Innovative Methods of Teaching and Learning Chemistry in Higher Education

Ingo Eilks, Bill Byers, Ingo Eilks, Bill Byers

• Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781782625131
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Science & Technology

Two recent initiatives from the EU, namely the Bologna Process and the Lisbon Agenda are likely to have a major influence on European Higher Education. It seems unlikely that traditional teaching approaches, which supported the elitist system of the past, will promote the mobility, widened participation and culture of 'life-long learning' that will provide the foundations for a future knowledge-based economy. There is therefore a clear need to seek new approaches to support the changes which will inevitably occur. The European Chemistry Thematic Network (ECTN) is a network of some 160 university chemistry departments from throughout the EU as well as a number of National Chemical Societies (including the RSC) which provides a discussion forum for all aspects of higher education in chemistry. This handbook is a result of one of their working groups, who identified and collated good practice with respect to innovative methods in Higher Level Chemistry Education. It provides a comprehensive overview of innovations in university chemistry teaching from a broad European perspective. The generation of this book through a European Network, with major national chemical societies and a large number of chemistry departments as members make the book unique. The wide variety of scholars who have contributed to the book, make it interesting and invaluable reading for both new and experienced chemistry lecturers throughout the EU and beyond. The book is aimed at chemistry education at universities and other higher level institutions and at all academic staff and anyone interested in the teaching of chemistry at the tertiary level. Although newly appointed teaching staff are a clear target for the book, the innovative aspects of the topics covered are likely to prove interesting to all committed chemistry lecturers.

Training Programmes for Newly Appointed University Chemistry Teaching Staff

PAUL C. YATES

University of Keele, United Kingdom

IWONA MACIEJOWSKA

Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

It is increasingly recognized that newly appointed university teaching staff, in both chemistry and other disciplines, require training in order to teach effectively and promote student learning. This chapter considers the requirements of such training in order for it to be effective, and describes some of the programmes which are running in individual countries and across Europe, to provide this. Training is provided at the level of the institution, faculty and discipline representing considerable variation in practice. We also highlight a number of resources which may be helpful to the new chemistry lecturer; these include, books, journal articles, and electronic resources.

Introduction

An early proposal for the training of university lecturers identified classroom teaching, tutoring, empowering students to conduct individual study, empowering students to conduct co-operative study with their peers, and practical work projects as a basis for training activities (Martínez, Gros, & Romaň, 1998). To these were subsequently added the design of curricular materials (including study guides, web based material and interactive tutorials), the orientation and tutoring of students throughout their studies, and the evaluation of learning activities developed by students. It was suggested that lecturers’ own experiences should be taken into account when delivering training, and that it could begin with participants reporting in which classroom teaching situations they felt at ease or not. Finally, there was a proposal that such training should be led by experts in the teaching of the discipline who would have “sufficient moral authority” to perform this function.

Bamber (2002) has given a useful discussion of the development of training courses for new lecturers in the United Kingdom. She noted that they were first suggested in the Robbins’ review of higher education in 1963, but have only become widespread following the recommendation of their introduction by the Dearing Committee (National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education, 1997).This was appointed to make recommendations on how higher education in the UK should develop over the next 20 years. Bamber’s research (Bamber, 2002) showed that such courses were a probationary requirement in 42% of UK universities and compulsory in a further 26%. Senior managers were generally seen to be supportive of such courses although this was often not backed up by the provision of sufficient resources. Heads of Department, on the other hand, seemed to be well aware of the resource implications which meant that their new staff would have less time to spend on teaching and research. This meant that they were often less enthusiastic and supportive of the training.

A study of new lecturers’ experience of formal and informal induction processes (Hodkinson & Taylor, 2002) identified mentoring and supervision, appraisal, peer review of teaching and informal contact with colleagues as some characteristics of the process. Participants in the study saw generic training as complementary to subject based mentoring and supervision. The role of such generic programmes in facilitating lecturers to understand themselves as learners was seen as critical for developing their understanding of students. Such programmes should also provide opportunities for interaction with their peers both within and across disciplines. Finally, the study noted that new lecturers from overseas or outside the university sector had even greater need of such development opportunities.

While most of the literature in this area is UK based, there are some studies which attempt to draw comparisons with other countries. One of these studies (Trowler & Bamber, 2005) contains a summary of the training of university lecturers in seven countries: In the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand it is at the discretion of individual universities, in Finland and Norway it is compulsory while in Sweden and the UK an intermediate state exists. This paper notes that such training was introduced in Sweden because of the increase in student diversity and lack of student preparedness. The authors also state that there is no established relationship between the training of lecturers and student outcomes.

An international group of medical educators has reviewed the evidence of effectiveness of faculty development within their discipline, as described in 53 published papers describing work in the United States, Canada, Egypt, Israel, Malta, Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and South Africa (Steinert et al., 2006). Some of the findings were that microteaching and the opportunity to practice were very well received, there was no evidence for any change in student examination performance, several participants took on new educational responsibilities, and that interventions can have both negative and positive effects. There were reports of faculty development interventions which were of greatest benefit to both experienced and inexperienced staff. The paper concludes with a number of implications for practice, including the need to make more use of theory and principles in the design of programmes, to acknowledge the importance of context, to develop more programmes that extend over time, and to develop programmes that encourage reflection and learning among participants.

A study within a single United Kingdom university noted that efforts are required to establish new academic staff since many of the former informal means of doing so are now not available (Barlow & Antoniou, 2007). New staff valued the chance to interact with staff from other disciplines at formal training courses, as well as appreciating the broader perspective such courses provided on the academic role. This work has led to recommendations that the teaching development needs of new staff may be better met if university managers better understand the role of such courses, and the time required for attendance at these courses is built into staff timetables.

It has been noted (Coffey & Gibbs, 2000) that there is little evidence that initial training programmes for new university teachers have any impact with which to guide policy decisions, the choice of rationale, or the pattern of provision. The Student Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ) (Marsh, 2002) was administered to 20 randomly selected students of 20 teachers undertaking such training programmes at each of ten United Kingdom universities at three points in time. The findings indica...