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A Window into the Future
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John W. Moore
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1396 |
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This issue is out of print. |
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What will teaching materials look like in five or ten years? The programs in this issue provide two different views, but perhaps both are accurate. One is an interactive, hypertext-based simulation of the development of theories of chemical bonding during the 19th century. The other is a live book on quantum chemistry that could only have been written on a computer. Whether or not you plan to use them in your classes, you should look at them carefully as bellwethers of what our future may become. Enhancing Quantum Chemistry with Mathcad provides a real enhancement. Here is a textbook that encourages students to explore and try things out. Each of the Mathcad documents in this collection is devoted to one quantum-mechanical problem. Each provides equations, graphs, and/or tables of data, and the equations are linked to the graphs or tables. By simply entering a new number, or editing an equation or formula, a student can explore the effects of a wide range of variables, and even of changing the model used to solve a particular problem. In the process students learn how to operate a program that will serve them well as a calculational tool throughout their careers. The Mathcad documents in this issue provide a set of interactive notes on typical quantum chemical problems. But this set of notes calculates and displays results, and students or teachers can add their own annotations or new problems. The possibilities are endless. More than a decade ago Gordon Barrow developed a set of teletype-terminal based programs that he referred to as a physical chemistry playground. That playground has become much, much more sophisticated, as evidenced by Frank Rioux's Mathcad materials. Not only can one play, but the results and the insights gained can be easily and permanently recorded and made available to others. Mathcad and other similar programs (1) can serve as a basis for cooperative group learning projects, as well as helping individual students to learn. I have used Bonding Theory/Werner-Jorgensen in my general chemistry course quite successfully. Students explore the concepts and learn about the people who developed the precursors of our modern bonding theories. Eventually they do simulated experiments and interpret them in order to decide which theory about the structures of coordination compounds they want to support: Werner's coordination theory or the Blomstrand/Jorgensen chain theory. The result is not clear-cut until after they have been asked to make a commitment to one theory or the other. Like the Lake Study and BCTC simulations (2, 3), also by David Whisnant, Bonding Theory/Werner-Jorgensen is an excellent introduction to the scientific method. Students are placed into the position that a real scientist would occupy trying to decide which of two competing theories to adhere to on the basis of incomplete experimental evidence. A great deal can be learned about how science operates from such a simulation. However, Bonding Theory/Werner-Jorgensen goes much further. Students can also learn about structures of coordination compounds, stereoisomerism, and theories of chemical bonding from this program. Just as in research one learns about a lot of things simply because they need to be used to solve a problem, in this and other computer simulations students pick up knowledge that does not seem to be the primary purpose of the software. In my case, there were no lectures on structures of coordination compounds either before or after the students used the program. Instead I let the software carry the instruction. We are beginning to have a reasonably large set of programs to which we can turn for specific instructional tasks, and this is certainly one of them. Another aspect of this program is noteworthy. It was originally designed to be used with students who did not intend to major in scientific fields. However, it is an excellent tool for helping science majors understand the scientific method and learn about the structures and properties of coordination compounds. A colleague remarked recently that it is a shame that we put all the interesting stuff--applications of chemistry to the real world, familiarity with the process of science, interactions of chemistry with government, business, and society into the course for nonscience majors. It is almost as if we do not intend for our majors to find out what a fascinating, useful, and broadly interdisciplinary subject we have devoted our lives to. Science instruction will be considerably improved when we recognize that it is OK to let science majors in on the really interesting stuff. Indeed it is essential! Let's do more of it, and let's provide support and kudos for people like David Whisnant who help us. Literature Cited |
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Last Updated: April 26, 2001 Created: December 3, 1996 |
Created by: J. L. Holmes Comments to: jceonline@chem.wisc.edu |
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| © 1997 Division of Chemical Education, Inc., American Chemical Society. All rights reserved. | |