2008 American Chemical Society George C. Pimentel Award Address,
Sponsored by Rohm and Haas Co.
by Richard N. Zare, Stanford University
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My aim is to create a supportive learning community, one that empowers students to succeed at their own pace.
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As the school year ends and summer vacation begins, many kids chant
No more pencils,
No more books,
No more teachers’ dirty looks!
In the state where I live, this refrain is not limited to the end of the school year. Nearly one in four of California’s 6.3 million students drops out of school, according to the latest statistics released by the California Department of Education (1), and the dropout rate is particularly high for underrepresented groups. While I believe that a few students cannot be expected to graduate from high school, these statistics scare me; I think they represent a catastrophe in the making. While this reality is well known to professional educators, for me this fact comes more as a revelation, raising many red flags of warning.
Elliott Masie wrote in his Learning TRENDS newsletter (2), “Learning is a key pillar for freedom and independence. The ability of a society and an economy to make learning a prime and core value-from elementary school, through high school, on to college and into our work and vocational lives-is essential. Some would assert that learning is actually a fundamental element of national security. It keeps us wise, vigilant and competitive.” To which I would add: Learning is the key to a personally rewarding life. Furthermore, all indications are that a large proportion of future jobs will be created in technological fields for which completion of high school, if not college, is essential.
As Harvey Fineberg, President of the Institute of Medicine, stated eloquently in his testimony before Congress this year (3), “Fifty years ago, many of the United States’ scientific leaders came from Europe. There are the famous names like Einstein, Fermi, and Teller (without whom we might not have been the first to build the atomic and hydrogen bombs), von Braun (without whom we would not be ascendant in rockets and space), and von Neumann (without whom we might not be leaders in computing and information technology). But there are dozens more names, like Bethe and Gödel, who may not be known to the general public, but who formed the backbone of American science and engineering-plus an enormous number of journeymen scientists and engineers whose individual contributions will never be celebrated, but without whom the United States would be neither as prosperous nor as secure as it is.” No student of history can doubt that we are a nation of immigrants, and foreign-born scientists and engineers today remain a vital component of the U.S. scientific and technological workforce. But a 2003 report of the National Science Board (4) concludes that this reliance on foreign students and scientists in universities and the workforce may not be sustainable, given that competition from Asia and Europe for scientific talent is swiftly growing. So, once again, my thoughts return to home, my own state, and my own community.
Student (Non) Retention
The College of Science at San José State University (SJSU) plays a vital role in my community. SJSU is one of 23 campuses that make up the California State University (CSU) system. Its College of Science aspires to transform its majors into qualified science professionals for both a global and a regional (Silicon Valley) workforce and to prepare them for advanced (graduate) training and life-long learning. Maureen Scharberg, a chemist, is the interim acting Associate Dean of the College of Science at SJSU. I asked her about student retention. I learned that the CSU graduation rate for first-time freshmen who entered the CSU system in 1997 was, after six years, only 54% (5). The retention rate varies among the campuses, but the retention rate at SJSU is well below the CSU average.
It is easy at Stanford to become smug about such matters-to shrug and say, “Well, that’s not what it’s like here.” But such a response is recklessly irresponsible. The CSU system with nearly 450,000 students supported by 45,000 faculty members and staff (6) educates more undergraduates than does the University of California system (168,000), let alone Stanford (6,700). As the largest university system in the United States, it prepares about 60% of the teachers in the state, 40% of the engineering graduates, and more graduates in business, agriculture, communications, health, education, and public administration than all other California universities and colleges combined. Yet its retention rate is barely more than one student in two.
Remedial Work
Why care such about these facts when the United States has what many regard as the strongest economy in the world? I answer that we are at present enjoying the benefits of an education system that was once the envy of other nations-but it is now in deep trouble. We need to seek a cause of this educational failure in American society and inquire what steps can be taken to remedy the problems. Our nation’s future depends on it.
I asked Scharberg what she regards as the major problem students face on entering SJSU. She told me that about 60% of SJSU’s entering freshmen need remedial work in mathematics, English, or both. The inescapable conclusion is that the majority of entering students have not been adequately prepared by their high schools for college level math and science courses. A huge problem results: Students lose confidence in themselves when taking remedial classes. This loss of confidence leads them to conclude, on the scant evidence of a few weeks’ struggle to catch up, that careers based on math and science are forever beyond their reach. Remediation to overcome this lack seems to be a quite controversial topic. While research suggests students taking remedial courses have better outcomes than comparable students who did not choose to take remedial classes (7), at the Stanford Chemistry Department we take a different course of action, much along the lines of Supplemental Instruction (SI) (8). The SI model offers regularly scheduled, out-of-class, peer-facilitated review sessions to all students enrolled in our beginning general chemistry course. The sessions are informal and promote small-group discussions that emphasize the development of organizational problem-solving skills for all who attend, rather than attempting to target only high-risk students.
I have seen a similar crisis of confidence when teaching introductory general chemistry at Stanford. The students who do poorly during the first few weeks are the ones most likely to drop the course and leave disappointed, convinced that science is not for them-ever. What can be done to overcome this problem?
Of course, it is easy to point fingers at the high schools that are poorly preparing students-even some who are regarded as our best and brightest-and more must be done to improve the quality of teaching at the high school level. It is particularly important to find teachers who understand that their most important task is to inspire their students, not to stuff facts into their heads. But for the moment I’m asking what can be done at the college undergraduate level, a level where I might have some influence, at least locally.
Possible Solutions
The chemistry community is trying to address this problem by numerous programs designed to increase access to and success in chemistry programs at all types of institutions of higher learning, and the National Science Foundation has taken an active role in promoting a number of approaches (9). Indeed, student retention is one of the most widely studied areas in higher education, and the result has been an ever more sophisticated understanding of the complex web of events that shape whether a student will persist or leave (10). Initially, this problem was viewed through a lens of psychology, in which student persistence or lack thereof was viewed as a reflection on his or her individual attributes, skills, and motivation. Students were said to fail, not institutions. This view, however, has begun to undergo some significant modifications with an appreciation of the key role a particular institution’s learning environment plays in student decisions to stay or leave. Numerous studies show the importance of classroom involvement to student retention (10, 11). Often, the classroom is the primary place to promote social and academic integration. Yet, the faculty of our colleges and universities remain the only faculty in the kindergarten through graduate school educational spectrum to have received no formal training about how to instruct their students. Too often, large lecture classes seem to be designed to transfer information in the teacher’s lecture notes to the student’s lecture notes at maximum speed without the information ever passing through the brains of either party!
Most institutions of higher learning have not been able to translate good practices into forms of action that have led to substantial gains in student persistence and retention. Many institutions tout the importance of increasing student retention, but many fewer are willing to devote the resources and to change the reward structure to motivate faculty members to address the deeper structural issues that influence student retention. Students who drop out blame the teaching or the advising or both (11), but research suggests that the reasons are deeper than that (10-13).
My Suggestions
Against this backdrop let me boldly put forward some unoriginal thoughts concerning what might be done, from the perspective of someone at a research university. These views may be familiar to educators who worry about persistence and retention, but they are seldom discussed by faculty members at research universities. They are based on my own experience about what works and what does not.
My proposed solution has three parts. I strongly favor:
1. More mentoring of students by faculty, on a one-on-one basis;
2. more structured advising of students by professionally trained people who understand how to cope with the problem of “freshman shock”;
3. more encouragement of students to work together and teach each other.
These actions have been tried before, to varying extents and combinations, and a large body of evidence suggests improved outcomes (10-13). Consequently, I will not describe them in detail here or present ways that they can be implemented. All of these proposed solutions strive to avoid teaching in a passive information-transfer process that does not engage the student in and out of the classroom. My aim is to create a supportive learning community, one that empowers students to succeed at their own pace.
Grading
I would also like to offer a complement to these processes: I advocate a change in our grading procedure for the first semester or first quarter of the freshman year. During that period I want grades to be computed and given to the students and their advisers for all courses, but I want the registrar to record them only as pass or fail. A few universities already do this or something like it-for example the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (14) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)-with no obvious loss of rigor or respect, but most do not.
Too often I have seen that the terror of receiving poor grades closes the minds of students to learning. I know this happens at Stanford and I have been told it happens elsewhere. Students used to succeeding in high school sometimes face a huge adjustment when confronted with the demands of college work. I think one semester or one quarter without recorded grades would help them through this transition. My proposal would not diminish the significance of grades, but it could help to retain students who might otherwise drop out immediately.
Not giving grades is no substitute for mentoring and for providing support to students who are struggling. It seems easy enough to design materials to stimulate students who are well prepared; the challenge is how to reach those students with less preparation and turn them on to science, build their confidence, and celebrate their success. Some of the real heroes in addressing this problem-teachers, tutors, and administrators-are to be found in the CSU system and other community college and state higher education systems similar to it. And they seldom win national awards or receive much public attention.
It was a great pleasure and honor to receive the 2008 George C. Pimentel Award in Chemical Education from the American Chemical Society, but I accept it with a deep sense of humility, particularly in recognition that my own efforts are not singly focused on teaching or addressing the pressing problems of education. I am grateful to the Editor of JCE for inviting this Commentary. Certainly, much room exists for discussion and different points of view on this topic; let me invite readers to write to me or to the Editor of JCE with their comments or to join in the online discussion on the blog.
Note
1. This Commentary is the result of Richard Zare’s having received the 2008 George C. Pimentel Award in Chemical Education, sponsored by the Rohm and Haas Company. The award was presented at the American Chemical Society National Meeting in New Orleans, LA on April 8, 2008, following a one-day symposium in his honor, organized by Robert Lichter. Information about the nominating procedures for this award (as well as a list of recipients) can be found on the ACS Web site at http://www.acs.org by following the path > Funding & Awards > Awards > National Awards (accessed Nov 2008).
Literature Cited
1. Statistics about dropout rates in the state of California may be found at http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/page2.asp?Level=State&Subject=Dropouts, from which point it is possible to gain access to more specific information (accessed Nov 2008).
2. 529-Learning and July 4th, Elliott Masie’s Learning TRENDS: Learning, Training, Technology, and Change; http://trends.masie.com/archives/2008/7/4/529-learning-and-july-4th.html (accessed Nov 2008).
3. Fineberg’s statement is at http://www7.nationalacademies.org/ocga/testimony/Visas_for_Foreign_Scholars_and_Students.asp (accessed Nov 2008).
4. “The Science and Engineering Work Force, Realizing America’s Potential“, National Science Board, August 14, 2003; http://nsf.gov/nsb/documents/2003/nsb0369/nsb0369.pdf (accessed Nov 2008).
5. “CSU Retention and Graduation Rates Exceed Those at Benchmark Institutions”, available at http://www.calstate.edu/pa/news/2005/gradrates.shtml (accessed Nov 2008).
6. The Faculty and Staff part of the California State University System Web site is at http://www.calstate.edu/faculty_staff/ (accessed Nov 2008).
7. See, for example, the work of Bridget Terry Long at http://gseacademic.harvard.edu/~longbr/index.htm (accessed Nov 2008).
8. Stone, M. E.; Jacobs, G., Eds. Supplemental Instruction: New Visions for Empowering Student Learning, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 106. Jossey-Bass: New York, 2006.
9. See Wesemann, J. L. J. Chem. Educ. 2005, 82, 196-198 and references therein.
10. Tinto, V. Research and Practice of Student Retention: What Next? J. College Student Retention 2006, 8, 1-19.
11. Seymour, E.; Hewitt, N. M. Talking About Leaving: Why Undergraduates Leave the Sciences; Westview Press: Boulder, CO, 1997.
12. Bueschel, A. C. Listening to Students about Learning. Strengthening Pre-collegiate Education in Community Colleges (SPECC); The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: Stanford, CA, 2008.
13. Huber, M. T. The Promise of Faculty Inquiry for Teaching and Learning Basic Skills. In Strengthening Pre-collegiate Education in Community Colleges (SPECC); The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: Stanford, CA, 2008.
14. The MIT report, Freshman Pass/No Record Grading and Advanced Placement Policy, is available at http://web.mit.edu/faculty/reports/pnrap/report3.html (accessed Nov 2008).
Richard N. Zare is HHMI professor and chair, Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; zare@stanford.edu.
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