Session 5 : Where next?
In the final session the following points were agreed:
- To work from storylines towards resource packs
- That Salters storylines can be used as starting points
for some topics
- American materials could be trialled and tested too (given
the resources they have had to set them up).
- Material is currently being written at MMU - Tomorrow’s
car/Big Bang (covers kinetics/atomic structure) and Leeds - Chemistry within/Chemistry
without
- A day meeting in July was agreed with two main aims.
- To look at material we would like trialled - US/MMU/Leeds.
- Take a core "chunk", come up with storylines
to teach it and then interested people would send in ideas/storylines/activities
(useful software/web sites with a contextual basis).
- Spectroscopy was chosen as the topic. It is already
a thematic area and covering IOP examples forms a good integrated model.
This approach will involve a lot of hard work with smaller groups and
a lot of rewriting.However:-
- There is a need to achieve some concrete materials that
can be hawked around and taken up for trials.
- Leading on from the July meeting, ideas could be presented
in a parallel session at the ‘Variety in Chemistry Teaching’ meeting in
September at York - thus reaching a larger audience and having a greater
influence. (Aiming for September 1999)
- We need a name for these materials - a neutral name (not
‘Salters’) - Chemical Connections? Chemical Concepts? Chemistry Today?
- We are seeking in affect a seed-change in UK chemistry
courses over the next 10-15 years. Thus we need to produce enough material
to seek funding for further topics.
- What are suitable sources of funding?
- Once we get to the proposal stage, an advisory/steering
group would be needed to give a proposal credibility.
- A strong selling point of the collaborative approach
to todays busy academics is that for the effort of writing a topic themselves
they get lots of topics back.
- Establish an electronic discussion list.
The concluding sentiment of the workshop was that