Improving Tertiary Chemistry Teaching: Implications of Science Education Research for Classroom Practice

Abstract

Tertiary chemistry teachers are considered experts in their fields; indeed lecturers are usually appointed on the basis of their research record or potential. In spite of this an important part of staff duties in modern universities involves teaching, a task in which many academics have little experience or training. This is in stark contrast with their secondary school counterparts who commonly undergo extensive teacher training and in New Zealand are currently required to gain teacher registration before appointment. An important part of teacher training involves understanding how students learn, that is how they develop understanding and assimilate concepts into their cognitive structure. There has been a tremendous amount of research into the teaching and learning of science in recent years but it is likely that few tertiary level academics are familiar with this vast body of literature. The purpose of this article is to bring to the attention of tertiary chemistry teachers some of the findings of this research. We hope that this will help tertiary chemistry teachers to reflect on their teaching practice and to consider the teaching approach described here. In particular, as tertiary educators, with a particular interest in chemistry education, we were interested in expressing the potential importance of the constructivist paradigm for classroom practice. Here we advocate a constructivist approach to tertiary chemistry teaching and draw on evidence from the chemical education literature to support this view. Consequently, here we describe relevant reports of research and reflect on the implications this research holds for tertiary chemistry educators.