How to Increase Problem Solving Abilities

Melanie Cooper from Clemson University was yesterday’s speaker at the chemistry department colloquium.  Her talk was about research in chemical education about what increases problem solving abilities in general chemistry students, most of which she has published in the J. Chem. Ed. vol. 85, pg 866 (2008) (sorry, not a free article).  I’ll highlight what she and her co-workers found, but for the full story you really should just read the article.

One of the first issues she dealt with was exactly what she meant by problem solving, which she quotes from Anderson as “What you do when you don’t know what to do.”  Her talk, and the JCE paper referenced above, both center on students solving open ended, ill-defined problems (so, not something like, how many Ne atoms are there in 1 g of Ne?).    Students in her study were applying previously acquired knowledge to case-based problems.  The results of the study debunk five common myths about learning and problem solving.

Active Classrooms

A post by Joshua Kim at the Technology and Learning blog from Inside Higher Education caught my attention this morning. The title, “Demand and Supply” is a reference to what Joshua sees as a problem – lack of demand by students for active learning classrooms. He asks, “Why do students seem content with a lecture based class system?”. I won’t spoil his post – you should go read it.

My own opinion is that most students adapt to whatever mode of instruction is used in a classroom. They are busy, and no matter how much we’d like to think they concentrate on our classes (you know, the full 2-3 hours outside of class for every hour spent in class), I don’t think it is likely they do. In class, they may be distracted, sleepy, hungover… In other words, they aren’t really thinking about how they’d prefer to be instructed. Of course, some students do. For example, I had a student tell me last fall that, “I do much better in courses that the teacher just tells me what I need to know and I don’t have to think.” Really, a student said that to me.

I’ve found that most students adapt well to an active classroom. I feel it is important to spend some time at the outset helping them discover why active participation in their learning is valuable. I don’t collect data about how they perform compared to traditional instruction, but there are many studies that show active learning is especially helpful for D & C students, and that A students retain more information than in traditional (lecture only) classrooms.

Ultimately, instruction should be up to the instructor. The instructor should teach using a style they are comfortable with – but should be aware of what educational research says. To me, that would be like trying to do research without reading the literature. Just plain crazy.

Three Day POGIL Lab Workshop June 2009

I am serving as the local host of a three day POGIL (process oriented guided inquiry learning) workshop on labs for the next three days. If you follow the link, you can learn a lot about POGIL. This is the third three day POGIL workshop that Linfield has hosted, and the fifth workshop that I’ve been part of either as a participant or participant/host.

If you really want to know a lot about POGIL, follow the link above. Briefly, POGIL is

Carnegie Foundation – Bring Math & Science Education to the Forefront

An article (Mobilization for Math and Science Education) in today’s Inside Higher Ed news caught my eye. Briefly, the Carnegie Foundation completed a study that calls for better Math and Science education so that America will remain economically competitive into the 21st century. Specifically, their report tilted “The Opportunity Equation” calls for:

… the Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education challenges the nation to mobilize for coordinated action to:

On Undergraduate Research

Inside Higher Education posted an article today reporting on a panel discussion about the Council on Undergraduate Research’s (CUR) new book, Broadening Participation in Undergraduate Research:
Fostering Excellence and Enhancing the Impact (Editors – Mary Boyd, Dean of Arts and Science at the University of San Diego, and Jodi Wesemann[1], director of higher ed for the American Chemical Society). There seems to be some suggestion that faculty are not “on board” – that we don’t want to do undergraduate research because

(faculty) often deem undergraduates “unreliable” and “risky” as research project partners because they tend to change majors or otherwise commit limited time and energy to the discipline; professors want to know what their return on investment will be

which might adversely affect progress towards tenure.

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow UP?

Thanks to Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles for finding an interesting link to a post at Science Progress:  “What Does This Generation Think it Means to be a Scientist?“  Chris Mooney writes

If there’s one thing you ought to be reading in relation to science this week, let me suggest it’s Bruce Alberts’ extremely important recent editorial in Science about the changing career trajectories of young researchers. Alberts, a Science Progress advisory board member, provides data to back up something that has struck me anecdotally on many visits to college campuses—namely, hordes of young scientists today don’t seem to want to follow in the footsteps of their professors.

I took Chris’ suggestion and read the editorial, and agree – you should read it.  Especially if you are currently a student studying science.  In the 12 years or so that I’ve been a professor (a profession that I love by the way) it has been a privilige to be a research mentor over 30 students.  Of those 30 students, none have followed me into academia.  So what have they done?

Time for Exams!

We’re in the midst of the semester right now, which means that many classes are having midterms, or in the case of most of the chemistry classes, their second exam of the semester.  One of the things that I always wonder about is how much time students should be allowed for taking an exam.  We don’t seem to have a hard and fast rule here, except for finals, and I don’t know of any institution that does.  It seems to pretty much depend on what the instructor decides is best.

I write exams so that a well prepared student should be able to complete the exam during one course meeting.  This may not be exactly one hour.  For example, 3 credit classes that meet M,W,F have 50 minutes of class time.  3 credit classes that meet T,Th have an hour and fifteen minutes.  I feel that if I’m going to give exams during class, students should be able to finish them and move on to their next class.  I’m a stickler about making them finish on time too, but I don’t often have to kick people out.

So I get frustrated when students miss my classes or are late because an exam in their preceeding class ran late.  (I also get very frustrated with students who are always late becase their previous class ran late…).  Obviously I can’t do anything about either of these, except to contact the instructors of those classes and remind them that some of their students are in my class and I like it when they are there on time.

What are some of your thoughts about exams?  Do you prefer in-class exams?  Should extra time be given to students who want/need it?  Is that fair?  What about take-home exams?

The Power of Informal Mentoring

Janet at Adventures in Science and Ethics just posted an excellent story about how important informal mentoring can be. By informal, I mean mentoring coming from someone who is not directly your research advisor or academic advisor. It’s worth a read, so go there and take a look.

On Science Education

One of my colleagues recently passed along an article from the spring issue of Liberal Education by James Trefil: “Science Education for Everyone.  Why and What?” He argues that science education for scientists and engineers is ok, or at least in “pretty good shape” (some might argue with that).  His focus is on non-scientists, and the science they need to get from a college education:

“My sense is that the main problem with general education in the sciences is that we have set ourselves the wrong goal. Rather than think about the problem of producing miniature scientists, let me advance a Modest Proposal for an alternate goal: Students should be able to read the newspaper on the day they graduate. What I am suggesting is that we think about the way our students will use their science education in later life, and then adopt goals that support those uses.”

I agree with him, which I guess means that I must be some kind of outlier.  At least, that’s the sense I get from the rest of his piece – that most colleges and universities would rather run a “Physics for Poets” (or substitute Chemistry, Biology, …) course than the types of issues related courses he proposes.  At the same time, I think that the science departments here do a good job of just these types of courses for non-majors.

Anyway, the article is worth reading.

Convocation – Quickly

Convocation is the official ceremony to start the academic year.  It is usually only attended by the freshmen, who are required to go, a few faculty (in their regalia), some trustees and a few members of the community.  This year was different.  Not only is it the official convocation for our sesquicentennial, but the speaker was David Relin, co-author with Greg Mortenson of Three Cups of Tea which was the common reading for this year’s freshman class.