Sweeping Change in Manageable Units: A Modular Approach to Chemistry Curriculum Reform

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9450703 Moore Massive reform can start with small steps, particularly when the politics of change are so complex. Change in the chemistry curriculum must meet the needs of science and engineering departments whose students we serve, as well as the needs of the chemistry major going into industry or graduate school, and the liberal arts conscripts to chemistry courses. In order to make inroads toward change we must find a path that makes possible a curriculum that can be modified continually, is usable in a variety of institutions, can accommodate the increasingly diverse group of students we need to serve, and encourages participation of faculty and students alike. The in- and out-of-classroom experience must incorporate new technologies to aid the students in accessing, organizing, filtering and assimilating scientific information. We must revise our model of curriculum across the rapidly blurring boundaries of the subdisciplines of chemistry, and the disciplines of all sciences. We propose to develop self-contained modules, at all levels of the chemistry curriculum, that can be used for 2-4 weeks in a lecture or laboratory course, The instructional tools developed for the module will include software, videos, interactive CD's and other resource material that can replace or greatly augment traditional texts and problem to interest the students and will be developed in an interdisciplinary manner. Core concepts from the essential chemistry "tool kit" will be included in each module and an instructor could select a variety of modules in order to cover the same core concepts. This is more than a repacking of chemistry, it is the beginning of ongoing systemic change that allows for all faculty, innovative or traditional, to use new approaches and contexts in their classrooms. A consortium of schools, predominantly from California -- the University of California, the California State University, the two- year Colleges, private institutions -- as well as three institutions from Atlanta, Georgia will serve as the working partners to establish the design and testing of the modules.