It always seems like we're starting from further behind than a lot of the other sciences are because they seem to know less about chemistry when they get here. If I say ‘think of a famous physicist’ you probably already have thought of three. Then you could go outside and ask someone to think of a famous physicist and they'd probably think of at least one of the same ones. You do the same thing with biologists. If I say to think of a famous chemist … that's within chemistry circles, we can't do it. We can name one but you know if you go out there and say, ‘Who is this person?’ they've
The concept of a continuum is, I think, really important in chemistry and… what I see is that students come up with this issue of things being black or white. They struggle with this concept of the in between stuff.
I know it's hard for them to 'suspend reality' and just accept a concept. They grasp for real life examples or metaphors which make sense to them. Students don't like the concept of something that can shift/change. They like one answer which is set and that's it, right or wrong - not 'shifts to the left/right'.
Difficulties are having to relearn something that they thought was true from school and not understanding the evolving nature of science. New knowledge is easier to assimilate than changing old knowledge.
Students see equations and panic. Students struggle to transfer mathematical knowledge to chemical situations. Students silo knowledge and find it hard to relate concepts to actual systems.
They [students] expect to either succeed or fail immediately or very quickly on particular problems. They do not see the process as a learning process.
We do an awful lot of focus on teaching but realisticly, authentic assessment that actually engages the student, that’s a tougher ask... I set a lot of essay type assignments.
I think to get the students to straight away mark for somebody else what they’ve just done and then to mark or take part in the marking of two other versions of the same thing is really powerful. So it’s not so much me directly finding out what they do and don’t understand but using methods by which they can diagnose for themselves. I haven’t got this, she has, or yep I have got most of that, she hasn’t, and I can see where she went wrong. Very powerful, very powerful indeed.
