Learning from Experience:
Aesop's Activities and Thinking Skills
in the General Chemistry Laboratory
A goal-directed educational strategy
for helping students learn how to think more effectively is outlined
on the home-page and is explored more fully in this
page. The teaching methods proposed here are based on two simple principles:
instruction should provide opportunities for experience, and help
students learn from their experience.
a personal introduction: My
academic background is in science (chemistry), history of science, and science
education. {for details, check PERSONAL
GOALS on the home-page} My recently completed PhD
dissertation, a synthesis of ideas about scientific methods, is summarized
in a website, SCIENCE AND
DESIGN: METHODS FOR USING CREATIVITY AND CRITICAL THINKING IN PROBLEM SOLVING.
I want to continue developing the
ideas outlined in this website -- which is a project
proposal, not a report on a completed project -- in cooperation
with interested collaborators. In doing this my main priority
is to work with people who share my enthusiasm for the type of education
described here. { I know there are lots of you out there, because
many of the ideas I'll be describing are borrowed from, or inspired by,
the work of others; I've just gathered and organized these ideas.
Hopefully this in-gathering, plus a few fairly new ideas of my own, will
contribute some "added value" to the educational community. }
Craig Rusbult , craigru178@yahoo.com
This "Aesop's Activities and Thinking Skills" proposal was presented at a meeting of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY on March 21, 1999.
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1. Learning from Experience
2. Goal-Directed Analysis of Activities
3. Strategies for Effective Teaching
4. Examples of Aesop's Activities
1. Learning from Experience
An Aesop's Activities
approach to instruction, with a goal-directed coordination of activities
and methods, will help students gain useful experience. It
will also help students learn from their experience -- and remember
what they have learned, and transfer this knowledge to new situations --
by explicitly directing attention to important aspects of what
can be learned from each experience. Both aspects are analogous
to an Aesop's Fable in which the goal is learning a lesson about life, and
"the moral of the story" directs attention to the main ideas.
This section examines the second part
of the educational process. How can we help students learn more from
their experiences?
Personal Motivation: According to a theory
of intentional learning (Bereiter & Scardamalia,
1988), students will learn more when they invest
extra mental effort, beyond what is required merely to fulfill schoolwork
tasks, with the intention of pursuing their own cognitive goals.
Intentional learning is A PROBLEM-SOLVING APPROACH to personal education
because the student's goal is to transform a current state of knowledge
(and skill) into an improved future state. Effective intentional learning
combines an introspective access to the current state of one's own knowledge,
the foresight to envision a potentially useful state of improved knowledge
that does not exist now, a decision that this goal-state is desirable and
is worth pursuing, a plan for transforming the current state into the desired
goal-state, and a motivated willingness to invest the time and effort required
to reach this goal.
As suggested by
Perkins & Salomon (1988), the utilization of knowledge
can be viewed from two perspectives: backward-reaching and forward-looking.
Students can reach backward in time,
to use now what they have learned in the past. Or they can focus on
learning from current experience, motivated by their forward-looking
expectations that this knowledge will be useful in the future. { The
future value of what is being learned may involve conceptual content
or problem-solving process, or both. }
In a forward-looking situation a learner
is anticipating the future use of an idea in a context that may be similar
(for basic application) or different
(for application involving transfer).
When this occurs an idea becomes linked, in the mind of a learner, to several
contexts -- including situations imagined in the future -- thus producing
a bridge between now and the future. This mental bridge can lead to
improved retention (so knowledge is
preserved) and application (so knowledge
is more likely to be used).
Intentional learning and forward-looking
application are closely related, and both strategies are activated when
a student wisely asks, "What can I learn now that will help me in
the future?" One of the main functions of instruction (and
of a teacher) is to motivate students so they will want to learn.
Motivation can be intrinsic (to enjoy an interesting
activity), extrinsic (to perform well on an
exam), and personal (to improve the long-term
quality of life).
One useful motivational technique is
a reflection activity that produces a "minds on"
awareness (in contrast with students merely "going through the motions"
so they can escape the lab) and promotes an attitude of intentional learning
with a forward-looking expectation that the knowledge being learned will
be personally useful in the future.
2. Goal-Directed Analysis of Activities
Students gain experience by
doing activities. Opportunities for experience can be analyzed using
an activity-and-experience grid (as shown below),
with student activities in the top row and
science experiences in the left column:
| science experiences | student activities |
| # 1 | # 2 | # 3 | # 4 | # 5 | |
| A. generate experiments | yes | yes | |||
| B. do physical experiment | yes | yes | yes | ||
| C. hypothetico-deduction | yes | yes | yes | ||
| D. generate theories | yes | yes |
This grid clearly shows multi-function
activities (scanning vertically down the column, we see that Activity
#2 provides Experiences B and C) and repeated experiences
(scanning the C-row horizontally, we see that experience with C occurs in
Activities 2, 3 and 5). And a grid may reveal gaps that will guide
the design of new activities. For example, an earlier version of this
grid might have motivated a teacher, who noticed that after Activities 1-3
the students have no experience doing A, to add Activities 4 and 5.
Of course, a "yes" does not tell the whole story, and a grid with
larger cells could show more detailed information, such as the difference
between the hypothetico-deductive experiences in Activities 2 and 3.
An activity-and-experience (A-and-E)
grid can facilitate the design of Aesop's Activities by stimulating and
structuring a search for activities to help students learn each type of
"science experience" skill. Also, in a grid the visually
meaningful organization of information can improve our understanding of
the educationally functional relationships between activities, and can help
us visualize and plan the effective coordination of activities within a
course. When there is a repetition of experiences that are similar,
or different yet supportive, the quality of learning will be improved by
a carefully planned sequencing and coordinating (with respect to the types
of experience, levels of sophistication, and contexts) of the activities
that promote these experiences. The overall goal is to develop a mutually
supportive synergism between activities (and between experiences),
to build a coherent system for teaching each type of cognitive skill, to
produce a more effective environment for learning.
But what cognitive skills are we trying
to teach, and by using what types of instructional activities? These
questions, regarding experiences and activities, are discussed in the next
two subsections.
EXPERIENCES
In the present context -- constructing
an A-and-E grid to be used for a goal-oriented analysis of instruction --
a "science experience" is a thinking skill that we want students
to learn. The following list of roughly characterized experiences
is intended to be useful rather than exhaustive. And I think it will
be useful mainly by inspiring you to think about your own goals for student
learning. You will probably find, as I have, that the process of actually
doing A-and-E analysis will stimulate your awareness of "categories
for experience."
Examples of science experiences: a student can make observations (with only the senses or using
instrumentation); analyze data (by finding
patterns, relating data to a curve or equation, working with statistics,...),
make a graph (by hand or using a computer),
and do graphical analysis (visually or with
math); evaluate theories using hypothetico-deductive logic (by selecting a theory,
doing theory-based thought experiments to generate predictions, making observations,
and then comparing predictions with observations in order to estimate degrees
of agreement and predictive contrast), make a hypothetico-deductive
flowchart for identifying "unknowns" during qualitative
analysis, use retroductive logic (by selecting
or revising an existing theory, or inventing a new theory, in an effort
to obtain a match between theory and known data); formulate
a scientific problem, analyze an existing experiment or design a new experiment,
do a literature search (in books or research journals, or by using
a CRC Handbook or electronic databank), examine scientific
writing in a journal paper, solve problems
(varying in difficulty from simple to complex, from algorithmic to improvisational),
analyze a complex situation that involves conflicting
goal-criteria, and apply concepts (such as
limiting reagents, chemical reactivity,...) or construct
concepts. Student experiences also include skills that are
"lower level" yet important, such as converting
written instructions into personal action and performing
cognitive/physical skills (filling and reading a pipet,...) in the
lab.
ACTIVITIES
As above, for EXPERIENCES,
this subsection is offered with humility, in the hope that it will be useful
as a general orientation. There is some overlap between the lists
above and below, because usually it is convenient to define an activity
by describing what students will do, and will therefore experience.
Examples: student
activities can span a wide range of possibilities, including
a discussion or debate,
an experiment in lab, a project
outside the lab, problems with students playing
the role of detectives, questions about chemistry
concepts or scientific methods or real-world "science and society"
issues, case studies drawn from history or
current events, research using computer simulations
of nature, "direct learning" by reading
or listening, a pause for quiet introspection,
and reflection activities that direct a student's attention
to opportunities for learning.
Activities will vary in length:
a mini-activity may last only a few seconds,
while a coherent mega-activity (composed of
related mini-activities) can require several hours.
Detailed examples of activities are available
in Section 4.
3. Strategies for Effective Teaching
Most teachers agree that education
should help students learn higher-level thinking skills. In a typical
chemistry course, however, time is limited and there is lots of "content"
to cover, so thinking skills are rarely given the attention they deserve.
But in chemistry labs there is more flexibility due to fewer expectations
about content coverage, so more time can be devoted to thinking skills.
This section explores some possibilities for teaching in an "Aesop's
Activities" lab environment.
REFLECTION ACTIVITIES
Activities that promote awareness
(oriented either internally or externally) are at the heart of an Aesop's
Approach to teaching and learning. / reflection:
the fixing of the mind on some subject; serious thought; contemplation.
(Webster's Dictionary)
In an explicit
reflection activity, a teacher directs a student's attention to "what
can be learned" from an experience, and explains why a student might
want to take advantage of the valuable opportunity. In this way a
teacher can encourage two important motivations: intentional
learning and forward-looking application.
In a lab, for example, students can learn
the complementary thinking skills that are combined in
a system we call scientific method. One
way to help students understand the mutually supportive relationships between
thinking skills is to use my model of Integrated Scientific
Method. Students may become more motivated to pursue their own
intentional mastery of thinking skills if they realize -- because a teacher
calls it to their attention -- that similar problem-solving methods are
used by scientists in different fields, so they can transfer skills from
chemistry to their own field of science, such as biology or physics.
Engineering students can join in the fun, too, because similar methods are
also used in a wide range of "design" fields where the goal is
to design products and/or strategies. { The essential elements in
the process of design, and the relationships between design and science,
are outlined in my model of Integrated Design Method.}
But even if a student is not highly motivated,
learning can be promoted by an implicit reflection
activity. For example, a student's attention can be directed
to a learning opportunity by a simple request to discuss a question with
the TA. If this action-request shifts a student from a minimally aware
"just going through the motions" mode to a more aware "active
thinking" mode, it has served a useful purpose. The educational
function of reflection is similar to a basic principle of ACTIVE
READING: "Will stop-and-go reading slow you down?
Yes, but that can be good. If original awareness is minimal and you
don't understand-and-remember what you read, it would be more appropriate
to call it 'wasting time' than 'reading'. Activity breaks can help
you understand and remember; because of increased learning efficiency, brief
pauses for thinking will save you time in the long run."
A mixture of teaching styles, including
both explicit and implicit requests for reflection by students, is practical
and effective. For example, at the beginning of each semester I give
students a handout with TRUE STORIES about a skier (me) and a welder
(a friend) that emphasize the value of a "searching for insight"
approach to studying. Occasionally during the semester I'll refer
to the principle of active reflection in a
general way, as illustrated in these stories. But more often this
concept is situated in a specific context -- "it will be useful for
you to learn this" -- or in implicit requests that tend to promote
active thinking automatically, independent of motivation. And perhaps
students will discover that thinking really is fun, and they will become
motivated to do it more often and more skillfully!
DISCUSSION-BASED
LABS
While serving as a Teaching Assistant
(TA) at the University of Wisconsin, I tried a teaching experiment in the
second semester of an introductory physics course. Instead of the
traditional method, with students writing a lab report that will be graded
by the TA, we converted the writing into talking. Each week I split
the lab into parts and developed activities -- data to gather, calculations
to do, problems to solve, concepts to ponder, questions to answer,... --
for each part. When students working in Group C finished the activities
for Part 1, they called me over and we discussed the activities. When
everyone was satisfied that our discussion for this part of the lab was
finished, I made an X in the appropriate cell of a discussion
grid (shown below) and they moved on to Part 2. When a group
had X's for each part of the lab they were free to leave.
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
F |
G | |
Part 1 |
X |
||||||
Part 2 |
|||||||
Part 3 |
|||||||
Part 4 |
During our discussion of a lab activity,
what did we talk about? Most of the core questions and calculations
came from the standard lab manual, with occasional modifications or "don't
bother doing this" simplifications, and frequent supplementation with
followup questions, usually by me and sometimes by students. Within
each lab I improvised in an effort to achieve optimal pacing. In a
2-hour lab period, having 28 discussions (as in the grid above) is difficult,
even for a fast-talking, quick-listening TA, so two or more groups would
sometimes combine for a discussion. This worked well, and if students
did have to wait for me, this was all right because they could talk with
each other or begin work on the next part of the lab.
The response to these discussion-based
labs was positive and enthusiastic. Compared with their traditional
labs from the first semester -- writing individual reports and eventually
(a long time after leaving the lab) getting feedback that was not very detailed
and not very useful -- students said that with our discussions they learned
more and they had more fun, due to interactions with each other
and with their TA.
My own learning and fun also increased
due to the discussions, and because the time I would have wasted on a boring,
unpleasant task (grading lab books) was invested in a productive activity
(preparing for labs) that was intellectually stimulating and enjoyable.
With a no-grading policy, during our discussions in lab I could focus my
attention totally on teaching rather than judging. {And students
could focus on learning rather than being judged.} For example, I
could ask and answer any question freely, thinking only about what was best
for the students. When I did decide to withhold information my only
motivation was pedagogical, and the purpose was to challenge students, to
make them think, to let them play a more active role in their own learning.
I never had to worry about whether I was "giving away too much information"
about a question that I would be using to assign grades.
Discussion-based labs, which are extremely
useful (but not essential) for an Aesop's Activities approach to learning,
offer many educational advantages. But two critical questions are
discussed later.
GOAL-DIRECTED DESIGN
OF INSTRUCTION
How can we improve our labs?
A general process of design -- by developing goals, activities, and teaching
methods -- is outlined below. A detailed analysis
of the design process is provided by a model of Integrated
Design Method: first define goals (in this case, the desired
"learning outcome" characteristics for a system of labs);
then develop ideas for labs, and do mental experiments (to
generate predictions about student experiences and learning outcomes)
or do actual experiments (to generate observations about experiences
and outcomes); compare predictions with goals or compare observations
with goals; adjust ideas (and maybe goals) in an effort
to achieve a match between predictions/observations and goals. { In
order to learn from a wider range of educational "experiments"
we should consider all relevant experience, both first-hand and second-hand.
}
This process is inherently complex because
effective instructional design requires the careful consideration of many
interrelated factors and a wide variety of potential solutions. It
is even more complicated in a large university where -- by contrast with
a smaller school (or high school) where one course instructor is responsible
for both lectures and labs -- many people are involved, with ideas about
labs coming from instructors, TAs, lab director, coordinator, and support
staff. In such a setting, typically there is a diversity of opinions
about goals, activities, and methods, so it will be impossible to totally
please everyone. Instead, we can agree that a reasonable objective
is to aim for an optimal balancing of our alternative visions for education.
Here are a few of my own opinions:
In expressing these views there are
many "shoulds" that I hold with varying degrees of confidence
and perceived importance. But I know there are other rational perspectives,
and I recognize the need for flexibility and cooperation as we "aim
for an optimal balancing of our alternative visions."
TEACHING ASSISTANTS
In a large department, it
is difficult to get consistently high quality of teaching in general chemistry
labs that are taught by TAs who have a wide range of abilities, experience,
and motivation. An appropriate question -- Should we therefore avoid
any instruction that cannot be taught equally well by all TAs? -- is discussed
later.} This section will focus on three TA-related
aspects of labs: preparation, feedback, and policies.
preparation:
The goal is to help TAs be maximally effective with minimal investment of
their own time. In weekly training/discussion sessions, supplemented
by written tip-sheets, we can help TAs prepare for labs. { In addition,
there can be special "help sessions" for foreign TAs who are not
fluent in English, especially to help them prepare for discussion-based
labs. }
feedback: TAs are the most
valuable source of feedback about what is happening in labs and how this
can be improved, since they are teaching the labs and have direct contact
with students. Feedback can be gathered in the weekly preparation
sessions, by talking with TAs during or after labs, or observing interactions
during lab, and in informal conversations and e-mail. TAs will be
more eager to provide feedback if they know their
input will be used when labs are designed and policies are determined.
/ The lab director (or support staff,...) can also gather feedback
directly from students, but TAs are in a better position to do this on a
regular basis.
policies: When designing
labs and deciding course policies, one objective should be to make life
more pleasant and productive for TAs. We should always consider the
Golden Rule by asking: If I were a TA, what would I want the policy
to be? Even better, ask TAs what they want the policy to be.
Even though their opinions should not be decisive, since other factors are
involved, "what TAs want" should be an important consideration.
DISCUSSION-BASED LABS, PART 2
For students, discussion-based
labs (DB labs) can produce improved learning
with more fun. But if the quality of their lab experience depends
on interactions with a TA, what happens when students get a TA with less
ability, experience, or motivation? And if at the end of a lab the
discussion grid is totally filled with Xs, there is no basis for distinguishing
among students when assigning grades. These two critical questions
are discussed in this section.
I'm fairly shy in many situations, but
I enjoy thinking and talking about ideas. For me, DB labs make interactions
with students much easier, more enjoyable, and more effective for teaching.
Why? If there is no "reason" to talk with students, and
everything depends on my own social intuitions and actions, I often find
it difficult to achieve a balance between ignoring students and bothering
them with too much attention. But with the grid to provide motivation
(it must be filled with Xs before they can leave the lab!) students initiate
conversations, and we have a focus for our discussions, which usually are
intrinsically interesting for all of us, and also lead to small-talk that
produces social and emotional bonding, both student-TA and student-student.
DB provides a useful organizing structure for interactions
that lead to learning.
Consider four types of TAs in DB labs.
1) Those like myself, who are a bit shy but can talk about ideas, will usually
do better with DB. 2) TAs who are socially fluent will have a
great time, and so will their students. 3) Those who are shy
and not skilled at talking (even about ideas and chemistry) probably will
improve their skills, and will become better teachers. 4) Foreign
TAs, if they are not skilled in English, begin discussions with a fundamental
disadvantage. / TAs in the last two categories will improve
their social and linguistic skills as a natural result of the "listening
and talking" practice that occurs with DB labs. In conventional
labs these TAs usually take the easy way out by ignoring students and avoiding
conversations. By contrast, the structure of DB will lead to interactions
with students, and thus to opportunities for learning -- by students and
by TAs.
But the main goal should not be consistency
in TA quality. Although this will vary in DB-labs as in other aspects
of teaching, and some TAs will perform better than others, it is more important
to ask the pragmatic question of whether "the greatest good for the
greatest number of students" is promoted by DB. /
To achieve consistently high quality of teaching in labs, TA
preparation is a high priority. Good preparation will help all
TAs, especially those in the latter two groups who begin with a lower level of verbal comfort
and/or fluency, to improve their teaching quality. For example, these
TAs (and perhaps other TAs) might do better if they try to get students
to do more of the talking during discussions. And just "knowing
their stuff" will help TAs feel better and teach better.
If labs are part of a general chemistry
course, rather than the entire focus of a separate course, what are the
options for weighting the lab grades within this course?
1. No weight, so TAs don't assign lab
grades. { In four semesters of teaching physics I never assigned a
lab grade, and I thought this worked fine. }
2. Place less weight on lab grades when
determining the course grade.
3. Place more weight on lab grades, to
give students more external motivation for learning.
Discussion-based labs can be used with
any of these grading policies. I prefer 1 or 2, but I realize that
this may be the most controversial aspect of my proposal, and I'm flexible
about the question of grading.
What are the connections between accountability
and motivation? If there are no lab grades, as in Option 1, will this
hinder learning? Maybe not, because:
When a lab is well integrated with a
course, the course-exams can be designed to test the chedmistry concepts
being learned in labs, and maybe even the thinking skills that are the main
focus of labs.
There can still be accountability, even
with a policy of "no official grading." Just let students
know that labs will affect their course grade negatively if they skip labs
or are uncooperative (in attitudes or actions), or positively if they do
noticably good work in labs, especially if they are on a borderline between
grades. {In my experience, most students have been consistently cooperative.
Although external compliance does not guarantee full internal attention,
it is an encouraging indicator. }
Internal motivation can exist without
external accountability. I emphasize that, for students who will be
rewarded for thinking in their professional careers (and in life as a whole),
there is a high intrinsic value on learning how to think more skillfully.
Motivations for pursuing long-term intentional learning
should be independent of grading policies. {Of course, the intrinsic
value of learning should be strongly emphasized, no matter what grading
policy is adopted. }
If grades are assigned for lab, what
grading criteria can be used?
For activities done in lab: TAs
can evaluate the quality of labwork and discussions;
labs can be designed with built-in accountability for work that is
qualitative (such as doing detective work to find the identity of unknown
chemicals) or quantitative (determining a concentration or...).
Written reports for work done
inside the lab or outside.
Oral exams, skill exams
(to test lab techniques), and written exams.
comments: Many of these (labwork, discussions,
accountability, reports, skill exams) are typical components of conventional
grading policies. Oral exams can be excellent,
but only if they're done well; this is difficult and impractical when
using TAs with a wide variety of abilities and experience, but oral exams
might work well when all labs in a course are taught by one person, as in
a small department or a high school. Written
exams deserve closer examination, which is done in the following
two paragraphs.
A written lab-exam can ask questions
ranging from simple data analysis to high-level problems. Simple algorithmic
problems are easy to make by making variations (changing the chemicals,
numbers,...) on a few basic themes. But it is a challenge to construct
high-level problems that provide a reliably accurate measure of thinking
skills. If an exam will be used to assign lab grades, we want to differentiate
between varying levels of mastery by asking problems that vary in difficulty.
There should be some problems that most students solve, others that only
a few students solve, and some between these extremes. And success
on problems should be correlated with mastery of the thinking skills that
have been the focus of learning in labs.
The difficulty of constructing high-level
problems poses significant challenges. It requires difficult creative
and critical thinking, so in a small department the "benefit per student
per hour invested in making new problems each semester" may not be
worth the effort, and buying problems from test-constructing specialists
may be expensive. {A free exchange of exam problems between schools
could be useful.} Why do we need new problems? For a school
of any size, new problems will increase the level of justice in grading.
To minimize the advantages for students who have access to test files from
an organization (a fraternity, sorority, dormitory, instructional center,
athletic department,...) or tutor, questions from old exams should be available
to all students. Therefore, new problems are necessary. {But
including some old problems can be useful for motivating students to study
problems from previous exams, and to decrease the number of new problems
needed. } In a large department with parallel courses and sections-within-courses
that share the same system of labs and the same new questions, all students
should take a lab exam at the same time or there will be "leaks of
information" from students who have the exam earlier. And to
avoid leaks, TAs should not see the new problems until students see them;
TAs should "teach to the exam" by knowing the general
type of exam questions (similar to those on previous exams), but if they
know the specific questions there will be unavoidable
ethical dilemmas about what to teach.
METHODS FOR PROBLEM SOLVING
This is a bonus section, since
"models for methods" are not essential for any of the lab proposals
in this paper.
There are many interesting possibilities
for using my models of Integrated Scientific Method
(ISM) and Integrated Design Method (IDM)
for instructional design or for instruction, to help students learn the
interrelationships between the many different aspects of creativity and
critical thinking that are coherently combined in the problem-solving methods
used by scientists and designers.
In labs an obvious
starting point is the hypothetico-deduction
(in Section 1 of ISM) that is the logical foundation for scientific methods
of thinking. This leads naturally into the closely related logical
process of retroduction (Section 5).
Students should have an opportunity to analyze and design experiments
(Section 6). Students can even think about personal-cultural
factors (Sections 3 and 8), as in a discussion of how numerical values
get into the CRC Handbook, and how scientists handle their disagreements
with each other. And ISM's analysis of problem solving (in Section
7) can introduce students to the generalizability and transferability of
scientific methods.
In fact, the methods
of science (described in ISM) are a "special case" of a more generalized
method for design (described in IDM) in which a designer sets goals (for
the desired characteristics of a product, strategy, or theory), formulates
initial ideas, and then does experiments (either mental or physical) to
produce predictions or observations that can be compared with the goals,
to serve as a basis for modifications of the ideas.
If you want to learn more about these
models, visit my website, "Science and Design: Methods for Using Creativity
and Critical Thinking in Problem Solving" -- especially the HOME-PAGE
and the first four pages: GOALS SCIENCE DESIGN EDUCATION .
4. Examples of Aesop's Activities
This section describes examples of goal-oriented lab activities, drawn from my experience as a TA at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. / It is not finished now, on March 26. Parts of it, written in this blue-green color, are extremely rough or incomplete. A more complete version will be posted on Sunday, March 28.
Some activities, such as A-1 (Competing
Reactions), A-2 (Halogens and Halides), B-2 (Calibration Logic) and B-3
(The Logic of Le Chatelier), include examples of reflection
activities intended to direct students' attention to opportunities for
learning. Others, such as B-1 (A Mass-Spec Problem), merely show an
activity that provides a specific type of experience. Of course, reflective
questions could be asked for these activities, even though I haven't done
so here.
These activities will be described in
5 subsections: Observation-Based Thinking Skills
, Hypothetico-Deductive Logic , Data
Analysis , Miscellaneous , and Guided Inquiry .
4A. Observation-Based Thinking Skills
Experimental activities can
help students learn to use observation-based logic and to make
mental connections between levels of thinking: macro, micro,
and symbolic. As a secondary benefit, students also
learn chemistry concepts.
4B. Hypothetico-Deductive Logic
Students should have opportunities
to use hypothetico-deductive (HD) logic.
Here are several activities involving HD reasoning, selected from labs at
UW:
4E-a.
Principles of Inquiry Teaching
Opportunities for inquiry
occur when gaps in knowledge (intentionally
designed into an activity) produce a situation in which students are required
to think, and are allowed to think, on their own.
During guided inquiry instruction the
teacher, like a writer of a good mystery story, should aim for a level of
challenge that is "just right" so students will not become bored
if a problem is too easy, or frustrated if it is too difficult. The
goal is to provide enough guidance but not too much. Ideally, students
will succeed, and in doing so they will feel genuine intellectual and emotional
satisfaction because their success is highly valued due to the obstacles
they overcame during the process of problem solving.
For most students, inquiry experience
will promote active thinking and motivation, if the instruction is well
designed. But if not, the inquiry is more frustrating than stimulating.
{ Some frustration can be beneficial, but usually it should be limited and
temporary. }
The level of challenge can be adjusted
by preparation
before a problem begins (by giving students prior experience in solving
similar problems, by selecting the phenomena to be studied and the problems
to be solved, and by controlling the conceptual knowledge and procedural
information that is provided and is withheld) and by coaching during the process of problem solving (by observing
students as they work, and providing guidance by asking and answering questions,
directing attention and promoting reflection).
A strategy for building skills:
If students are having trouble with a certain type of problem, activities
can be designed to help students gradually improve their skills in this
area, thereby allowing a gradually increasing level of difficulty for the
problems being solved.
Another teaching strategy is to set the
initial difficulty higher than most students can cope with, and then give
personally customized assistance when it is needed, while students are solving
the problems. These improvised coaching interactions let a teacher
adjust the level of difficulty, and also provide opportunities to facilitate
learning that is conceptual and procedural, intellectual and emotional.
For another perspective on principles
of learning, quotations from a "cognitive apprenticeship" paper
(Collins, Newman & Brown, 1987) describe six ways a teacher
can provide guidance: by modeling, coaching,
and scaffolding, and by encouraging articulation,
reflection, and exploration.
EXAMPLES
This website provides two examples
of inquiry instruction: an in-depth study of a genetics classroom,
and an outline of a chemistry experiment (in Section 4E-b).
An In-Depth Study
My Ph.D. dissertation had two main
objectives: to construct a model of INTEGRATED SCIENTIFIC METHOD and to use this
model as a framework for the integrative analysis of an innovative
inquiry course taught by an award-winning teacher.
4E-b. An
Inquiry Lab
OBJECTIVES: In a lab
activity for General Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin in Madison,
students design experiments to determine the enthalpy change per mole of
acid-base reaction (in Part 1) and the precise concentration of a solution
of acetic acid (in Part 2).
RESOURCES that are available include:
a 25 mL graduated cylinder, thermometer (connected to computer for recording),
styrofoam coffee-cup calorimeter; .1 M NaOH (in lab the molarity will
be given to the nearest .001 M), 5% solution of Acetic Acid (AA);
and free information (from CRC, lab-book, textbook,...). /
Also, the weighing scales cannot be used for this experiment. (but this
limitation is optional)
The following discussion is in two parts: an equation that provides a framework for experimental design; questions that show some possibilities for guiding students.
An Equation
Early in the semester I remind
students about a commonly used "miles per hour"
strategy: If they want to find the speed in miles per hour, they divide the miles traveled (for a certain part of
a trip) by the hours (for the same part of
the trip). In chemistry the first analogous application is a grams per mole strategy, dividing
the grams (for a certain amount of substance) by
the moles (for the same amount of substance). { A typical problem
that can be solved using this strategy is: If 973.0 g of a compound,
X2O, is heated in H2 gas and is converted into 864.2
g of pure X, what is the atomic weight and chemical symbol of X? }
For Part 1 of this experiment we can use ana analogous strategy by.....
an explanation for the reader: Most of the rest of this "inquiry labs" section has been eliminated. Why? To prevent my own students (and those of other teachers at UW-Madison) from reading about their experiment on this page, getting "easy answers," and thereby spoiling their opportunity for a valuable learning experience. If you want to get the full unedited version of this section, send an e-mail to me (craigru178@yahoo.com) with an explanation of who you are and where I can find your e-mail address on an institutional website (I'll check this to be sure you're not a UW student trying to avoid thinking) and I'll send the section to you (in an html file you can read in your web-browser) as an e-mail attachment.
Hints and Questions
{and Answers} to Use or Avoid
This subsection shows, by
describing potential hints and questions and answers, some strategies a
teacher might use for adjusting the level of challenge in this inquiry lab.
At one extreme, we could just list the objectives
and resources and say "do it," with no additional questions,
hints, or information. The other extreme is to make the problem easy
for everyone, with minimal challenge, by asking every question below (and
more), discussing each in detail, explaining how to use "what can be
learned from each question" in the experimental design, and completely
answering all the questions of every student.
I don't make any claims about which of
the questions below should be asked and discussed (and in what depth), because
effective inquiry teaching depends on the students (their abilities and
experience, motivations and attitudes), the context of instruction, and
the goals of education. The main purpose of Section 4E-b is to illustrate
the complexity of inquiry teaching whose goal
is an intermediate level of clarity (for the
purpose of producing an optimal level of challenge),
in contrast with the simplicity of direct teaching
whose goal is a maximum level of clarity.
Here are some possibilities:
to the reader: Much of this section has been removed but (as explained above) you can get all of it by sending an e-mail request.
As discussed above, the purpose of this section is to illustrate the complexity of inquiry teaching, to show the difficulties involved in achieving a "just right" level of challenge, so that -- for most students -- the inquiry experience is stimulating rather than frustrating.
moderation in the use of inquiry:
I think every student should have
many opportunities for small-scale guided inquiry and at least one intensive
experience, as in Sue's course ,
because inquiry promotes experience that is productive
(for learning the process of science and how to cope with problem situations
in which "what to do next" is often not clear) yet
is unfortunately rare in conventional education.
But I don't think it would be beneficial
if every course was taught using inquiry methods, because even though
inquiry can help students learn scientific thinking skills (especially in
their first few experiences) and can improve motivation, usually it is not
efficient for learning the concepts of science. For a well-rounded approach
to lifelong education, we should encourage students to learn by active inquiry
and also by active reading, listening, and discussion. { Is "active reading" possible? }
a summary: In my opinion, some inquiry
experience is essential, but it should not be the main format for education.
APPENDIX
What is an Aesop's Activities approach?
This website's original home-page,
which describes an Aesop's Approach to instruction, appears below.
You can also check out the
current homepage.
Aesop's Fables are designed to teach
lessons about life. In a similar way, Aesop's Activities can teach
the higher-level thinking skills used in science. This analogy helps
to focus attention on the principle that education should be goal-directed,
with instructional activities done for a purpose.
This website -- which
is a proposal for a project I'd like to pursue
in cooperation with other chemistry educators, rather than a report on a
finished project -- describes a goal-directed strategy for helping students
learn thinking skills in the undergraduate general chemistry laboratory:
1) define educational goals in terms
of the skills [and associated concepts] to be learned by students,
2) design activities to provide experience
with these skills, and 3) develop teaching methods
that will direct students' attention to "what can be learned"
from their experiences.
While pursuing this 3-step strategy we
could work through the steps in order and aim for a fresh beginning with
a newly developed set of goals, activities, and methods. But another
approach, which is less radical because it builds on what already exists,
is usually more practical and immediately productive. In this approach
there is a flexible overlapping of steps, beginning with a goal-oriented
analysis of the activities now being used in a course.
During this analysis, which combines Steps 1 and 2, a careful examination
of activities (in Step 2) stimulates productive thinking about goals (in
Step 1), which in turn will inspire revisions or supplements to the existing
activities (in Step 2). Then in Step 3, as a logical extension of
the analysis in the first two steps, we add reflection
activities -- designed to encourage introspective reflection
by students about what is being done (Step 2) and what can be learned (Step
1) -- to the activities already being done in a lab. The overall result
of this Aesop's Activities approach is the modification of a current set
of labs.
Some techniques for
guiding inquiry,
from Collins, Brown & Newman (1987, pages 481-483):
"Modeling involves an expert's
carrying out a task so that students can observe and build a conceptual
model of the processes that are required to accomplish the task. In cognitive
domains, this requires the externalization of usually internal (cognitive)
processes and activities -- specifically, the heuristics and control processes
by which experts make use of basic conceptual and procedural knowledge.
"Coaching consists of observing
students while they carry out a task and offering hints, scaffolding, feedback,
modeling, reminders, and new tasks aimed at bringing their performance closer
to expert performance. Coaching may serve to direct students' attention
to a previously unnoticed aspect of the task or simply to remind the student
of some aspect of the task that is known but has been temporarily overlooked.
"Scaffolding refers to the
supports the teacher provides to help the student carry out a task. These
supports can either take the forms of suggestions or help."
"Articulation includes any
method of getting students to articulate their knowledge, reasoning, or
problem-solving processes in a domain.
"Reflection enables students
to compare their own problem-solving processes with those of an expert,
another student, and ultimately, an internal cognitive model of expertise.
Reflection is enhanced by the use of various techniques for reproducing
or 'replaying' the performances of both expert and novice for comparison.
"Exploration involves pushing
students into a mode of problem solving on their own."
An Example of Guided
Inquiry Instruction
In a conventional course,
students typically learn science as a body
of knowledge but not as a process of thinking,
and rarely do they have the opportunity to see how research science becomes
textbook science. A notable exception is a popular, innovative genetics
course taught at Monona Grove High School by Sue Johnson, who in 1990 was
named "Wisconsin Biology Teacher of the Year" by the National
Association of Biology Teachers, due in large part to her creative work
in developing and teaching this course. In her classroom, students
experience a wide range of problem-solving activities as they build and
test scientific theories and, when necessary, revise these theories.
After students have solved several problems that "follow the rules"
of a basic Mendelian theory of inheritance, they begin to encounter data
(generated by computer) that cannot be explained using their initial theory.
To solve this new type of problem the students, working in small "research
groups", must recognize the anomalies and revise their existing theory
in an effort to develop new theories that can be judged, on the basis of
the students' own evaluation criteria, to be capable of satisfactorily explaining
the anomalous data.
As these students generate and evaluate
theories, they are gaining first-hand experience
in the role of research scientists. They also gain second-hand
experience in the form of science history, by hearing or reading
stories about the adventures of research scientists zealously pursuing their
goal of advancing the frontiers of knowledge. A balanced combination
that skillfully blends both types of student experience can be used to more
effectively simulate the total experience of a scientist actively involved
in research. According to educators who have studied this classroom,
students often achieve a higher motivation level, improved problem-solving
skills, and an appreciation for science as an intellectual activity.
For details about this fascinating course, you can visit a web-page that describes THE COURSE AND ITS ANALYSIS and includes a link to let you download my dissertation.
Can reading be
active?
In her excellent book "On Becoming
an Educated Person" Virginia Voeks describes how you can learn more
when you read: "Start with an intent to make the very most you can
from whatever you read. Treat the author as you do your friends.
When talking with a friend, you listen attentively and eagerly. You
watch for contributions of value and are sensitive to them. You actively
respond to his ideas with ones of your own. Together you build new
syntheses." Reading is more fun and more productive when you
approach it with an attitude of enthusiastic expectation. Expect the
author to share new ideas and fresh perspectives. When you search
with alert awareness for useful ideas, you will see them. Reading
then becomes refreshingly stimulating. Of course, you can use this
positive attitude to take full advantage of every opportunity for learning,
in all modes of experience in all areas of life. { This excerpt is
from a section on CONCENTRATION
in a website about Tools for Learning and Problem
Solving. }
citations
Carl Bereiter & Marlene
Scardamalia: 1989. "Intentional Learning as a Goal of Instruction,"
in Knowing, Learning, and Instruction, edited by L. Resnick.
Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
David Perkins & Gavriel Salomon:
1988. "Teaching for Transfer," in Educational Leadership
46, pages 22-32. The authors propose three basic
all rights are reserved for all material in this website,
copyright 2000 by Craig Rusbult
if you have any comments or questions, or
if you're interested in working on this project,
please contact me by e-mail: craigru178@yahoo.com
craigru178@yahoo.com
the URL of this page is
http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~crusbult/methods/lab-99cl.htm
OFF-PAGE LINKS that are
in the first paragraph of this page:
SCIENCE
AND DESIGN: METHODS FOR
USING CREATIVITY AND CRITICAL THINKING IN PROBLEM SOLVING
current homepage (April 2000)
for "Thinking Skills in Chemistry Labs"
METHODS FOR SCIENCE AND DESIGN
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