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www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 84 No. 9 September 2007 • Journal of Chemical Education 1413
Chemical Education Today
Report
ConfChem: International Conference on First-Year College Chemistryby Robert E. Belford, Paul B. Kelter, and James F. Kirby
An online Winter 2007 ConfChem conference (1) was held from January 29 to March 23, 2007. It was hosted by the Committee on Computers in Chemical Education (CCCE) (2) of the ACS Divi-sion of Chemical Education (3), in col-laboration with the International Center for First-Year Undergraduate Chemistry Education (ICUC) (4). This conference was part of the on-going ConfChem series and was organized by Paul Kelter with 688 registrants and seven week-long online papers. Each paper was introduced on a Friday, with participants asking ques-tions over the weekend, and a general discussion of the paper ensuing through the following week.
A vital focus of the conference was to demonstrate the common interests, concerns, and joys shared by teachers of first-year chemistry throughout the world. Presenters included representa-tives from Mexico, the U.S., Spain, and New Zealand, with one of our authors representing first-year chemistry both in the U.S. and India.
The first paper, by Gabriel Pinto, As-sistant Director for Education Innovation of the ETS de Ingenieros Industriales of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, discussed the implementation and philos-ophy behind new European educational reform initiatives (5). The document that contains the goals, objectives, and action plan for these initiatives is called the “Bologna Declaration”. At present it in-cludes 45 European countries and has the objective of creating a “European Higher Education Area” by 2010 (6, 7). Central to this is the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) (8), which allows for the mobility of students and academicians across the continent. Pinto then presented a large number of real-world-based lesson plans that he developed to encourage critical thinking in students (9–11).
In their contribution, “Less Is More: The 1:2:1 Curriculum at Indiana Univer-sity” (12), Jill Robinson, Catherine Reck, and Martha Oakley described the new course sequence map their institution
has undertaken to curtail the declining enrollment of chemistry majors that has been observed both nationally (13) and internationally (14, 15). In recognition of student interest in the life sciences, they moved organic chemistry up to the second semester of the freshmen year by sequencing one semester of general fol-lowed by two semesters of organic, and then one of intermediate inorganic. In the discussion, Robinson described the benefits of the new curriculum, practical details for implementation, and a prelimi-nary assessment of student performance, retention, and recruiting.
Graciela Muller then discussed the high school/freshman level teaching and learning Activity-Based Frameworks in Latin America and the U.S. in the paper she co-authored with Jerry Bell of the American Chemical Society (16). The next paper by Jim Kirby dealt with the experiences in creating a GOB (general, organic, and biological) chemistry on-line lecture at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut (17). During the discussion, issues arose such as cooperative learning in online environments and distance learn-ing outsourcing.
The next paper by Adela Castille-jos Salazar (18) was on the chemistry program at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico and the innovative “Conceptos Fundamentales de Quimica” (19) (Fundamental Concepts of Chemis-try) high school text they put together. In this text each chapter begins with a myth and ends with an analysis of the veracity of that myth while providing examples and activities oriented towards the age and culture of Mexican high-school students.
Supriya Sihi then discussed her paper “First-Year Chemistry in Two Countries Oceans Apart: United States of America and India” (20), in which she pointed out the differences between these two countries’ education programs. One of the most notable differences was in the admissions policies: in the U.S. they are essentially open, but in India they are highly competitive with degree-plan
tracking starting in the 11th and 12th grades of high school. The discussions echoed this in the UK/India system and other countries such as Colombia, where one participant pointed out that of the 750 students who competed with him on the admissions exam for a “Grado en Química” (B.S. equivalent), only 120 were admitted (21).
The final ConfChem paper, by Sheila Woodgate and David Titheridge, dealt with the BestChoice interactive online learning system developed at the University of Auckland in New Zealand (22). Wood-gate described how Web-based learning ac-tivities have been successfully incorporated into a variety of first-year courses. She also highlighted means that have been used to evaluate the activities and described how these evaluations both show the positive responses of the students and provide direc-tion for further development.
The conference ended with an open discussion on general topics of interest. John Kotz, the head mentor of the U.S. International Chemistry Olympiad team, described this valuable program (23–25) along with some other interesting inter-national programs such as the SEDIBA Project in South Africa (26). A parallel discussion also formed on language bar-riers to international chemical education and how new Web-based technologies such as bilingual wiki-hyperglossaries (27) could be developed to assist students in overcoming these obstacles.
A counter embedded in the papers indicated that conference was visited 3,971 times, and the online discussion received 426 postings. These papers are available on the conference Web site (1) and the discussions are available in the January–March ConfChem Archives (28). Future Conf Chem conferences are being proposed on the topics of the JCE Digital Library, POGIL, and Green Chemistry. Anyone interested in orga-nizing a future ConfChem conference is encouraged to contact Bob Belford ([email protected]) or Leon Combs ([email protected]).
1414 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 84 No. 9 September 2007 • www.JCE.DivCHED.org
Chemical Education Today
Report
Literature Cited (all sites accessed May 2007)
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Robert E. Belford is a member of the Department of Chem-istry, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR 72204; [email protected]. Paul B. Kelter is in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 61821; [email protected]. James F. Kirby is a member of the Department of Chemistry, Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT 06518; [email protected].
