IChEAmistry

Anyone told you chemistry was complicated? That the concepts were difficult to put together in your mind? And that to learn it you’ll need a master craftsman (or craftswoman) to help you put it together akin to building craftsman-style furniture? What if you didn’t need any of that? What if you could receive a package of parts, open it up, follow the instructions, and build your own knowledge of chemistry? Maybe it’s just like putting together IKEA furniture. Anyone can do it!

 

I confess that as a computational chemist and having poor hands in lab, I’m similarly challenged when it comes to IKEA furniture. I can put it together, but not very well. One of my chairs is still a little shaky. But by and large everything holds together and is functional.

 

Could we turn learning chemistry into something IKEA-like? Can we break down the concepts into bite-sized pieces and build the framework step-by-step? Can you be guided through the process by an instructor? In a sense, that’s how I design my chemistry classes – to help students digest smaller bits of material and get practice working through problems aimed at helping them grasp the concepts. But if I have such a program in place, does one need the human instructor? Could the process be automated with an instruction manual that’s simple enough to follow such that every student can “teach themselves” chemistry?

 

In my dreams, I call this IChEAMistry. I figure K and the “hard” Ch are similarly enunciated. I’ve even hacked together an imitation logo with not quite the right font (IKEA changed Verdana to Noto two years ago) and not quite the right colors from my eyeballing it. Maybe I need a lowercase leading “i”! Needless to say, this program has not gotten off the ground. I haven’t started looking for venture capital funding even though I can handwavingly claim that I will use machine learning to optimize an appropriate algorithm based on student data from my classes as a training set. And since I’ve taught two thousand students or so over the course of my career, maybe I’ve got some decent data.

 

What I’m presenting as a fantasy, someone else will try to sell you as a reality. Not too long ago, we had the robot tutor in the sky. And yes, one of their products was chemistry. While that venture hasn’t quite worked out, I assure you there will be others who will claim to have improved on the problems of the previous approaches. Will this be successful? For a self-motivated student who can learn on their own, it’s possible. We’ve had correspondence courses for a long time, and I opine that it’s possible to replicate that experience with a computer algorithm. Regular assessments run by the algorithm can check if the student has learned the material. Digital badges could be issued. Nothing wrong with any of that. Someone might even accredit the work. We already accept results from standardized multiple-choice computer graded exams such as CLEP or AP for chemistry, provided the student gets a high enough score.

 

Will this work for the majority of students? I don’t know. My guess is that a few of my students could sufficiently hack their way through IChEAmistry. But most of them will flounder. But is it because they’re not used to the system? If an IKEA-like approach was employed in the earlier grades, maybe this could work? I shudder at the thought since I think younger children should have as much human contact and guidance as possible. Maybe the IChEAmistry approach is centered around group work and activity? That introduces its own complications.

 

If launched at the introductory level, will IChEAmistry provide a sufficient foundation for students who want to pursue further courses in that subject? Maybe. As it is, many of my students in P-Chem seem to have trouble remembering what they learned in G-Chem. An appropriately-timed iChEAmistry “booster” just before P-Chem would likely be helpful. Could one construct an iChEAmistry version of P-Chem? Conceivably. Although venture capital funding would be less forthcoming. The killer app of tech dreams is one that will get widespread use. Lots of students take G-Chem. Much fewer take P-Chem.

 

I have a feeling that an education system using IChEAmistry will be impoverished compared to having a human instructor who you can interact with in close quarters. It’s a feeling that may or may not be justified. But I suspect a revolution is coming whether we like it or not that will continually divide the haves from the have-nots. “Elite” education will continue to have expert human tutors, such as the rich and the royal of yestercenturies were accustomed to. For the rest, you hardscrabble whatever you can get to survive. IChEAmistry might be a reality yet. Tech entrepreneurs will surely argue for the best-of-both-worlds hybrid approach where humans and algorithms cooperate to provide an enhanced education for all. But if we follow the money, I think the future looks more dystopian despite the bright cheery colors of my IChEAmistry logo.