Contributor : Pn. Lai Mooi Hiok
Reviewer: Brian
F. Woodfield, Brigham Young University, USA
Introduction
Many have argued that the advancement of
science and technology is the foundation upon which much of the economic
development of the past century has been established. Although economic
prosperity has clearly not been uniform across the world, it is still widely
accepted that a fundamental key to progress in any region is education, and in
particular, education in the science- and engineering-related fields. A
recurring topic in the broader educational community, however, is how to
provide education to an ever-increasing population with widely different
economic and cultural backgrounds. Although societies have changed drastically,
a face-to-face residential model is still generally accepted as the preferred
or ideal approach to imparting knowledge, and more importantly, to developing
creativity. However, this model is woefully inefficient, even elitist in many
cases, and denies access to large parts of many populations. Perhaps contrary
to popular belief, distance education (DE) has been around for more than a
century. For many decades, DE programs were known as correspondence courses,
but since the development of the Internet, DE has migrated online and is now
often referred to as online education. Regardless of the name given, teaching
at a distance has become much more widely accepted recently and is now a focus
of educational research in order to better understand what works, what doesn’t,
and what can be improved.
Teaching science, either traditionally or at a
distance, is unique when compared to other disciplines because in addition to
theory and “paper and pencil” work, the subject requires a laboratory
component. It is this laboratory component that has always been a challenge for
DE and the subject is now receiving an increasing amount of attention. Because
science is a laboratory discipline by nature, it is obvious that students need
to learn laboratory and manipulative skills, but they must also experience a
laboratory environment and develop the higher order cognitive skills that are
necessary for laboratory work. It is this very subject that forms the core of Accessible Elements, Teaching Science Online and at a Distance. The
editors attempt to provide a wide-ranging focus on the dominant issues of
teaching science online, but the recurring theme throughout the book is the
need to teach the practical or laboratory side of the discipline at a distance.
This is a useful book that for the first time appears to provide a valuable
starting point to discuss the theoretical, practical, and logistical issues
involved in developing and delivering a quality online or DE science course.
For all those involved in teaching science online it is worth reading, but I
also found that the editors omitted a thoughtful and thorough discussion of the
merits and place of virtual labs in a DE curriculum. No review is provided of
what virtual labs are available, and a critique of their quality and utility is
absent. Indeed, even the author of the foreword points out this deficiency. Of
course, the editors and many of the chapter authors mention virtual labs, but
in my opinion, the authors dismiss virtual labs out of hand. They focus instead
on the obvious value of hands-on laboratory experiences, ignoring other
cognitive skills that are just as important and likely better taught in a
virtual laboratory environment.
The remainder of this review will first
provide a synopsis of the book, followed by a discussion of virtual labs and
how they can be used to enhance laboratory instruction either in a residential
or online program.
Synopsis
The general purpose of Accessible Elements is to provide a broad
perspective on the theoretical, practical, and logistical aspects of teaching
science online and at a distance. The editors have divided the book into three
sections reflecting these topics, which they call Learning, Laboratories, and
Logistics. While there are obvious gaps in the topics they have chosen to
study, mentioned previously, the information the editors have provided is
meaningful and useful. I would certainly recommend this book to all those
contemplating the development of or who are currently involved in online
science education. One observation I must point out is that a quarter of the
selected authors originate from Athabasca University, and thus my concern is
that the perspectives included in the book are potentially limited. For
example, it would be interesting to know the viewpoints of instructors teaching
science at a distance from for-profit institutions as well as from public and
private schools. Provided below is a brief synopsis of each of the sections in
the book.
Learning
The focus of this section is the theoretical
foundation that allows the teaching of science at a distance. The first chapter
establishes the student–student and student–teacher interactions that are
necessary for teaching and describes the methods for carrying out these
interactions in a DE course. In chapter 2, the focus changes from
student–teacher interactions to interactions that must occur at an institution
in order to achieve the targeted learning outcomes. A key point made in this
chapter is that the interactions in institutions required for good teaching are
universal and not limited to DE. Chapter 3 focuses on the course development
team and discusses the relationships between content, design, and the use of
technology. Chapter 4 explores the need for flexibility in learning, that is,
the need for institutions to investigate and understand different learning
delivery modes (residential, online, traditional texts, etc.) and then to
combine these modes in a consistent program that works for the demographics of
the targeted student body. I found this chapter to be particularly useful
because it encourages administrators, development teams, and instructors to
look at all the tools that are available to them rather than limiting courses
to a particular delivery mode.
Laboratories
In this section, the editors focus on the core
elements of teaching at a distance and describe how the laboratory component
can be taught to non-residential students. In chapter 5, the authors focus on
home experiments or “kitchen chemistry,” describing how they have developed
robust kits that can be mailed to students, allowing them to perform
traditional introductory chemistry experiments. The authors also report
research that supports the viability of using kits to teach the laboratory
component at a distance when compared to a traditional model. These kits go
well beyond stereotypical “kitchen chemistry” and are surprisingly effective.
Chapter 6 repeats the same discussion but in the context of the biological
sciences. The authors also make the point that advanced biological laboratories
require a residential laboratory component because of the need for advanced equipment.
Chapter 7 covers the discussion about physics experiments (which turn out to be
easier than chemistry experiments), and chapter 8 focuses on the earth
sciences. Chapter 9 is unique because it explores remote access laboratories,
which provide a third option beyond home kits and residential laboratories for
the various disciplines.
Logistics
The final section of the book covers the
logistical concerns of delivering science content under various circumstances.
In chapter 10, the authors use Athabasca University as an example and first
discuss the personnel required to manage their online laboratory component.
They then do a cost analysis to show that the use of home kits involves similar
costs to those incurred by traditional methods to deliver the laboratory
component. Chapter 11 presents a discussion of the logistical difficulties
associated with providing science education in a third world country by showing
how science is taught at a mega-university in Bangladesh. Chapter 12 continues
with a similar discussion using the example of the University of South Pacific,
describing the difficulties of covering an enormous geographical territory.
Finally, chapter 13 provides an opinion on the future of DE in the context of
the barriers currently faced by educators.
Virtual Laboratories
Computers are now ubiquitous in education and
in DE especially. My personal perspective may provide a unique insight into the
issues governing the implementation of a DE course and the use of virtual labs.
Although I have been a chemistry professor for over 13 years, my family
background is in computer science. My father was one of the pioneers working
during the infancy of computers in the early 1950s and was involved in many
large-scale space and military projects, including Gemini, Apollo, and several
complex defense systems. He had a saying that we, as children, were constantly
reminded of:
Computers are just a tool. They are very
useful for some things and essentially useless for others. If a computer does
not make your life easier, or allow you to do things you would not normally be
able to perform, then why use one?
I feel this perspective best illustrates a
good approach to providing laboratory instruction at a distance. What are the
tools at our disposal, what are the strengths and weaknesses of each, and how
do we use them to complement each other? It is unlikely that any one tool will
provide a complete solution. Within this context, I think it is appropriate to
revisit how we can provide a laboratory component at a distance.
To begin the discussion, I must return to the
purpose of having students perform laboratory assignments. The authors of
chapter 5 provide as good a description as any when they summarize that the
aims of laboratory work are to teach (a) manipulation, (b) observation and
recording, (c) processing and interpreting data, and (d) planning experiments
(p. 87). In my experience as a research chemist I would also add a fifth aim,
decision-making and deductive reasoning skills, although this could fall within
the general “processing and interpreting data” aim given by the authors. If
these are the goals of instructional laboratory work, the question is: Do
residential and kit-based laboratories achieve all of these aims? While I fully
agree with the various authors in the book that hands-on laboratories are
necessary and even vital, in my experience not all of the goals are met when
placing students exclusively in “real” instructional laboratory settings.
Because of time, safety, liability, and cost constraints, students in an actual
laboratory setting are often reduced to a cookbook mentality where they blindly
follow instructions for both procedures and data analysis (Woodfield, et al.,
2004; Woodfield, et al., 2005; Swan, 2008). Certainly there are exceptions to
this observation, and some students are able to enjoy real, open-ended
environments, but many others are not afforded such opportunities and can only
perform experiments in narrowly constrained environments. In such environments,
students certainly experience (a) basic laboratory skills and (b) observation
and recording, but it is questionable whether they are able to independently
process and analyze data (without significant guidance from instructors), and,
in particular, to plan and design experiments. In addition, the scope of
experiments that students can perform is, for the most part, extremely limited
when compared to the breadth of scientific research.
Another way of looking at the aims of
laboratory instruction is that lab work should provide students with a glimpse
of what real science is. That is, it should show them what scientists do, what
they experience in the laboratory, and how they think. Scientists manipulate
lab equipment, record and analyze data, and design experiments, but they do this
in an open-ended environment where what they observe is new, where the
interpretation and understanding of these data require creativity and the
application of diverse concepts and skills, and where the answer is not known.
While not all students are going to be scientists, skills for coping with an
open-ended environment without knowing the “correct” answer are useful in every
walk of life. Actual or real-world laboratory environments, whether they are
conducted at school or created at home with kits, are just one tool for
educators to teach students these important skills.
Students must physically experience and feel
how experiments are done in the laboratory as a part of learning these skills,
but an appropriately designed and constructed virtual environment can
complement real-world laboratories by providing a safe, open-ended, and
accessible environment for students to design experiments, to make decisions,
and to suffer consequences without the constraints of time, safety, liability,
and costs (Woodfield, et al., 2004; Woodfield, et al., 2005; Swan, 2008). Yes,
virtual laboratories do a poor job of teaching manipulatives, but when
appropriately designed they are, in many cases, superior for teaching students
how to cope with science in an unstructured environment. I am not talking about
replacing real-world labs entirely, but rather about enhancing them with
virtual reproductions or extensions.
There have been many attempts to produce
simulations of a wide variety of scientific concepts, and it is well beyond the
scope of this review to provide a lengthy description of each, but I will make
the observation that most attempts at simulations are very limited in concept
and are designed primarily to target specific lessons in a prescriptive manner.
Indeed, this is the primary reason why most experts in the educational
community dismiss virtual laboratories out of hand. For the most part,
simulations available online are narrowly focused within a simple 2D interface,
and students have essentially no freedom to design and construct experiments,
make choices, and experience real-world consequences. The number of highly
realistic and sophisticated 3D virtual environments is quite small, primarily
due to the effort and cost associated with the production of the art and
simulation engine necessary to support such an environment. Some of those that
I am familiar with include Geology Explorer and Virtual Cell from
the North Dakota State University, Late Nite Labs (a
chemistry laboratory) produced in Israel, and Model ChemLab. There are other virtual
laboratories, some conceived and produced by commercial publishers and others
that are no longer supported and are now obsolete.
In the interest of transparency, I am the
author and project director for a set of virtual laboratories called Y Science Laboratories, which have been
produced at Brigham Young University since 1998 and are licensed to and
distributed by Pearson Education. These laboratories currently include the
general products Virtual ChemLab, Virtual Physics, Virtual Physical Science,
and now Virtual Biology. Within these programs, lab benches have been created
for inorganic qualitative analysis, calorimetry, titrations, gas properties,
experiments in quantum chemistry, mechanics, density, circuits, optics,
microscopy, genetics, molecular biology, ecology, and systematics. These
simulations are built around a realistic 3D interface that allows students to
move about in a laboratory and perform a wide variety of experiments with a
nearly unlimited number of outcomes. The focus of the labs is not necessarily
laboratory technique (although that is certainly included whenever possible),
but rather experiment design, data gathering and recording, data interpretation
and analysis, and, most importantly, dealing with an unstructured laboratory
environment. If experiments are not set up properly, students can experience
explosions, failed experiments, “wrong” or unanticipated results, and null
data. The laboratories look and feel like a real-world laboratory; there are no
built-in instructions or guidance. The rooms and lab benches are constructed to
look like real rooms with real equipment, and the goals and learning outcomes
for students are expected to be supplied by the instructors as they would be in
an actual laboratory setting. Indeed, the programs provide a virtual rendering
of a residential laboratory setting with lab benches, drawers containing
equipment, stockrooms with necessary supplies, and lab books for recording
observations, data, and results. Research and anecdotal evidence show that
students perform better on lab exams and in the laboratory when these virtual
laboratories are combined with actual laboratory work (Woodfield, et al., 2004;
Woodfield, et al., 2005; Swan, 2008).
Conclusions
Accessible
Elements provides the first comprehensive look at what is needed to
produce a DE science course. The book provides a snapshot of the theory of
learning behind these courses, describes what is needed to provide laboratory
experiences through home kits, residential labs, and remote labs, and concludes
with discussions on the administrative logistics of delivering these courses.
The book is useful for those currently involved or interested in producing an
online science course and provides meaningful experiences, research, and
information. A serious weakness of the book, however, is the exclusion of any
meaningful discussion of virtual labs and how they could be used to enhance the
laboratory component of any online science course.
References
Woodfield, B. F., Catlin, H. R., Waddoups, G.
L., Moore, M. S., Swan, R., Allen, R., & Bodily, G. (2004). The virtual
ChemLab project: A realistic and sophisticated simulation of inorganic
qualitative analysis. Journal of Chemical
Education, 81, 1672–1678.
Woodfield, B. F., Andrus, M. B., Andersen, T.,
Miller, J., Simons, B., Stanger, R., Waddoups, G. L., Moore, M. S., Swan, R.,
Allen R., & Bodily, G. (2005). The Virtual ChemLab project: A realistic and
sophisticated simulation of organic synthesis and organic qualitative analysis.
Journal of Chemical Education, 82, 1728–1735.
Swan, R. (2008). Deriving operational principles for the design of engaging
learning experiences (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Brigham Young University,
Provo, UT.
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