations and gather poor data. A classical Numerous further attempts have been made to information overload can occur under these articulate the aims of practical work. Examples are 6 circumstances. It is essential so to establish the to be found in the writings of, Swain, Kempa and manipulative skills that they can ‘go on auto-pilot’ Ward,7 Johnstone and Wood,8 Boud,9 Lynch and 10 11 and free the student’s attention for other things such Ndyetabura, Denny and Chennell, Kirschner and as observation and accurate recording 23. Meester,12 Boyer and Tiberghien,13 Garnett and 14 15 16 Hackling, Gunstone and Wellington. They are Observational skills in substantial agreement with Kerr. Observation is a cognitive process and it becomes Attempts to specify aims have been around from 17 scientific when it has purpose and theoretical the early twentieth century and these aims remain perspective. However, what is scientific almost the same today. This might suggest that the observation? Young 24 made it clear that there is a science education community has reached a difference between ‘seeing’ and ‘observing’ when consensus, but it is more likely to have been a he stated that learners ‘see’ many things, but they consensus of information gathered by researchers do not always ‘observe’ them. Do learners notice and supported by theorists. Much of the writing has every observation that could be made? Kempa and been about the situation in secondary schools, but it Ward7 reported that students failed to notice or can equally apply to tertiary level. Similar aims are record one in every three observations. They proposed by other writers such as Meester and 18 19 20 reported that ‘observability’ is a function of both Maskill, Bennett and O’Neale and Laws, the nature and intensity of a stimulus and the addressing the tertiary situation. These can be observer’s perceptual characteristics. The summed up in the list of principal aims produced by 21 observational stimulus must reach a certain level Buckley and Kempa. below which, observation will not be made (observation