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Discoveries in the
Virtual Lab
Orville L. Chapman’s new interactive programs are endowing undergraduates with research level tools and a better grasp of their subject areas
Although science educators have known for years that the traditional
lecture and textbook approach to early undergraduate education engages
students far less than the laboratory explorations that come later, two
factors have conspired to limit wider applications of constructivist learning:
the enormous amount of time required for faculty to provide large numbers
of students with the individual attention necessary to get started in a
science lab, and the often prohibitive expense of setting up experiments.
Now, however, professors can turn undergraduate students loose not in
a laboratory, but on a computer. And with the help of model sets created
for an award winning interactive multimedia initiative known as UCLA’s
Science Challenge, students can run their own experiments without incurring
the high costs -- in both money and time -- traditionally associated with
setting them up.
 Science Challenge interactive programs bring research level tools, such
as molecular modeling and computational chemistry, to entry level students,
allowing them to manipulate data and construct lessons. “One has to do
science to learn science,” contends Orville L. Chapman, professor
of chemistry, associate dean for educational innovation, a member of the
National Academy of Sciences and Science Challenge’s principal investigator.
“There simply isn’t any other way. Information technology enables learning
based on discovery. That’s the only way that students will ever be able
to understand science.”
 Science Challenge,
which debuted in 1991, now reaches upwards of 15,000 lower division undergraduate
students each year at UCLA, as well as countless other high school and
university students in North America, Europe and Asia. Several major corporations,
led by Hewlett Packard and including Howard Hughes Medical Institute and
CAChe Inc., fund the project, which captured top honors in the Education
and Academia category of the technology industry’s Computerworld Smithsonian
Awards Program in 1995 — marking the second consecutive year a UCLA program
has won the award.
More than 50 discovery modules are available to undergraduate science
students, with interactive programs covering disciplines ranging from astronomy,
atmospheric science and chemistry, to earth and space sciences, physics,
biology and general science education. With one program, students can design
and explore the properties of new kinds of molecules. Another introduces
students to X ray crystal structures in a way that enables them to rotate
the crystals in three dimensions. In still another module, astronomy students
can view light emissions from a pulsar, altering parameters to see why
different patterns occur.
Central to the constructivist learning approach, notes Chapman, is the
idea that by manipulating their own data, students can see the consequences
of their decisions — as opposed to the results of someone else’s decisions,
the reasons behind which may not be apparent.
“Most chemists had a chemistry set as a kid, so when they entered the
discipline, they were building on a knowledge base they already had,” says
Arlene Russell, Science Challenge co-investigator and creator of several
of the modules. “One of the problems in science is that, increasingly,
students come in without that kind of experience to build on.” The multimedia
approach also allows students to proceed at their own speed, rather than
restricting individuals of different aptitudes and skill levels to the
same pace.
Taking the Science Challenge concept a step further, a consortium that
includes UCLA, Cal State University, Fullerton, Mt. San Antonio College,
East Los Angeles College, Pasadena City College and Crossroads secondary
school, recently received a $2.4-million grant from the National Science
Foundation to develop a fully digital, network delivered, molecular science
curriculum. The two year curriculum, intended for use either as a stand
alone course or as a complement to traditional science teaching, will consist
of a series of learning modules designed to provide students with a broad
context for the material presented and cultivate higher order thinking,
problem solving and creativity.
Lecturing still has a place in education, but even that old teaching
method is subject to innovation. Science Challenge has begun recording
lectures by outstanding scientists and making them available on videotape,
with some portions digitized for the new molecular science curriculum courses.
Chapman is also seeking to promote more “academic socialization” by building
toward an on campus network that will link all first year students through
audiovisual contact and digital document interactive graphics. “We would
like to encourage more on line studying, more joint work on reports, more
posting of reports on bulletin boards for peer review — things like that,”
Chapman explains. “This would also make it easy for faculty members to
go on line and chat with students.”
In an effort to probe the effectiveness of Science Challenge, several
studies have been conducted. The Department of Physics, for example, offered
students two digital laboratory sections and compared the results with
those from two control laboratory sections. While the scores on lecture
based exams were similar among all four sections, students expressed a
decided preference for the multimedia approach, and overwhelmingly reported
having arrived at a better understanding of physics thanks to Chapman’s
digitalized laboratories.
Recharging the Electronic Classroom...
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