Cheating

Simply acknowledging that ethical and civic problems exist is not enough. We need to model good behavior and encourage our students to do the same. It was almost refreshing to read the results of the Charlesworth, Charlesworth, and Vician study on the use of Web-based course tools for assessment purposes. I say, almost, because some students are still going to attempt to cheat the system (and ultimately themselves), regardless of the deterrents added. The potential of increasing the likelihood of students cheating is one of the major reasons that many teachers shy away from using online course management systems, such as WebCT. Charlesworth, Charlesworth, and Vician report that, according to their students, engaging in inappropriate testing behavior is no more prevalent when WebCT is used than when assessments are delivered in the typical face-to-face fashion. Another interesting point is that the group of students whose GPAs were between 2.4 and 3.0 are more likely to cheat as compared to groupings of students whose GPAs are outside this range. How cheating is perceived by high school students is also interesting. Del Carlo, Mazzaro, and Page report that students mostly define cheating from standpoints of fairness and understanding.

What can we do to help students in the learning process? Green and Rollnick suggest: structure the content, present the material with enthusiasm, and if there’s an intervention that works don’t be afraid to try a new pedagogical approach. The way tests are constructed may add undue stress to students’ testing situations. Cheung has developed an innovative program to help chemistry teachers learn to write better multiple-choice assessments. A Test Construction Support System for Chemistry Teachers is available as a supplement to Cheung’s article.

Classroom Models

Bringing seminal experiments into the classroom is always appealing. One such way is to use analogies of these classic experiments and another is to use physical models to bring abstract concepts to life. This month’s Classroom Activity and related article are an excellent example of how to employ magnets to let students model the data collection of Millikan’s oil-drop experiment. Classifying matter is another basic skill that students need to understand. Atoms, molecules, and other abstract terms are hard to understand for some students. Blake, Hogue, and Sarquis have developed a simple approach using paper clips to help students construct models in hopes that the definitions of these basic terms will become more concrete and better understood. Cox presents information regarding DNA and how a tangible model can be employed by students to make sense out of its complexity. Bain et al. discuss even larger models that simulate molecules with multifaceted biomolecular structures. More ideas on how to incorporate images and videos into your presentations can be found in Chemistry Comes Alive! Volume 8. Check it out!

Upcoming Events

The ACS National Meeting in San Francisco is this month. See the details on the High School Program. This meeting’s lineup looks like a winner. Opening remarks begin at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday in the San Francisco Marriott Hotel. Also, don’t forget to attend the CHED social hour and banquet on Saturday night.