Report On “A Facilitated Conversation on Reform”

True to the title of the session, Bassam Shakhashiri led a free-wheeling, wide-ranging discussion about the goals of curriculum reform and about the overall purpose of chemistry education. Participants eschewed the idea that change should be uniform across United States campuses and instead insisted that the individuality of both students and instructors requires a diversity of teaching methods, even within the same classroom. Discussion focused on three different purposes for chemistry classes: general intellectual goals common to all or many classes in different departments on campus (e.g., ability to read and write well or think creatively); professional intellectual goals, involving chemistry’s specific thinking and problem-solving skills (e.g., understanding equilibria or designing synthetic pathways); and professional, technical goals important especially for majors, but also as exposure for nonmajors (e.g., knowledge of reagents or ability to distill liquids). Participants expressed a strong desire to demonstrate to their students their own excitement about chemistry and about teaching and to help students see the connections between chemistry and the rest of the world. Several people also commented on the necessity to increase the breadth of graduate education in chemistry to better prepare PhDs for careers in academia or industry. Ultimately, participants suggested that reform must to a large extent be an individual effort, with help and inspiration from others outside, but final responsibility resting with each instructor.