Just started what is likely to be the most difficult (based on recent assessment data) section of the general chemistry course this semester, Thermochemistry. While it may bot be full of swindles, there are certainly enough traps and pitfalls to go around. This brings up the challenging question of the week. When we know the road ahead is full of traps and pitfalls, how do we best prepare our students to traverse this dangerous path.
We can’t just spring the traps and fill in the pits. This would leave them unprepared for dealing with similar issues on the road ahead. they need to be able to identify the problems at hand and solve them, and giving them similar, simpler problems will make them feel better, and they will survive the journey, and they will like us more, but at what potential cost.
If they just follow us through the mine field, they will still cross safely but be unable to negotiate future fields on their own. They will develop a false sense of security and, in the end, get eaten by a lion or something.
Maybe we just need to tell them it is a really, really, really dangerous road and walk beside, or slightly behind, them and guide with suggestive questions and mild suggestions along the way. But dang, it is hard to do that with 85 different travelers all at the same time.
