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Author: Angeli Mehta2021-08-23T05:48:00+01:00

Practical work in the last few years of middle school requires students to develop their hands-on and thinking skills

Students who choose to study chemistry after the age of 16 face challenges in developing the skills needed for practical work. Meeting these challenges depends not only on whether teachers have the time and resources to conduct experimental work, but also on mastering more complex concepts.

The UK and Ireland have different assessments of practical skills, but the opportunity to practice some basic skills before advanced studies seems to be a common problem.

In Ireland, young students study science rather than individual subjects, so teachers may emphasize different skills. "I will spend more time to complete the distillation operation than biologists may spend a little time to understand the microscope," suggested Kim Wright, who teaches chemistry at a community school in Wicklow County.

Her method is to provide senior students with the necessary equipment and guide them step by step (for example) through a 40-minute titration process. 'You have to show me that you can operate, read, set up and disassemble the equipment before you can actually titrate. That is before you have a deep understanding of the actual physical chemistry.

"I want to say that 40 minutes might save me time in the two hours after the course," she added.

Frances Moloney is a teacher in Dublin. Her students come from socially disadvantaged areas. She found that students need more time to develop processing skills. In order to prepare to teach students about volume analysis, she will also spend time teaching students how to accurately use pipettes and pipette fillers to transfer a specific volume of water into an Erlenmeyer flask. Initially, she said, “I intended to have them titrate at the beginning of the course, but because many [students] did not engage in activities to develop hand dexterity (less handicrafts, more Xbox), I found them It takes more time to acquire manipulation skills and build confidence that they have that skill. She also tries to establish the concept of consistency of results.

Getting them to think is the biggest challenge

Because her course is mixed ability, Francis divides some experiments into several parts-such as preparing soap, "so that everyone has something", students have longer time to digest all aspects of the experiment. There are no scientific and technical personnel in Irish schools, so teachers must take time to prepare. Francis believes this "reduces the student experience."

Kim combined a short "flip" course, where she recorded her own practice, and then asked students to remake it in class. It allows a quick assessment of "where each student is located". [It] gave me feedback, and they didn't even notice that they were giving me feedback.

But if the school does not have the resources or equipment, students will not have enough practice to become confident. For Jurgita Hong, a chemistry teacher at Drummond Community High School in Edinburgh, practice is the key to students mastering new concepts. "If we can do a real job, they are unlikely to have misunderstandings," she said.

John Mullen of the nearby Leith Academy said that mastering a large amount of material in the new nine-month advanced course is a difficult balancing act — he is the “loyalty of the course” fan". "Because there must be nine months of material in it, you often get trouble and can't put it all in... and you might feel that you don't have time to do so many practical things." However, most of the actual work It's all about improving the technology that students will encounter before and developing solutions to problems.

Is student inaccuracy a factor when improving practical skills after the age of 16?

'In the minds of students, there is not always a connection between practical activities and theory. They don’t think about practical issues—why do I want to do this, and what do I want to achieve? Said Ian Davis of Winstanley College in Greater Manchester.

Tim Joliff, who teaches at the independent school Queen's College, agrees. "Chemistry teachers often talk about hands-on and thinking. This is the biggest challenge for me-getting them to think -."

He added, "It is well known that students are not accurate in quantitative work-it's not just [about] manipulating the burette. The biggest factor is that they did not really consider the source of the error, which is the meaning of bubbles at the bottom of the burette. They are too accustomed to virtual If you press the right button, the result will appear on the screen.

"They have not focused their attention on these practical considerations."

Ian suggested that students were just "not curious enough." They are too educated on one factor, a result of GCSE. No nuance, no complexity. When there is complexity, "They find it difficult to think in more abstract ways."

'We asked them to follow the recipe and through the actual operation, and then asked them to think at the end. Many times, you want to stop them four or five times when they do practice, and let them think while doing it," Tim argued.

Because her school is small, Jurgita takes into account the complexity of higher education and higher education in the same class. Even in the last few years, they were still not very good at investigative work-what went wrong and why? There is more dependence on "Teacher, please help." She advises students not to develop problem-solving skills in the early years.

In the upper grades, students must work more independently. 'This is a challenge because you can't rely on others to help you, you have to do it yourself. But this is also a good thing. Because if you enter the laboratory, you need to know how to work by yourself.

To help build this independence, Jurgita will limit the number of questions a group of students can ask her, but allow them to ask unlimited questions to others so that they can work more with their peers.

The Covid-19 pandemic has given schools a lot of practical experience. The question now is, how much impact will this have on the development of skills in senior grades and beyond?

 Angeli Mehta is a science writer with a PhD in research

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