JCE Software, 6B1: Editorial

Computers as Tools for Students

John W. Moore
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1396

Note:
This issue is out of print.

Several aspects of computer use have been identified as important components of the curriculum from the earliest days of instructional computing. A computer can act as a tutor, as a tester, as a simulator, as a calculator, and as a manipulator of symbols and graphic images. The last two, and possibly the others, involve computers as tools that most chemists use in their everyday work. Today lab reports and even lab notebooks are handled using spreadsheets, word processors, and graphics software that was not even available a decade and a half ago. It is often said that chemistry is what chemists do, and so it is useful to consider whether these everyday tools that chemists use to do their work ought to be part of the curriculum that educates future chemists.
One aspect of this question is the extent to which our traditional teaching methods and curriculum inhibit change in the direction of incorporating new tools. I can well remember controversy in the early seventies about whether students should be permitted to use electronic calculators in chemistry courses. At first they were banned. An early argument against calculators was that they were expensive and not every student could afford one. Soon prices came down to the point were there were few introductory courses that did not require a calculator just as slide rules had been required before. Many instructors capitalized on students' new ability to handle more complicated calculations by getting rid of test questions in which the numbers had been adjusted to come out nicely. This made exams more like what a student would face in a real-world situation.
Not as obvious is the fact that a student who can afford a high-powered calculator still has an advantage. Programmable calculators now come with algorithms for solving the standard general-chemistry (and higher-level) problems; a student who sets up his or her calculator before an exam can do problems by rote with very little thought, provided the problem type can be recognized. Textbooks aid and abet this by having myriad example problems, and by collecting together and labeling questions of the same type at the end of each chapter. It is also possible to program text and physical constants into a calculator, making an electronic crib sheet, and some students' calculators have screen displays that show every step in a problem, obviating the need to show work as a problem is solved. Is it fair to students to tell them they are not allowed to use the neat holiday present their parents gave them--especially when they would be rewarded for using the most powerful tools possible in a real-world situation? Is it fair to other students not to do so?
What should we do? Ban calculators? Ban calculators that are too powerful? Current consensus seems to be against banning calculators, but the jury is still out on powerful calculators. I would argue that we ought to be rethinking our approach to teaching in light of the availability of tools like programmable calculators with large LCDs or other displays. Examinations need not be easier for someone with a programmable calculator, or at least parts of an examination can be constructed so as to find out whether a student understands how to solve problems without simply asking for a numeric answer. For example, a student can be asked to set up a problem but not do the calculation and be graded on how clearly the setup is done. Or, a completely different kind of question can be asked that gets at the point of interest but does not involve a numeric calculation. An example would be asking students to list ions present in an aqueous solution of a weak acid in order of decreasing concentration, without calculating any concentrations at all.
One of the programs in this issue, Robert Allendoerfer's Equilibrium Calculator, provides a curricular challenge similar to that of calculators. If any equilibrium expression can be solved for equilibrium concentrations automatically, by rote, given sufficient input data to define the system, do we need to teach how to set up and solve equilibrium problems? Equilibrium Calculator takes as input an equilibrium constant value and initial concentrations for each of up to five reactants and up to five products. This covers most single equilibria of interest, and certainly covers all that are included in general chemistry courses. Should we simply ban (or ignore) this program, or can we use it as a tool for students that will allow them a much wider range of problems to solve and questions to answer? Do we know what questions (or kinds of questions) to ask students to solve with such a tool? Or are we so caught up in the difficulties of teaching how to solve equilibrium problems that we have trouble seeing beyond algorithms to real-world problems the algorithms are used to solve? I have some personal ideas about this, but I would be interested in learning from readers about their approaches to such questions.
If history is any guide, we will eventually embrace powerful programmable calculators and even computers as among the tools of the trade that students should use and learn about while they are learning chemistry. The number of such tools is already large. I have commented in the past about the efficacy of using spreadsheets for students' data and calculations, and word processors have been almost uniformly adopted. Some other examples where computers and technology serve as enabling tools are molecular modeling software (such as HyperChem, MacMolecule, and CAChe systems), symbolic mathematics programs (such as Mathcad and Mathematica), statistical, data-analysis, and plotting packages, various quantum chemical and molecular mechanics packages (some of which are built into HyperChem and CAChe systems), electronic-mail, conferencing, and other communications programs, and even presentation software that can be used to improve the dissemination of results. If any readers are using these or other similar tools as part of the curriculum, it would be useful to learn what you have been doing and to begin a discussion of how best to do it.

First Published: April 1993
Citation: Moore, J. W. Computers as Tools for Students J. Chem. Educ. Software 6B1
Keywords:

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Last Updated: April 26, 2001
Created: December 3, 1996 Created by: J. L. Holmes
Comments to: jceonline@chem.wisc.edu

© 1997 Division of Chemical Education, Inc., American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.



Computers as Tools for Students
John W. Moore University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1396

Note:	This issue is out of print.

Several aspects of computer use have been identified as important components of the curriculum from the earliest days of instructional computing. A computer can act as a tutor, as a tester, as a simulator, as a calculator, and as a manipulator of symbols and graphic images. The last two, and possibly the others, involve computers as tools that most chemists use in their everyday work. Today lab reports and even lab notebooks are handled using spreadsheets, word processors, and graphics software that was not even available a decade and a half ago. It is often said that chemistry is what chemists do, and so it is useful to consider whether these everyday tools that chemists use to do their work ought to be part of the curriculum that educates future chemists. One aspect of this question is the extent to which our traditional teaching methods and curriculum inhibit change in the direction of incorporating new tools. I can well remember controversy in the early seventies about whether students should be permitted to use electronic calculators in chemistry courses. At first they were banned. An early argument against calculators was that they were expensive and not every student could afford one. Soon prices came down to the point were there were few introductory courses that did not require a calculator just as slide rules had been required before. Many instructors capitalized on students' new ability to handle more complicated calculations by getting rid of test questions in which the numbers had been adjusted to come out nicely. This made exams more like what a student would face in a real-world situation. Not as obvious is the fact that a student who can afford a high-powered calculator still has an advantage. Programmable calculators now come with algorithms for solving the standard general-chemistry (and higher-level) problems; a student who sets up his or her calculator before an exam can do problems by rote with very little thought, provided the problem type can be recognized. Textbooks aid and abet this by having myriad example problems, and by collecting together and labeling questions of the same type at the end of each chapter. It is also possible to program text and physical constants into a calculator, making an electronic crib sheet, and some students' calculators have screen displays that show every step in a problem, obviating the need to show work as a problem is solved. Is it fair to students to tell them they are not allowed to use the neat holiday present their parents gave them--especially when they would be rewarded for using the most powerful tools possible in a real-world situation? Is it fair to other students not to do so? What should we do? Ban calculators? Ban calculators that are too powerful? Current consensus seems to be against banning calculators, but the jury is still out on powerful calculators. I would argue that we ought to be rethinking our approach to teaching in light of the availability of tools like programmable calculators with large LCDs or other displays. Examinations need not be easier for someone with a programmable calculator, or at least parts of an examination can be constructed so as to find out whether a student understands how to solve problems without simply asking for a numeric answer. For example, a student can be asked to set up a problem but not do the calculation and be graded on how clearly the setup is done. Or, a completely different kind of question can be asked that gets at the point of interest but does not involve a numeric calculation. An example would be asking students to list ions present in an aqueous solution of a weak acid in order of decreasing concentration, without calculating any concentrations at all. One of the programs in this issue, Robert Allendoerfer's Equilibrium Calculator, provides a curricular challenge similar to that of calculators. If any equilibrium expression can be solved for equilibrium concentrations automatically, by rote, given sufficient input data to define the system, do we need to teach how to set up and solve equilibrium problems? Equilibrium Calculator takes as input an equilibrium constant value and initial concentrations for each of up to five reactants and up to five products. This covers most single equilibria of interest, and certainly covers all that are included in general chemistry courses. Should we simply ban (or ignore) this program, or can we use it as a tool for students that will allow them a much wider range of problems to solve and questions to answer? Do we know what questions (or kinds of questions) to ask students to solve with such a tool? Or are we so caught up in the difficulties of teaching how to solve equilibrium problems that we have trouble seeing beyond algorithms to real-world problems the algorithms are used to solve? I have some personal ideas about this, but I would be interested in learning from readers about their approaches to such questions. If history is any guide, we will eventually embrace powerful programmable calculators and even computers as among the tools of the trade that students should use and learn about while they are learning chemistry. The number of such tools is already large. I have commented in the past about the efficacy of using spreadsheets for students' data and calculations, and word processors have been almost uniformly adopted. Some other examples where computers and technology serve as enabling tools are molecular modeling software (such as HyperChem, MacMolecule, and CAChe systems), symbolic mathematics programs (such as Mathcad and Mathematica), statistical, data-analysis, and plotting packages, various quantum chemical and molecular mechanics packages (some of which are built into HyperChem and CAChe systems), electronic-mail, conferencing, and other communications programs, and even presentation software that can be used to improve the dissemination of results. If any readers are using these or other similar tools as part of the curriculum, it would be useful to learn what you have been doing and to begin a discussion of how best to do it.


News \| Issues \| CD-ROM / Video \| Find It! \| Technical Support \| For Authors
JCE Online \| Journal \| Software \| Internet \| Happenings \| About JCE \| Contact JCE

Last Updated: April 26, 2001 Created: December 3, 1996	Created by: J. L. Holmes Comments to: jceonline@chem.wisc.edu

© 1997 Division of Chemical Education, Inc., American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.