in this issue

@ a @ The Forum on Teaching General Chemistry

The introductory chemistry course serves a diverse clientele-from chemistry majors

through engineers and pre-health professionals to liberal arts majors fulfilling a science requirement. Further, it must cover an equally diverse range of chemical topics to live up to its name: "general" chemistry. As a result of try- in^ to be all thines to all students. the course has been in- . . - tensely rriricizrd in recent years, with claims that it co\.ers too much. too fast. leavine students bewildered and hostile to science. ow ever, beyond the common consensus that the course tries to serve too many masters, there has been little agreement on what should be done. The problems with introductory chemistry are perceived very differently by the various constituencies involved. The physical chem- ist thinks the theoretical aspects are not taught rigorously enough. Those in other areas think there is too much the- oretical chemistry and not enough descriptive chemistry. Those interested in teaching students who will not go on in science think that mathematical manipulations and facts are emphasized to the detriment of understanding the role of science in our society.

These discussions have reached a critical point over the past few years with organized efforts underway to examine the general chemistry curriculum and propose reforms. The Journal has responded by creating a special on-going feature: The Forum. The Forum is dedicated to the discus- sion of the perceived problems of the general chemistry curriulum and their possible solutions. The Forum will be the venue for the Task Force on the General Chemistry Curriculum, which is a creation of the ACS Division of Chemical Education. The curent philosophic stand of the Task Force and its initial mode of operation is described by Rickard (page 175) in the first Forum offering in this issue. It is expected that these early organizational ideas for the Task Force will evolve as the Task Force develops.

Rickard's article is followed by a short piece giving de- tails of a three-day symposium that the Task Force will hold at this summer's Biennial Conference in Chemical Education in Davis, California. Readers interested in the various aspects of general chemistry reform should contact members of the Task Force to express their view or to as- sist withthe work of the Task Force.

Following the Task Force Report are three major ad- dresses given under FIPSE auspices at the Atlanta ACS

Meeting last spring. As part of The Forum on general chemistry they examine the basis for refocusing the curric- ulum.

Hawkes (page 178) addresses the question "Why Should They Know That?" and presents four propositions. First, he contends nobody knows what portions of the course are actually valuable to students in their careers. Second, this question needs careful research and a painfully honest evaluation of the teacher's own preconceptions about these needs. Third, much of what is taught is inaccurate or a simplification, and students are never told this is the case. Fourth, much of what is taught is of little value even to professional chemists, therefore it is hard to justify the time students spend learning it. He then goes on to pro- pose the kind of research that will objectively identify what is really useful to students and presents the results of an informal survey of his own regarding what knowledge is prerequisite for biochemistry courses and for reading sci- ence publications such as Science News.

Spencer (page 182) also approaches the question of what is really needed by the general chemistry student and proposes that the wurse be reduced to a core curricu- lum and optional modules. The latter can then be used to tailor the course to the needs of the specific p u p of stu- dents in question. He presents a list of things that ought not to be taught in theintroductory course and provides his own idea of what the core curriculum should contain.

Next, Bodner (page 186) goes one step further and states that changing the curriculum may not be enough. He asserts that much of the problem stems from the way chemistry is taught. Among other considerations, he be- lieves that we need to stress the idea that chemistry is an intellectual process not a series of unconnected ideas. Teachers need to find new ways of helping students be- come active rather than passive learners. He makes sev- eral suggestions and concludes with 14 points for discus- sion.

Directly following The Forum papers is an article by Nakhleh (page 191) that extends these discussions. She addresses the misconceptions that students commonly have about matter and how it interacts. Often teachers are not aware of these basic, underlying, false concepts that urevent students from learning chemistrv at several differ-

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ent cognitive levels. She @ves examples of the misconcep- tions both bv tvDe and education le\.cl. She concludes with a summary bf &e problems and offers specific suggestions of how teachers can alleviate them.

174 Journal of Chemical Education