The First-Year Chemistry Laboratory in the United States

本文是张树永教授为《大学化学》杂志向Kelter教授特约的专稿,主要介绍美国大学一年级实行分层次化学教学的一些作法,以及大学一年级化学课程教学体系和实验教学体系、教学内容和教学方法。虽然美国大学化学实验课程的内容不像我国那样多,但涉及面广,更强调学生的自主学习和自我训练,同时将仪器分析作为实验的必要内容嵌入日常实验当中,使实验内容的综合性、设计性更强,也更贴近日常生活和科学实验。这些作法对我国的大学化学实验教学改革具有借鉴作用。

In the United States, the traditional curricular relationship in which the laboratory reinforces the content learned in the lecture has been challenged by a variety of educational models based largely on what we can call the 'discovery approach.' In this way of looking at learning chemistry, students are put in a setting in which they are supposed to discover fundamental chemical principles much as the chemists of the past centuries uncovered the laws of chemical behavior via the scientific method, with a heavy dose of experimentation. One of the authors of this paper (PBK) has worked with this model for many years with pre-college teachers and teacher education students in the classroom [1,2] and with college students via computer simulations [3]. New ways of incorporating the approach are constantly being introduced into the classroom, and while the names might be different, such as with the 'inquiry-based' laboratory discussed by Green, Elliot and Cummins [4], the notion of students learning by doing is consistent. One recent and very important extension of the discovery, or inquiry-based, approach was pioneered in the U.S. by Maria Oliver-Hoyo at North Carolina State University, and is called the Scale-Up classroom ('Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Classrooms) [5]. In this model, up to 100 students are seated at round tables in groups of 9, and work together on chemical activities that lead them, through working together under the watchful eye and guidance of the professor, to the understanding of key ideas. Laptop computers at the tables are used by the students to share data and look up simulations done at other places. In essence, the lab, lecture and multimedia aspects of the course are woven together as the curriculum.