Structure of the Community. The 1996 team consisted of six physical chemistry teachers. Long and Zielinski were two participants from the 1995 "How Hot is That Flame," on-line case study on-line project, see http://www.niagara.edu/~tjz/cases.html, http://www.niagara.edu/~tjz/dflame/flame1.html, or http://www.py.iup.edu/college/chemistry/chem-course/trialrun.html. They were joined at the 1996 BCCE by Deborah Sauder who wanted to get her students involved in an intercollegiate physical chemistry project and Marcy Towns who volunteered to be our chemical education assessment specialist. Roland Stout joined the group after it was announced the project on the PCOL WWW site at URL: http://www.iup.edu/~grlong/pcol.htm. Student participants came from the campuses of four of the faculty representatives. Zielinski served as the faculty facilitator for the project. The facilitator's role includes providing a neutral voice to respond to student questions and writing notes to student participants and faculty co-participants to promote communication across the community. Our plan was to design a case study that would be appropriate for the first few weeks of a typical physical chemistry course. Since all of the students in the activity were also taking a physical chemistry laboratory course, an exercise in curve fitting and model testing to develop students skills with statistics seemed most appropriate.

Scope of the Project. The project faculty wanted to do something early in the Fall semester. This would set the tone for their courses and leave open the possibility of other interactive projects for the community during the entire academic year. Long suggested investigating gas laws and Zielinski added that performing statistical analysis would further enhance the project. By using non-linear curve fitting strategies as implementeding equation engine software packages the faculty thought that the students would be able to do an interesting project combining the two themes. Since these topics are normally part of the first few weeks of a typical physical chemistry course, we decided to proceed. Long next suggested that we present the material as a case study in the form of a dialogue between an older van der Waals and a younger student or postdoc, Redlick or Kwong. A check of the career dates for these scientists showed that they did not really overlap so we chose a different approach. Instead Zielinski wrote a play that describes the interaction between a younger untenured faculty member and an emeritus senior colleague. The text of the play is located at URL http://www.iup.edu/~grlong/realgas.htm or http://www.niagara.edu/~tjz/cases.html. A study guide to assist students as they extract the required data for the project and provide some initial support is at URL: http://www.iup.edu/~grlong/studygui.htm. Included in the study guide were the goals and objectives of the project. The extensive bibliography on the gas laws developed with the assistance of the Computerized Index of the Journal of Chemical Education (available from the Journal of Chemical Education: Software) is at URL: http://www.iup.edu/~grlong/referen.htm. The materials developed for this on-line venture were designed to foster the development of connections between topics in the curriculum and to increase retention of these concepts through the rich contextual format of a case scenario. We designed the project so that students would work in groups to facilitate their progress and to emphasize the importance of group work for solving difficult problems in chemistry.

Access to the Project. Students and participating faculty signed onto the listserv at Listserver@long.ch.iup.edu in the usual fashion. Faculty refrained from using the list during the project in order to give students a non-intimidating medium for the exchange of ideas. The reasoning here was the same as for the Fall 1995 "Hot Flame" project; a full description of which can be found in the paper "Physical Chemistry On-Line: A Small Scale Intercollegiate Interactive Learning Experience." G. Long, R. Howald, C. A. Miderski, and T. J. Zielinski, Chem. Educator 1(3): S 1430-4171(96)03032-4 Avail. URL: http://journals.springer- ny.com/chedr (1996).

Scientific Content. In the play Prof. Wall and Doc. Red discuss how the equation engine software package Mathcad or a spreadsheet program might be used to have students learn how to do non-linear curve fitting. Doc. Red thinks that the students should be able to `discover' the a and b values for the van der Waals and the Redlich-Kwong equations. She further asserts that with simple matrix techniques the students would be able to determine the standard deviations of the fitting parameters and then use the F test as described in the physical chemistry laboratory text by Shoemaker et al. to choose the best mathematical model for the data. After all, the required integrals and other mathematical techniques are simple and the algorithm for non-linear curve fitting with the Mathcad Minerr function is robust enough for student use. According to the enthusiastic Doc. Red a sample non-linear curve fitting document would give the students the basics of the process and a preprint of a paper by Zielinski and Allendoerfer ("Least Squares Fitting of Non-linear Data in the Undergraduate Laboratory." T. J. Zielinski, and R. D. Allendoerfer, J. Chem. Educ. (accepted for publication, September 1996)) would provide the algorithm for the determination of the standard deviation of the fitting parameters. Doc. Red is sure the method is accessible to students. The cautious Dr. Wall thinks the approach is too hard for the typical physical chemistry student.

The First Stage. The materials for the case study were shared with faculty participants the week before the start of the on-line work by the students. Zielinski worked out the full solution to the curve fitting exercise including the evaluation of the standard deviations of the fitting parameters. The Mathcad solution for the project was a bit difficult in some parts but she felt that students could do this if they worked in groups and had access to an instructor, their laboratory text, and the on-line exchange of information between groups on the different campuses. Overall the project was well received by the faculty who reviewed the materials prior to having their students sign onto the listserv for the exercise. By mid September everything was in place for the two week on-line student `discovery' of mathematical modeling and model choice methods.

Then the Fun Began. All through the first two weeks of September the faculty used the listserv without a hitch. Zielinski learned that the Niagara e-mail server was unstable so she switched to a commercial provider to ensure smooth connectivity for the weeks when the students would be on line. At about the time that the students signed on to the listserv the Internet began to feel the crunch of excessive usage as students returning to campus after a long summer loaded the wires on each campus with messages to friends and family (or at least this is what we think). We also heard that Sprint decided that September was a good time to do an installation and upgrading of Internet links and that many of these, or so we were told by local SyOps, involved colleges and universities. Then the listserv software started to misbehave as a consequence of bounced messages due to the length of time various Internet nodes and computers were down. A hurricane hit and one campus, UNC-Pembroke, lost its connection to e-mail for several days. In other words, anything that could go wrong with technology did go wrong. All this happened just as the students were poised for a unique learning experience.

What happened to the listserv? Just as the first messages from students were appearing we began to notice that something was wrong. On September 20, the second day of the on-line session Doc Z received the following message from a student at Pembroke: "Dear Dr. Z, this operation is beginning to become frustrating. To date I have not received any email messages from anyone. Would you please see if there is any way that I can get these messages. Thank you." Like most students this one had a low tolerance level for non- functioning educational systems. Most of us were trying to send messages and few if any were getting through. We had to redesign the distribution plans and after a few days Doc. Z became the distributor for all messages for students signed on for the project. The next thing that the faculty noticed was that the students stopped writing letters. Through personal experience they learned about the fragility of technology; the problems with the Internet lessened their willingness to invest time and energy into the learning community beyond their own campus. All through this Doc Z sent encouraging messages to the students.

Problem Solving. Although the students seemed interested in exploring learning through a community formed among students from four campuses and were intrigued with the possibility of using the Internet to solve a chemistry problem, their enthusiasm waned as problems with the Internet grew. Simultaneously, the student's frustration grew as they realized that this project was truly a "problem" to be solved rather than an "exercise" for which there were well defined algorithms to be followed and a right answer to be found. Students are well acquainted with "exercises" and have an arsenal of formulas and algorithms with which to solve them. Couple that idea with the notion that students tend to pay more attention to the final answer rather than the process of getting the answer, and you have students who become frustrated when they are confronted with a real "problem." In our project their frustration manifested itself as an inability to ask questions ("I can't think of what to ask"), and frequent requests (off line as reported by faculty) to be told exactly what to do. Basically, the students had no heuristics to invoke and some lunged towards their professors in the hope that they would tell them exactly what to do.

Mathematics in Context. We found during the project that students' lack of familiarity with the language of statistics and calculus lead to an inability to formulate questions. Specifically, the students had difficulties understanding the mathematics used within textual form and within the software packages that we used . Students did not have a comfortable level of understanding of concepts such as "the sum of the squares of the deviations', or the methods of least squares for fitting a straight line to data. Furthermore, they also appeared to have only a cursory understanding of the standard deviation concept. All students had no idea at all about using statistics to choose between mathematical models for physical systems. But there were other factors, those dealing with personal image, that may have colored their quietness.

Looking Smart. In reflecting back to the behavior of the students during the project we wondered if their unwillingness to ask each other or Doc. Z questions on the net is a result of the social pressure to not appear "dumb" in front of other students. This status system in which "smartness" is inversely related to asking questions in front of peers, deems that the "less apparent effort" which a student put towards achieving good grades, the smarter the student must be (Seymour, 1995. The loss of women from Science, mathematics, and engineering undergraduate majors: An explanatory account. Science Education, 79, 437-473). Students who buy into this vision of "smartness" would be very unwilling to divulge to others that they did not know what to do.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place. So, we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place. We want to give students authentic "problems", not exercises to solve. As juniors and seniors they should stretch their problem solving abilities to include ill-defined problems in addition to the nice neat exercises that they have encountered within most textbooks. However, if they do not have the combination of technical knowledge, communication skills and interpersonal skills to ask a question, then what can we do?. First, we need to create problem solving experiences which encourage them to link concepts from other courses such as calculus and analytical chemistry, to activities in physical chemistry. Second, we need to reward students for working together effectively and for displaying good oral and written communication skills. Students need practice in analyzing authentic "problems", adapting what they know to this new situation. Indeed, we may need to teach them how to break up larger problems into smaller more easily solvable subsections. Finally, students need help in formulating questions so that they can gain access to the information that they need.

Formulating Questions. The observation that students have difficulties in formulating questions also appeared in the "Hot Flame" on-line student event. In the current case some of this may have to do with their inexperience with the language of statistics and calculus (and Mathcad or Maple). On the other hand it may be a reflection of the typical behavior we see in our classrooms where the remark, "are there any questions?" is met with golden silence. The general unwillingness of our students to talk to each other on the net, and to ask questions of Doc. Z during the process may be a result of a general unwillingness on the part of students to appear "dumb," by asking a questions to which "everyone else knows the answer," or to make any statement that may be considered "dumb" by "everyone else." Students clearly know how to listen but they do not know how to engage in a scientific dialogue. As a counter point to this there are also those students who would do well in this and any other technology based project if they would be told precisely what to do. These students cannot, on their own, design a plan of action to accomplish a task that is sketch out in broader strokes. This does not mean that the they are incapable of doing these things. Rather, it means that their educational experiences to date have not prepared them to do so. The same can be said of their ability to link concepts from other courses, such as calculus or analytical chemistry to activities in physical chemistry. Where do we train students or equip them with these skills? What learning situations will help them to develop these critical skills?

How did the students do? The students displayed an interesting set of behaviors over the weeks during which the on-line segment proceeded. These ranged from complete frustration and inability to function with the given data and the tools for the project to varying degrees of success at obtaining at least the a and b values for the fitting of the two gas laws to the pressure data for nitrogen. They all were able to fit the ideal gas law to the data and obtain a value for the gas constant R. The value of R was not the same as found in text books. One group suggested that the data was wrong. In the end the agreement between classes was unanimous and all groups recognized that the gas sample was not ideal at the temperature for the recorded pressure data. All of the groups had more trouble with finding the a and b values for the van der Waals equation. All groups eventually achieved this objective. The student groups using Maple at UNC-Pembroke had real difficulties with setting up the problem with this software package even thought they had used it in their calculus classes. The students at IUP quickly and dramatically learned that a cubic equation has three roots and that in curve fitting algorithms it is possible to get the wrong root if a poor initial guess is used. They were able to find all three roots for the RK equation by exploring different initial guesses. One solution has 2 negative values, another one has one negative and one positive. Long commented that these students will never look at computer curve fitting the same way again. Clearly the thrill of discovery and exploration makes this a very powerful learning experience. None of the groups successfully reached the stage of using the F test for determining the best mathematical model to use to represent gases.

Too Much at One Time. We may have hit the students with too many unfamiliar tasks all at once. Many students seemed to like the idea of on-line interaction, but they just had other more pressing things to do. It takes them much longer to write their thoughts, and they were less confident with the material. This type of project was so new to them, it took them almost the two weeks before they were familiar enough with the concepts to talk about them. Think about it - they were learning Mathcad, statistics, real gases, remembering calculus, and getting used to new professors. Even those students with some prior knowledge of the software had trouble. Those who were learning the software for the first time really put their shoulders to the wheel in this project. In addition to the software we asked them to use a new medium to communicate, and to figure many things out for themselves (there were no cookbook solutions in this project). They were really challenged by the project. Nevertheless all showed good spirit in the face of the challenge.

We Learned a Great Deal. Although the on-line segment did not meet the full expectations of the faculty participants, we did learn a great deal about how to do this type of project as we plan for the Spring 1997 event. The communication among the faculty and the project itself was very good. We think the students learned some important lessons and were ushered into the methods of scientific work where there are no guarantees of success and that much elbow grease is needed to find bring this type of project to completion. We also had time to reflect on how we might support student learning when we are not in our traditional dispensing information mode.

Digging in and Following Through. The `It's a Gas' case was a very good exercise to get the students to dig into a complex problem and try to carry it through to a conclusion. Most of the students worked very hard and made substantial progress, negotiating several potential pitfalls along the way, mostly having to do the process of learning enough MAPLE or Mathcad to use it in a complex way. As a consequence of the project these students already display increased self-confidence in their ability to solve problems. Other students were overly intimidated by the project from the start and made far less progress. They discovered just how well the ideal gas law didn't work, but made no independent progress using either the vdW or RK equations. In some cases we needed to intervened and give the students a major clue as to how to get started. A few students were sufficiently intimidated by the project to have suffered a further decreased their already low self-confidence especially in their ability to finish a course in physical chemistry successfully. We noticed increased bonding among the students as they tried to jump the hurdles of the project. Most are now much more proficient at using recommended software in the course. One of us noticed that the middle level students were better able to cope with the ambiguity of the case study process and move quickly to plan and execute the plan that they developed. Some quicker students were frustrated by not having their traditional study skills work in this situation.

Timing. The on-line course may have been held too early in the semester. It would have been better for many students if we would have covered gas laws first and also given them the opportunity to experiment with curve fitting real data before the on-line case study project. Late October would have worked better than mid September. Communication problems were a major flaw. The problems we had with systems going down or working unreliably were a major headache, but beyond our control, and may have been in part responsible for the lack of student interaction on the net, and the small number questions or comments posted.

What's Next. The authors are in the process of analyzing the assessment forms that were completed by the students and faculty who participated in this project. The assessment results will focus our plans for the upcoming Spring on-line physical chemistry experiment. In the spring we will be looking at a topic in quantum chemistry. For the spring we will have the students do some warm up exercises before they dig into the actual case study that one of us will write. When we reopen physical chemistry on-line for the students they will have a set of computer tools at their disposal from the Fall `96 semester of physical chemistry. There will be fewer newer challenges for them to overcome and therefore their reluctance to interact will be substantially reduced. Three or four of the faculty participants for this project will be in San Francisco at the Spring 1996 National ACS meeting. We would be happy to share our experiences with the project with you there. We are planning a series of presentations at regional and national meeting to explain the process and share our results. Other plans include papers for other newsletters and journals. The Internet is too important a resource to be left for only commercial or entertainment uses. We encourage other faculty to explore creative uses for the WWW as an instructional tool. As we continue our assessment of the project and repair the Web site additional information will be deposited for interested faculty to review. We hope that our on-line experiment is the beginning of collegial interaction among teachers and students of physical chemistry. We encourage groups of faculty to self assemble and form learning communities through which we can better prepare students for the next century.

[Deborah Sauder teaches in the Department of Chemistry at Hood College, Frederick MD 21701, sauder@NIMUE.hood.edu; Marcy Hamby Towns teaches in the Department of Chemistry at Ball State University, Muncie, IN 47306, 00mhtowns@bsuvc.bsu.edu; Roland Stout teaches in the Department of Physical Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Pembroke, NC 28372, Stout@nat.uncp.edu; Theresa Julia Zielinski teaches in the Department of Chemistry and Physics, Niagara University, Niagara University NY 14109, tjz@niagara.edu; George Long teaches in the Department of Chemistry, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Indiana PA 15705-1090, GLong@grove.iup.edu;]

Physical Chemistry Education Resource Center
Comments to Theresa Julia Zielinski theresaz@localnet.com
All contents copyright (c) 1995; All rights reserved
Updated: October 26, 1996; Created: October 5, 1996
URL: http://www.niagara.edu/~tjz/dpapers/pchem1.htm