WHAT MODELS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING MIGHT GRADUATE STUDENTS HOLD?
It is reasonable to assume that new graduate students will draw many of their models of teaching and learning from their prior experiences in school. Thus, we want to consider the way in which chemistry instruction typically is offered. These new graduate students have spent many hours at their undergraduate institutions sitting passively at lectures. While the quality of the faculty presentations might have been quite high, it is likely that little time was available for the students to think about ideas. Many spent most of the time copying directly from the board into their notebooks. What is the model for teaching and learning that one might draw from observations of these behaviors? Certainly, there is a belief that communication of ideas in chemistry is facile. If we explain these ideas carefully, in the way in which we understand them and have organized them for ourselves, students will understand them. We assume that the vocabulary we use has meaning, that students have mastered
