To Textbook or Not To Textbook

Tis the season of textbook selection for the upcoming semester. The college Bookstore has sent me repeated e-mails the past month that I have not made my textbook selections for the upcoming semester. Over the years I have learned some things about the changing landscape of the college textbook world. When I first started teaching, the business seemed pretty straightforward. The only competition that textbook publishers had were other textbook publishers. The resale market was a minor player, the rental market didn’t quite exist, there were fewer options, and prices (while high for new science textbooks) were not as ridiculous as they are now.

All that has changed. The competition is much fiercer. Textbooks now come bundled with “electronic extras” (we’ll get to that in a moment). But it’s the Internet and Amazon that have really driven the evolution of the textbook world into a cut-throat time-sensitive business. College and university textbook stores are in a no-holds-barred armed race to stock their books at decent prices students might pay for. If I don’t turn in my textbook order (early), it could drive up the price the student has to pay for their books depending on the book and market economics. It has been eye-opening for me, as an instructor, to see the changes that have taken place in the last ten years.

In the old days, I didn’t seriously consider the option of not having a textbook in my chemistry courses. A good textbook significantly facilitates teaching the material, and more importantly saves the instructor significant time. (You weren’t expecting the last bit, were you? Unless of course you’re in the same business as me.) Given the increasing research and service expectations of liberal arts college professors, you have to realistically limit the amount of time you are going to spend prepping for class, answering questions in office hours, and grading. The increased numbers of students in our classes does not make things any easier. This is a sad situation, as teaching is what I love doing most, that I have to find ways to reduce the amount of time I put into the “teaching” aspect of my profession.

What will a good chemistry textbook have? (1) Content to be covered in the class at the right level, preferably in an order that makes best sense to me as an instructor. (2) Sufficient worked examples for numerical problems, again at the right level. (3) Good figures – molecular level diagrams, appropriate graphs, data tables that are easy to find. (4) Clear prose. (5) End-of-chapter questions that are sufficient in variety and level, and are well-posed. (6) Answers to a subset of aforementioned questions so that students can self-check some, but not all, their attempts. From this list, the most important to me is #5, and is often the deal-clincher or deal-breaker when I would choose a textbook back in the old days. Typically there were just a handful of textbooks that would meet all six criteria. You can very quickly triage the first four items by skimming, but item #5 requires some amount of work to evaluate. It’s worth the time, because having a good set of questions to assign students as they learn the material saves much time and heartache (for the instructor) during the semester.

But the world of information accessibility has changed significantly in a short span of time, and with it, market economics. Now, I keep a close eye on the price of a book and its bundled electronic materials – the most important factor now being the robustness of the online homework system. Working problems is still a crucial part of learning chemistry. I was highly skeptical at the first few versions of these systems and did not use them, but they have reached a stage of robustness where the guided tutorials, problems, adaptive technology, user-data statistics, and advanced features, allow me as an instructor to tailor the outside-of-class learning aspects without it being a frustrating time sink both for me and for the students. In terms of writing good problems with increasing levels of difficulty and giving the students feedback as quickly as possible, the online system is a huge winner. Certainly the immediate feedback provided by the online system is something I cannot personally repliate. The system is also robust enough for me to make small modifications to problems I choose from an increasingly good database. Not to mention that user-data mining can tell you how long a problem takes on average and how difficult it is, thereby allowing you to construct very reasonable problem sets for the students. (I am mindful that my class is often not the only one they are taking.)

Up to this point, it seems that I’m still essentially choosing a textbook although my criteria have changed to include evaluating the online homework system. However, as prices have continued to soar for the book + online system bundle, and the fact that our students are now awash in a world of information plenitude rather than scarcity, I’ve begun to rethink the skill set I should be teaching my students. Practically none of them bother to keep their textbook any more (thanks to the active resale market) since we have the Internet, and the online system access is usually only good for a year. Thanks a lot, market economics. What they will be faced with for most of their adult lives here on out (unless we have an information or technological apocalypse) is wading through and trying to make sense of the wealth of information out there. Yes, I have to teach them the basics, but I should move them further up Bloom’s taxonomy than I have in the past.

For my science major classes, I still use a textbook for the most part (but now coupled with some internet resources and reading primary literature). But the last three times I taught non-majors classes, I have not used a textbook. This has its pros and cons. The reason I chose not to use a textbook was because these classes were small (less than 20 students) and composed of stronger-than-average students (e.g. honors-level), and furthermore the classes were designed to be highly interdisciplinary and team-taught to some extent. It’s hard to find a single interdisciplinary text for a team-taught science class at the introductory level. (These classes were aimed at the non-science major.) The Internet provides a great source of content material, but a lot of work was involved in designing the activities, and writing the problem sets. Grading was much reduced given the small class size.

Next semester, however, I am scheduled to teach a regular section of chemistry for non-science majors. (Yes, I scheduled myself to do this since I’m department chair!) It is a class I have taught many times before and I have used a variety of textbooks back in the day. When I looked at the prices of newer editions of good books I have used in the past, I was shocked at the sticker prices! This always happens to good textbooks. Once the market demand starts to build, the publishers come up with newer versions very quickly bundled with the latest access codes for the online homework system. I hemmed and hawed for the better part of two weeks, discussed with my colleagues the pros and cons of different books and the idea of going without a textbook. (Students seem highly uncomfortable without a textbook, but they get used to it after a while. Of course the times I have not used a book were all in small classes.)

Given the larger size of the upcoming class, the average ability of the student who will be in this class (these will be average students rather than an above average small group), I finally settled on using a textbook. However I picked an older edition of the book that is still widely available. The bookstore will therefore be able to get used books at lower prices and many of the students will still buy direct through the internet. I’ve decided to forego the online homework system since the book is sufficiently robust with respect to all six items in my previous list (and does well for #5 and #6). I won’t start working on the class until the summer, but I plan to incorporate a variety of assignments requiring them to go on the internet and critically evaluate what they read. As an added benefit to my decision, the bookstore has stopped sending me e-mails!

Revisiting Textbooks

I’m annoyed. At textbooks.

 

Thanks to the supposed arms race of textbook prices and the resale market, my university bookstore is haranguing me about informing them what textbook I will be adopting (if I do so) for next semester. Yes, this now starts in early March for the semester that begins in September.

 

I haven’t submitted the requisite information for my quantum class, because this might be the semester where I decide not to use the textbook and switch to worksheets. I’ve been doing this for over a decade in my statistical thermodynamics because I don’t like any of the textbooks out there. There is a quantum textbook I do like that I’ve assigned for years. But the price has gone up significantly over the years, and I’ve been thinking of incorporating new aspects into the class such as a more extensive focus on chemical bonding. Also, I think something more liberal-arts-ish as complementary reading such as The Quantum Astrologer’s Handbook might be an interesting pairing. And I’m not going to ask students to purchase two books. I could see my students later in life choosing to re-read the Handbook for fun. On the other hand, they’d try to sell their textbook as soon as possible if not going to graduate school in P-Chem.

 

To textbook or not to textbook? That is a question I’ve mused about. And my conclusions (or lack thereof) haven’t changed these last several years.

 

I’m also annoyed at the G-Chem textbook we’re using. While I was on sabbatical last year, far away and not participating in the discussion, the group teaching this class voted to switch textbooks starting this academic year. The primary reason, I surmise, was unhappiness with the less-developed and possibly clunkier online homework system, because it comes from a much smaller publisher rather than the Pearson juggernaut. We’ve used the Pearson juggernaut in the past for quite a while so most of us are used to its online homework system, Mastering Chemistry. And professors generally like what they’re used to – there’s an activation barrier to learn a new system. My opinion is that from the student perspective, there’s not much difference between one system and another. (See here for the limitations of such online homework.)

 

Last semester in G-Chem 1, the drawbacks of the present textbook (which, to be fair, is like most of the popular G-Chem textbooks in the market) were not as marked. In my opinion, it was marginally inferior in terms of arrangement of material, quality of figures in doing their job of visually highlighting the key features of otherwise challenging concepts, and the types of conceptual questions available. It wasn’t as big a deal. But this semester in G-Chem 2, I’m noticing these drawbacks to a greater extent – significant enough to irritate me beyond the occasional gnat. This, I think, is poorer for the students. But here’s the rub: While I might be significantly bothered by some of these aspects, my fellow instructors might consider these occasional gnats, and much prefer the online homework system that all of us are more used to.

 

We won’t be switching G-Chem textbooks next academic year because it’s a group decision (and I’m just one vote from a dozen instructors) and because I think one should always give a book at least two years before switching. So I’ve requested the group revisit the discussion next year for possibly adopting a different text for the following year. I’m not optimistic I will prevail in a change back to the textbook we used the prior two years that I think was much better for the students even if instructors didn’t like the homework system as much. I’m painting this picture in broad brushstrokes to more starkly emphasize the differences, but the actual discussion will be more nuanced and subtle when the time comes to air our differences of opinion. There are good reasons for us as a group to agree on a single textbook for both semesters of G-Chem and not go our own rogue ways, and I’m sure we’ll revisit these arguments when we meet next year.

 

Since G-Chem and P-Chem are what I’m teaching next semester, and the G-Chem textbook is already decided, I just need to figure out what to do for Quantum. Should I finally abandon the textbook and restructure my class using worksheets? It will be a lot of work on my part, but I think it might be worth it. But would the students be at a significant disadvantage without a textbook? Some students think so. In my Thermo class, some students will write in their evaluations that it would have helped them to have a textbook. This is balanced by those who write positively about the worksheets and not having a textbook. I expect the same to be true (from the student perspective) if I do the same in Quantum. But there are some significant conceptual and mathematical challenges in Quantum that may make the class “harder” for the students. I can imagine what these might be, but I think there are ways to overcome this. I won’t know until I try and they try with me.

 

Now that I’ve written this post, I feel less annoyed. Maybe that’s another role for writing my blog. Besides being a Pensieve-like storehouse for my thoughts, it’s cathartic.

Last Ditch?

I have regularly contemplated ditching the textbook in the classes I most regularly teach – the year-long sequence of general chemistry and physical chemistry. In my first year as a new faculty member, I used the books the department had been using. We have multiple sections of general chemistry, and the instructors decide as a group which textbook to use. There is only one section of physical chemistry, however, giving full freedom for the sole instructor to switch books.

 

My general rule is that I should use a textbook at least twice before deciding whether to ditch it or keep using it. The first year I use a new textbook I’m just getting used to it. I should not be too quick to write it off unless it seems like an utter disaster. And I would not pick an utter disaster in the first place. In P-Chem 2 (Statistical Thermodynamics), I went through three textbooks giving them two years each. While each textbook was subsequently better than its predecessor, none was a good fit with the way I wanted to teach statistical thermodynamics. (All three were “standard” P-Chem textbooks used at many universities.) Hence, I did my first ditch and switched to creating worksheets and problem sets. Many years have passed since and I’ve been happy with my decision to ditch.

 

That third textbook worked well for my approach to teaching P-Chem 1 (Quantum Chemistry). They even had a standalone version of the textbook for the semester-long course, rather than the full year of P-Chem. I used it for years. But two years ago, I decided to rearrange some content so I could incorporate modern valence bond theory and also introduce hands-on electronic structure calculations during class sections. Since my worksheets had worked well for P-Chem 2, it was a good time to ditch the textbook for P-Chem 1. I converted my lecture notes into similarly formatted worksheets. I like the new arrangement but it still needs tweaking. There’s always room for improvement!

 

For G-Chem, there are more constraints to making textbook changes because it is a group decision. And when you are running more than ten sections of the course, this also means a diversity of opinions from the many instructors. I think we’ve used four different textbooks in the 20-25 years I’ve been at my current institution. But in the last several years I’ve become increasingly disillusioned with the present textbook and, for that matter, any online homework management system (which I feel has unfortunately become the driving force in textbook adoption). So this coming fall I’m breaking with tradition and will ditch the textbook. Since I will be teaching the small honors sections of both G-Chem 1 and G-Chem 2 this coming academic year, there will be little disruption with much fewer students switching sections. At least that’s my hope.

 

My plan is to use an open access textbook as a resource. It’s a decent book and covers the content reasonably well, though not as good as the very best commercial texts out there. I will supplement these with Course Notes for each class. It will take time for me to generate these extra materials, but I think it’s worth the effort. I introduced Study Guides a couple of years ago in G-Chem, and I think these have worked well based on student feedback. They are still being tweaked as I re-work the material in this new iteration of G-Chem. I will retain most of the topics following the usual sequence, with a few minor changes. We’ll see how it goes. If it works well, this might be the last ditch where textbooks are concerned! (Unless I get to teach biochemistry again, and I’ll have to decide what to do then.)

Vaporware

I’ve been thinking about the evolution of textbooks and materials, from physical materials to digital in-the-cloud. We’ve heard it said that once something is on the internet, you can’t get rid of it. Perhaps it lurks in some dark corner like a cockroach, ever-ready to be a pest when the environment is suitable. But you can’t always find what you’re looking for. And if there’s an opportunity for monetization, gatekeepers will establish themselves to collect the toll for passage.

 

A little over two decades ago, when I started my present job as a chemistry professor, teaching materials were similar to when I was in college. We had physical textbooks, and homework was done physically with pen and paper, submitted, and graded by hand. When teaching upper division courses, I could remind students to look over things they had seen in their lower division courses, and even quote chapter and verse if needed. Students who were majors did not sell their G-Chem textbooks right after finishing the course. The market for used textbooks was much smaller and typically involved the college bookstore. I didn’t sell my chemistry textbooks after the cold hard cash I had to fork out. I thought they were expensive then, but they are ridiculously priced now. (I did sell my other books as I was graduating.)

 

Today, none of my G-Chem students has a physical textbook. Publishers have figured out that what professors want is not to have to grade homework. Hence the rise of the online homework systems. If you have a system the professors like, they will go for it, and along with that the associated textbooks. The quality of the textbook has become less important than the streamlining of the homework system. No muss, no fuss, is the selling point. The pricing system is a package deal: choose the homework system, and the digital textbook is included for a small fee. It’s a rental, of course. Students only have access to the materials for one semester (typically costing $50, and most of that cost is for the homework system). And after the semester is over, access disappears. It's vaporware!

 

Now, one could purchase a physical textbook for keeps. But that’s very expensive! Even a digital textbook for keeps (and all sorts of copy-protection so you can’t distribute) is expensive. Renting the digital textbook without the homework system is almost as expensive as the aforementioned package deal. For instructors who care about price points but who also don’t want to grade homework, the vaporware package costs the least to the student. All this is positively packaged as “Inclusive Access” checking the appropriate feel-good boxes that you’re making some sort of good ethical choice.

 

I don’t deny that working on problems (via homework and problem sets) is a crucial part of learning chemistry. But the textbook has become secondary, and students no longer know how to get the most out of reading their textbook. It’s possible that the quality of textbook content is going down anyway since they’re no longer what gets scrutinized by professors. This is what vaporware has done. And we professors have bought into it because we don’t want to be writing and grading problem sets by hand. (I’ve yet to try GradeScope, which I think might cut down some of this work.) We’ve outsourced the work to the automated bot which claims to provide feedback cheerfully and repeatedly without complaint. But I’m less sanguine about the feedback quality especially when it comes to the important conceptual parts of chemistry. (A bot can easily grade for a numerical answer, but that’s not what is most important.)

 

My partial solution to this problem is to teach the students to annotate their own work. But it takes work to get there, for both me and the student. I also assign problem sets outside of the online homework system in my smaller honors G-Chem classes because the grading is much less onerous when you have a smaller class. And I can ask more interesting and more challenging questions to get the students to think a little harder and deeper about the course material. So right now I have a hodgepodge, neither-here-nor-there, system that also includes the vaporware. I haven’t yet rebelled and gone my own way because I teach one or two out of a dozen G-Chem sections offered. And if you do things very differently from other sections of the same course, that can cause its own problems.

 

But maybe vaporware is not so bad. At the lower division level, you can find what you need on the Internet to review if you needed to. Accessible and free. But possibly error-riddled. The challenge is plowing through the chaff to find the gems. And most of my G-Chem students are not going to be chemistry majors. No fuss, no muss. Just because I’ve found my chemistry textbooks useful and I’ve kept them doesn’t mean that the same is true for others. In fact it’s likely untrue for the majority of students who take G-Chem. And vaporware means not having to carry around heavy physical stuff every time you have to move. And young people will be moving a lot these days. Gone are the days where you parked yourself in one place at one job for the rest of your life. And our lives are ephemeral in the grand scheme of things. Vaporware reminds me of that fact.

Textbook Solicitation: The Old, The New and The Ugly

Today must be a special day. I received three different textbook solicitations. (I haven’t had any in the last four weeks since classes started.) The three soliciting strategies were rather different from one another.

Let’s start with the Old. I was sent (unsolicited, of course) a physical textbook in my subdiscipline of chemistry. It was a gratis copy. This has happened ever since I started my job as a professor although the frequency has decreased over the years. Perhaps the old school strategy (pre-internet) is losing its effectiveness.

Before I start with the New, let me describe the more popular method in recent years. I receive a targeted e-mail asking me if I’d like to review a book for potential adoption in one of my classes. An input code allows me free 30-day access to an online version. This is also what happens if I solicit the publisher to review a potential text.

But what was New today is that I first got an unsolicited phone call from Large Publishing Company. They wanted to know if I was interested in reviewing a textbook for potential adoption in one of my classes. The name of the book suggested it wouldn’t fit as well, and I told the caller so. The caller said that I might potentially use it as a reference, and if they could send it to me. Suspecting some string attached, I asked what I needed to do if it was sent. The caller said I wouldn’t have to do anything – it would just be provided free electronically. If I didn’t want to use it, that would be fine. I said, okay, that seems reasonable. Then I was told that what I would actually be provided is 30-day access. I replied that it was unlikely I would review it in that time period so there was no need to send me access. The caller pleasantly thanked me and the conversation ended. Three hours later, I get an e-mail with links to access the book. I delete it.

And now the Ugly. I had an l unsolicited e-mail from Chegg. This is a first for me. They must have a new strategy with a bot that trolls through web pages, because the information was from one of my P-Chem courses from five years ago regarding a textbook that I’m no longer using. The e-mail was also sent at 4am according to the time stamp.

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Dear Dr. [my first name],

I notice you mentioned [textbook name, first half chopped off] by [author names, second author name partially chopped off] on your [course name] web page [URL], and I thought your students might like to know that they can actually rent that book at Chegg for far less. Additionally Chegg offers a resource that can help students with their studies for that textbook.

Chegg Study provides students with self-guided learning tools through instant access to millions of step-by-step tutorials, and Q&A boards monitored by professors and trusted subject experts. Perfect for when students get stuck during late night study sessions, or when office hours are over. Over 90% of students who use Chegg Study say it helped them improve their grades and better understand the material.

I hope you’ll consider where they can find study help for the book: [Link to the solutions manual, I’ll describe this in more detail shortly.]

I bet your students would appreciate saving money on their textbooks so I’ll also provide a link to where students can rent the book for your course: [Link to textbook rental]

Together, let’s help students save time and money while they improve their academic outcomes!

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Why is this Ugly? It’s because of the very last line claiming to help students improve their academic outcomes. I have no problem with textbook rental. The problem is the way the solutions manual is provided. The student would save time, but not money – and it’s bad for their learning. I learned about Chegg many moons ago, from students. They explained to me how it worked, and how they have used it for some of their “hard science or math classes”. In P-Chem, which is hard and has lots of math, the way you best learn the material is to struggle through working problems. By looking up the solutions manual, students short-circuit their learning process. My syllabus prohibits the use of a solutions manual, and I explain in detail to my class why.

However, I also understand that a student under stress can make bad decisions in the heat of the moment. Therefore, I make it clear to the students that if they used or consulted a solutions manual, to simply not turn in the problem set. Turning in the problem set is optional – I grade it if turned in. If not, that small grade percentage is lumped into the next exam for a student who didn’t turn in one. Since it is still early in the semester, the vast majority of the students are turning in problem sets. (I take the time to explain why this is important for learning, and how it will help them when they prepare for the exams.) So far I’ve had many students come to office hours for help on their problem set – a good sign early in the semester.

Chegg provides a sample solution when you click on the link for “study help”. At least a number of years ago, the system was such that you got something like one free “solution” (i.e. to one question) for some period of time (maybe a month) and that you had to pay per piece if you wanted more. There was probably also a tiered subscription for X number of solutions for Y price; I haven’t checked recently so this might be outdated data. And some students are willing to take this “shortcut”. However they don’t do well on the exams if they haven’t put in the time to struggle through the material – and worse, the solutions manual is sometimes wrong or misleading. It’s the most error-prone part of supplementary information attached to a textbook. I know, because it’s one of the ways you can catch students who use this strategy.

I will certainly not be forwarding Chegg’s e-mail to my students. Chances are they know all about it already. I hope none of them short-circuit their learning. As to whether one should be using a textbook and its associated problems, here's an old musing.

AI TLDR

Today I read an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) titled “My Students Can’t Read”, one of many I have read in recent years about the inability of many college students today to sustain the attention and focus to read academic material at length. Many reasons have been proffered for this alarming state of affairs including smartphones and COVID lockdowns; some hark back to the rise of television; but the most recent culprit is Generative AI.

 

Unfortunately, CHE has a paywall, so instead I’ll point you to Scriptorium Philosophia’s most popular post titled “the average college student today” which I read a year ago. It treads on similar ground as the CHE article, but it’s shorter to read, broader in scope, and funnier. Or if that’s still TLDR*, here are the three quoted highlights from the CHE article.

·      Every generation of professors has complained that their students cannot read. The lament is usually overblown, but data have caught up to anecdote.

·      The neural pathways that support sustained attention are built by use, and they atrophy without it. Your body is a use-it-or-lose-it system, and the brain is no exception.

·      Offloading tasks to a chatbot does not “free students up for higher order work”. It deprives them of building up strength to do any substantial cognitive work at all.

 

In the original article, these three quotes are blown up in larger font in separate boxes to catch your attention. Sort of like an abstract or summary. While I suspect a human editor picked them out to highlight, maybe AI could do this for you. (No, I didn’t copy-paste the article into ChatGPT and ask it to highlight the main three points to verify.) If you’re a busy person, and college students seem busier than a generation ago, then you might use AI-mediated TLDR – read the AI generated summary. I have so far resisted the temptation to use AI to skim or summarize research papers, but maybe that’s just the old-school stuck-in-my-ways curmudgeon in me. I don’t quite trust AI to give me the nuggets I might miss, but then again, I do wade through lots of irrelevant stuff. I suppose it’s mildly comforting to know that I have built up the ability to quickly pick out what I need to know and skim the rest.

 

Two weeks ago, a rep from the publisher of our G-Chem textbook emailed faculty to let them know of a new feature. You can now have AI summarize key points in the eTextbook. This just about guarantees students won’t read the actual textbook. Why bother when you can AI TLDR instead. We are inherently lazy and would rather save our ATP molecules to be expended on more interesting and stimulating pursuits than reading the boring textbook. I’m not sure anyone’s thinking about whether intellectual muscle is being atrophied. Or worse, not built up at all. Even though I now provide Study Guides for every G-Chem class meeting, I’m very sure that many of my students just use generative AI to run through them. They were happy to tell me how they use AI. Many even felt it helped. I think for many (but not all) of them, it gave them the illusion of learning without the substance. This is likely partly the cause for the growing number of D’s earned – dismal exam performance.

 

Four weeks ago, I surveyed my G-Chem II class about textbook use since we had switched to a new textbook this past academic year. Once again, students were brutally honest about not using or hardly using the textbook, and they were the significant majority. So maybe the inbuilt AI would be an improvement? They might at least read the summaries? But the summaries they read are unlikely to stick, and will be forgotten very soon after. Long-form sustained attention while reading has a higher chance of some knowledge sticking, but only if the students have the staying power to stick with it for a while. All this might be the final death knell of the textbook. Publishers have already anticipated this; the online homework system is what you pay for (because of lazy professors?) and the eTextbook is along for the ride. This is unfortunate, because our present G-Chem textbook is quite good and, in my opinion, quite readable. But that’s coming from someone who grew up reading a lot without a TV at home and certainly pre-internet. (Unlike P-Chem where I ditched the textbook early.)

 

There is a potent larger danger to most of society no longer able to digest a longer, sustained, and more complex explanation or argument. Issues of import will devolve into memes and vibes turning democracy into idiocracy. I shudder at the thought that AI TLDR is taking over and mushing up solid intellectual food into baby paste, but worse, stripped of any underlying nutrition. How depressing.

 

*I first learned the acronym TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) over a dozen years ago from a short reply by a younger colleague to a long-form argument I had written in an email to a group working on some curriculum or administrative issue that I no longer remember. It was a rude awakening.

A Letter to my Students

In a post last week, I mentioned reading three books (Elizabeth Green’s Building a Better Teacher, William Deresiewicz’s Excellent Sheep, Randy Olson’s Don’t Be Such a Scientist), that pushed me to think about significantly reconstructing my chemistry class next semester. Green encouraged me to think much more carefully about how to construct class activities that really lead to deep learning in the students. Deresiewicz prompted me to think carefully about de-emphasizing grades, and Olson reminded me of the importance of learning how to communicate science. (It can be taught!) Olson's book also prompted me to start this blog and try to practice communicating science and education without the "incomprehensible" style and jargon I would use when writing a scientific peer-review manuscript.

On the one hand, making a major overhaul to my second semester General Chemistry course really excites me. I will be teaching the Honors section so I will have some very strong students, most of whom are likely good at doing well in the traditional science classroom. On the other hand, this is going to be a LOT of work! It doesn't help that I'm also department chair and starting up a new research project. I will also be taking on some new undergraduate research students in my lab, and my research has a little bit of a learning curve.

Anyway, after some hemming and hawing, I finally decided to take the plunge and commit to at least making a stab at an overhaul. I have written a letter to inform the students who will be registering into my course over the next week or so. I posted it today so it's now "out there"! I hope to keep blogging about the experience, and maybe in some mysterious way this will help me to persevere and not give up mid-way through.

Here's my (slightly edited) letter:

Dear students,

I would like to do something different in [Honors Chemistry] this coming semester. First let me tell you what I typically do (and what you see in most science classes in most universities).

First, I have a typical syllabus: You can see the syllabus from the last time I taught this course in Spring 2012. The bulk of the class grade comes from exams (85%) and based on the grading scale and numerical scores on all the assignments, you can be aware (or worse, hyper-aware) of your grade at any time.

Second, the coverage of the material typically follows the sequential presentation of the textbook. There are many good reasons for this, i.e., topics do build upon each other, Mastering Chemistry assignments follow the textbook topics, you are given "comfortable" textbook reading (or what I refer to as "pre-packaged or pre-digested" concepts, facts and problems). This however can result in a certain rigidity to the class that often does not correspond to how you will tackle important and complex questions in the "real world". (You can see that I already tried a few integrative topics in 2012 but they only took 2-3 class periods.)

Third, although my classes are quite interactive with lots of back-and-forth question and answer between you and me, as the instructor I am the one who talks the most during class. (You can verify this with anyone who has taken a class with me.) What this means is that I learn the material best. Yes, it's true. The person who is "forced" or "volunteers" to articulate and explain the material (right or wrong) is the one who internalizes it best.

Therefore I would like to propose we try something different for this class because I think it will help you to learn better and you might find it more interesting. It might also mean a bit more work on your part because you may not be used to having more open-endedness in your science classes. (It will definitely be more work on my part.) Here is my proposal:
 
First, I would like grades to be de-emphasized and for exams not to count for the bulk of your class grade, but to instead build in significant group and project work. Individually you will still need to understand the material. Therefore there will still be the typical final exam (maybe worth ~25%). Instead of the typical "midterm" exams, I will give you take-home exams where you find a 55-minute block outside class and do the exam under "exam conditions". I will score the exams but they won't count towards your final grade. (This way you will know whether you do understand the needed course content and how to prepare for the final exam.) For your other assignments (which will come in various forms including problem solving, quizzes, group projects, reflective writing), I will assess them, but instead of writing a score/grade, I will just provide written comments. You will always be welcome to come by my office individually and discuss how you're doing in the class grade-wise if you're worried, but I hope you won't need to. (I will also let you know how you're doing in the course at a few key points during the semester.) I will always be open to suggestions and expect to solicit your opinion about which assignments will be the major ones

Second, I would like to leave the rigidity of the textbook and instead mix-and-match different material, including bringing in significant source material outside of the textbook. (We will still use the textbook for some of the basic oncepts.) You may not be accustomed to this initially, but I think that approaching the same topics with an integrative lens centered in real-world complex problems will be much more valuable to you than the sequential follow-the-textbook scheme. This will push you and me out of our comfort zones. In particular, some of our class sessions may seem "messier" and less organized as we venture into studying the material in a more complex and messier context. My previous students will vouch for me being super-organized as a professor, but it will be more difficult to do this in our more fluid (rather than rigid) classes. The idea makes me nervous (in a good way), though I think the experience will be valuable in the long-term for all involved.

Third, I will be asking you and your classmates to take the lead in discussing the material. I'm sure I will still talk a lot, answer lots of questions, ask you lots of questions, and the like. But I want the focus to shift away from me, the professor, as the "sage on the stage" to the "guide by the side". The best way to learn is to take charge of your own education, and I hope to instill in you the desire to be a life-long learner and to help you start doing this in college. For some of you, having this responsibility will push you out of your comfort zone, but I think the long-term benefits are well worth it. After all, you came to college to learn, and I became a professor to help you in this endeavor.

If you have any questions or concerns you'd like to discuss you are welcome to stop by my office. My weekly timetable can be found on my website.

Technology Trajectories in Higher Education

The cover story of the most recent issue of EDUCAUSE review is titled “Six Trajectories for Digital Technology in Higher Education”, and was written by Malcolm Brown (the Director of the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative). The article starts out by explaining the use of the word “trajectory” as compared to “prediction” for reasons of lack of omniscience. This sort of preamble always makes the words “plausible deniability” pop into my head. But on to the meat of the article!

Before discussing the six trajectories, the author sets the stage by defining three characteristics of teaching and learning: (1) personalization and customized learning, (2) the adoption of hybrid face-to-face and online modes, and (3) collecting large amounts of data and “analyzing” it (whatever that means). The author then makes a very bold claim, that “digital technology is the core strategic enabler of learning in higher education.” However, apparently for higher education IT folks, there has been a “shift in our thinking… that the technology is no longer in the foreground; instead, our attention is focused on the learners and the learning experiences that the technology enables.”

As an educator I certainly think that the focus should always be on the teaching and learning and that technology should never be in the driver’s seat. The fact that a “shift in thinking” was required in the first place bothers me. While I was an early adopter of using technology in my classes – I was probably one of the earliest in my department to write my own course web page in HTML so there was a centralized syllabus and I could deliver materials easily – I was rather resistant to using the Learning Management System (LMS), at the time an earlier version of WebCT. I was also rather resistant to adopting the online homework system associated with our General Chemistry textbook publisher. Back in the early days it was clunky to use. Now the LMS is a much smoother experience and chock-full of data analytic tools. I understand its advantages and do use it now, but I think there’s something particularly valuable about person-to-person dialogue in the teaching and learning process.

And now, the six trajectories along with my by brief commentary:

(1) Device Ownership and Mobile-First. It’s clear that device ownership among college students has increased significantly over the years. I remember the epiphany I had a number of years ago (I should have taken note of the date!) where I was walking out of class with my students and in an almost robotic motion all the students around me pulled out their mobile devices. I did not own a mobile device at the time. In any case, I am in agreement with the author that this is a clear trajectory by which students will be accessing any parts of their “digital learning environment” (another buzzword).

(2) The Textbook and Open Educational Resources (OER). The author points out that all the large textbook publishers are moving towards selling “software and services that are related to educational content.” The exponential rise in textbook costs has certainly made instructors like myself very reluctant to assign expensive textbooks to our classes. In this regard I am very thankful for the rise in OER. The question will be how usable the OER content is when adapted to one’s local environment. A good well-written textbook can be very valuable, although it seems that students know less and less about how to really use their textbook. Back when I was a college student, I found the books invaluable to my learning, but perhaps if I was in today’s generation of students I might not.

(3) Adaptive Learning Technology. This is something I’ve been watching closely after first learning about Knewton and ALEKS. (I like how they both sound like names of persons. How fitting!) I have mixed feelings about this trajectory. Can the computer indeed learn the intuitive feel that I have as an experienced instructor of how to move students along a productive learning direction? Possibly. However I can’t help but compare this to the on-board computer diagnostics in newer cars. Instead of an old-school car mechanic who learned via a combination of apprenticeship, tinkering, and frequently consulting mechanic friends (the guild), one goes through a checklist flowchart that might lead to “this part is faulty, replace it.” It is questionable whether the learning analytics will instill some of the deeper parts of learning (that we don’t completely understand). What I like about learning technology is that it is good for drilling (thanks to the infinite patience of the computer) and for developing certain skills. But I think it has its limitations. Anyway, this trajectory will be interesting to watch. As educators we should watch it closely because we could be well putting ourselves out of a job.

(4) Learning Spaces. I’ve had the opportunity to visit specially designed technology-enabled active-learning classrooms for team-based learning. I’ve also visited some “maker spaces” with 3-D printers and the like. All the spaces were quite new, and folks like to show them off to visitors. The ones I’ve seen are impressive looking (lots of money being poured in) and do actually get utilized somewhat effectively. I say somewhat because the mileage varies with the disposition/skill set of the instructors and the course content/learning goals. I am however skeptical that the amount of money spent on such spaces justifies the more nebulous “learning goals” of fostering innovation and creativity that supposedly come from the space design. I think too much credit is given to the space and technology for the learning than is warranted. (I don’t disagree that better design spaces can be enhancing – it’s a question of proportion.)

(5) The Next-Generation LMS. Apparently the big question is what LMS version 2.0 will look like. I don’t know. However I strongly suspect that when it does show up, it will be hailed as the great leap forward. It will then be thrusted on me as instructor as a tool that will greatly enhance teaching and learning.

(6) Learning Analytics and Integrated Planning and Advising Services (IPAS). The main idea behind this is tracking and alerting the appropriate person when some student is going “off track” or is becoming “at risk”. What happened to the old days when you as a teacher did your part to help students but they could also choose to go their own way without coddling and have freedom to make their own mistakes (and learn from them!)? As a frequent adviser of first-year college students, I was introduced a number of years ago to my institution’s version of IPAS. I chose not to use the system and it’s name has been blanked out in my memory. I make every effort to get to know my student advisees but I want them to have the room to choose how much they want to share. I treat them as adults and I feel that the IPAS infantilizes the students. It’s also only as good as the data it can collect (and I’m against much of this collection). I won’t say much about Learning Analytics because I’m hoping to make a more extensive blog post about them, but suffice to say they have their uses. I find some aspects of this feature helpful in our online homework system, although frankly I’d prefer more students to come into my office hours (I’ve seen a decrease since employing the system).

I agree with the concluding paragraph made by the author: “It is a time that is both stressful and energizing, with both loss and new opportunity. Our task as educators is to carefully sift through these new options, being wary not only of clinging to the past but also of embracing digital snake oil. The fundamental challenges to us are to not look into the future ‘through a rear-view mirror’ and to not have our tools shape us.” It seems a good thing to be circumspect but also to have a willingness to embrace changes that can truly enhance teaching and learning. Paper, the printing press, and books significantly changed learning (I think for the better overall) and our new technology is likely to do so as well so long as we don’t put the cart before the horse.

Curator and Guide

Pondering what I do as a chemistry instructor made me think of the role of a curator. I’ve never met a curator in person, but I have seen their invisible hand when I visit a museum or a gallery. Someone decided what will be displayed, how it will be displayed, and what information will accompany each of the displays. There is likely a theme that collects various objects together. Sometimes this is made explicit in the information given; other times it is not.

 

I have gone on a guided tour before. In some cases, it was a Walkman and headphones that talked me through where to walk and what to look at. In other cases, it was a live human being who could also answer questions and engage in back-and-forth conversation. The guide adds another layer of detail to whatever is being displayed, calling attention to some features while making no mention of others. Time also plays a constraining role as a live guide moves you through one display to another. A Walkman guide with a pause button, or no guide at all, allows me to decide how much or how little time I will spend with a particular exhibit.

 

The author of a textbook could be compared to a curator. Most students have never met the author, and in many classes, the textbook author never makes an explicit appearance. But the textbook arranges the material in a particular way following a particular logic. When I use a textbook as part of a class, I am akin to the guide. I add flourish to some areas while downplaying others according to what I think is important for my students. But since I have eschewed using the textbook in most of the classes I teach, I have become both curator and guide.

 

It's been freeing in some ways; I feel less constraint in rearranging the material the way I deem fit. But I’ve only reached this point of feeling that I can be a curator after I’ve taught a course multiple times and developed my own internal logic of how I personally think the material should be presented. There is no one right way. But some arrangements work better than others, certainly in chemistry where a significant chunk of the conceptual knowledge is hierarchical. Concepts build on each other and the complexity ratches up. It’s more work to be both curator and guide, instead of just focusing on the latter, but it’s work that I enjoy.

 

A museum guide has never given me a quiz to test my knowledge after the tour. In my job as an instructor, I can’t stop at being just a curator and guide. I also have to be an evaluator. Have you learned something from this tour of chemical knowledge? What have you actually learned? Can you demonstrate that you have learned what I wanted you to learn? This is not the most fun part of the job for instructor or student, but I admit that I am eager to know what and whether my students learned. I start grading exams almost immediately after the exam is over, so students can get their feedback by the next class period. But it also gives me feedback so I can improve what I do as a guide and as a curator. A museum might get feedback from a visitor based on their interactions. A curator almost never does, at least not directly. In any case, my students help me improve my role as curator and guide in the breathtaking tour of the chemical world!

Creating a Potions Textbook

Reflecting on writing my blog over the last two years, one of my observations was that publicly writing down my intentions of trying specific new things in my classes encouraged me to actually carry them out. Call it some form of self-imposed accountability. I’ve hinted multiple times at having a chemistry class themed around Potions, possibly even writing a “textbook” about how magic relates to chemistry. Maybe I need to build this into one of my classes.

Next semester I am teaching a section of Chemistry and Society, one of the courses aimed at non-science majors fulfilling their core science requirement. Last year, I themed the class and final project around Water, more specifically the science and pseudoscience related to water products. A previous iteration was themed around forensics back in the heyday of CSI. I’ve also taught a version related to my interests in the origin of life. Perhaps I could do one on Potions. I think the students would get a kick out of having the first Harry Potter book be optional reading for the course!

The idea of course is to get students involved, and somehow combine that with getting an early version of a textbook written about chemistry and magic. So here’s the idea I have been toying with. We learn the basic chemistry principles as usual, but with a strong theme towards why this is important to create potions. Fairly early in the semester, I query students on what Potions they think should be created. (I did this once in one of my classes. Here were the results.) The final group projects would be to write Potion recipes for the desired potion using the principles of chemistry they have learned. They would need to justify why their chemical mix might have the desired effect, how they would obtain their ingredients (which might require more chemistry), and what reaction conditions will be needed to produce the desired potion. In the meantime, I will write early sections on the “theory” of potions that relate to the chemical principles needed to help them with their final project. Just thinking about it makes me excited!

What platform should I use? I don’t like the clunkiness of our gargantuan LMS, Blackboard, so I would like to avoid it. I haven’t actually used the wiki feature (although I have used Blackboard in several classes), so perhaps it is at least worthy of investigation since students have some familiarity with it in their other classes. My first thought was to use MediaWiki. I haven’t personally used it. Back in the day, my research group used AirSet, and we had a useful wiki on how to use the computational packages, basic tutorials on Unix, tips and tricks for text editors, more tips and tricks on how to optimize one’s computations, etc. Too bad the site went under. My wife (a librarian) mentioned the possibility of a LibGuide, and she also suggested Wordpress (which I have yet to use). There’s also Google Docs. Wise readers, if you have a suggestion with good reasons why I should use a particular system – please let me know. (Most of you readers know who I am, so just send me an e-mail. Or you can leave me your e-mail address on a comment to this post and I’ll contact you!)

Having students contribute to the textbook will hopefully increase their motivation. (Future classes could work on improving the book!) They would also get to work on their potion of interest, and hopefully learn a lot of chemistry about a particular desired phenomena and how it might interact with the chemistry in your body. There is also a “creative” aspect – they get to propose something novel (and fictitious) without being too bogged down in all the constraints. This is somewhat like the final project in my current General Chemistry class to design a new element.

Okay, now that I have written down this idea in this blog post, maybe I will have the motivation to carry it through. In the meantime, this semester isn’t over yet so I still need to focus on finishing well, both for my students and myself.

A Shift in Bonding

This past week, I’ve shifted my attention to thinking about chemical bonding, motivated by the benzene paper mentioned in my last blog post. It’s a nice break from my sabbatical research projects, especially since I get to think about teaching! I’ve been contemplating how to introduce some ideas from the benzene paper into my quantum chemistry course.

Looking at my most recent syllabi, I’ve typically spent 4-5 class periods (out of 42) on chemical bonding concepts not emphasized in the standard textbook I use for quantum chemistry (McQuarrie). I introduce the Heitler-London (HL) wavefunction for H₂ and discuss how it differs from the molecular orbital (MO) description. We delve into hybridization and the surprising case of bond angles in simple hydrides; sometimes we venture into so-called hypervalent bonding. There’s some Huckel theory and symmetry concepts related to the nodal theorem.

I’d like to approximately double this amount. What would I add? Largely concepts learned from Valence Bond (VB) theory beyond simple Lewis structures. I’ve already started with the HL wavefunction and some simple surprises. I’d like to show more connections between MO and VB approaches, emphasize the importance of Pauli repulsion, and further cement the notion of how different models are used to describe the ‘unseen’ behavior of electrons in chemical bonds. I’d also like to tackle the different types of bonds that are encountered. There are the strangely weak O–O and F–F bonds, the Rundle-Pimentel three-center-four-electron bonds, the one-electron metal bonds, and what goes on in high-strain structures.

To cover these, I’m thinking of centering these discussions around Charge-Shift Bonds (CSB). You’ve never heard of them? CSB proponents argue they are a unique class, and complement the two better-known classes: ionic and covalent bonds. I’ve known about CSB for a while, but with a literature search I came across and excellent recent review article (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2020, 59, 984-1001) written by some of the stalwarts in the field. Is this new class of bonds warranted? The authors present arguments to answer two questions: “Do the bonds belonging to the new class have clearly different features than bonds that belong to formerly defined classes? Is the definition of the new class useful, and does it simulate chemists to make new predictions?” They conclude yes after providing some evidence, and I’m inclined to agree with them. What’s nice about their approach is that it brings in both MO and VB approaches, and takes Pauli repulsion very seriously. There’s also a nice connection to the virial ratio, which the students encounter when solving for the kinetic and potential energy of the hydrogen atom.

All this sounds nice, but if I’m going to add material, what should I cut? My course is already jam-packed with lots of good stuff. (The students might debate ‘good’; they certainly would agree with ‘jam-packed’.) Looking at my syllabus, I could cut the general derivation of the wave equation, reduce time spent on term symbols, cut out some of the math in the spherical harmonics derivation (Legendre polynomials) and in the Hartree-Fock wavefunction for H₂. That may or may not be 4-5 classes worth. I might be able to shave off other bits here and there, but then this brings up the question of whether to keep the textbook. The more I deviate from it, the more students don’t like it. That’s why I don’t use a textbook for second-semester P-Chem (statistical thermodynamics and kinetics). I’m seriously thinking of doing the same for quantum and writing up worksheets for every class. It will be a lot of work, but it might also be helpful should we have another coronavirus-like situation. (Another factor: the textbook has also increased significantly in price.)

I’m not slated to teach quantum next semester since I’m doing a special topics class on the chemical origins of life! Thus, I have time to think, plan, and work on an overhaul – I’m likely to teach quantum in Fall 2021. In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying thinking about teaching innovations. Last week I wrote out four examples of journal and glossary entries after pondering this as a key semester-long assignment for my special topics class. I’m also reminded, amidst a sabbatical mostly doing research, why I chose to be a professor at a liberal arts college rather than a research university – the love of teaching still excites me after so many years and I’ve been missing it this year!