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Teaching Philosophy
Introduction
Physics as the study of the laws of nature is reduced to four forces, the
strong, weak, gravitational and electromagnetic forces. The latter governs all
molecular behaviour. Chemistry is concerned with the interaction of atoms and
molecules of matter. The energy transactions of these interactions measures
their extent and intensity. This energy lies within the range of electromagnetic
spectrum. In this context chemistry at large is a branch of physics while life is a
small subset of atoms and molecules interacting within a small window cut into
the electromagnetic spectrum.
This new ideas from main stream physics have always influenced
chemistry and biology such that a complicated biological problem will only
straighten out when expressed at the molecular level.
The historic different divisions of chemistry during the infancy of science
and the modest and relatively less connected information rationalised their
independence. However with this modern wider scope and unity of thought
there is great need to revive the ill formed ideas like "I am p-chem” and “I
despise organic chemistry". It is to be emphasized to the student of today that
real life problems however simple can not be solved without an intricate,
connected and interdependent paths of the classical four divisions of chemistry
together with a plethora of new born ones and others in the pipeline. These are
strongly interdisciplinary in features and corporate all modern methodology of
science like digital electronics, imaging 3D graphics, computation mathematics,
statistics, microrobotics and the like.
Some Modern Trends in Education
Strong efficient teaching through graded tutorials should span a full range
of affordable to difficult real life problems of research. New looks into
education and pedagogy put the unification of the sciences and their profound
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interrelation in illegible sound ideas in a manner that smoothly fit into the
educational ladder. To this we relate progress and advancement and the
assessment methods associated with them to evaluate both the donor and
recipient. Advances are localised to the topic or subject taught and advancement
tests concentrate on the course stuff. Progress is concerned with developing a
conceptual framework accommodating the tiny branches taught within a wider
domain of knowledge. It is, in a sense, smooth out discreetness and
fragmentation of knowledge. This gives a comprehensive and powerful
approach to real life applications and strategies.
Familiarization with the literature and the way the different fields of research
develop, intermingle and entangle to transform into different interests is
essential and key to innovation and creativity. Realizing the priorities of the
world demand in its struggle against nature for a better life in the energy, food,
health care, information and utilities guides and leads the way to where to
address your ingenuity and endeavour to make headway to the relevant
research.
Resources
Textbooks to accompany courses must be self-educating since it is not possible
or practicable to cover the details of a topic in the limited teaching time. Self-
educating text books have essential two features; one is exercises made of
questions and problems. The best is a set of over 20 problems and questions
graded in difficulty from pedagogical problems to reflect the methodology on a
simple manner to real life problems where the actual applications of the field
appear in say industry or medicine and other applied fields. The text must
include solved examples which direct, enlighten and pave the way for solving
the problems. Questions to review the text ideas are essential for the follow up
and should include lengthy and repetitive derivations and manipulations. It
should be emphasized that not all text books are members of this subset and
among these the style of writing may not appeal to every reader. Many books
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have been written to reflect certain capabilities and may serve as references to
the learned teacher rather than the learning student.
Guide lines
The following statements and ideas should guide the spirit of the teacher and be
repeated constantly.
 Make it simple.
 Advancement and progress to assess the student, the teacher and the
curriculum.
 Connection to real life.
 Examples: Educative and real life.
 Love it, yes you can, slow people are physiologically ill and are few in
number, since you are here you are not one.
 It is not complicated only the jargon makes it so.
 Go to the history or the basic ideas it is just an extension, sometimes a
decoration on the original or basic fact.
 Repetition with slight change to avoid monotony is very effective training
to acquire skill.

 Teaching is a very good teaching method i.e. seminars and interactive

participation.
 Encourage imagination; very cheap and very rewarding effective aid to
understand simple and complicated ideas.
New Concepts in Education
We mention here, from the literature of specialists in education, a couple of
teaching centred paradigms (ai) and the corresponding learner centred paradigm
as a modernization trend (bi) and try to project this on university chemistry
teaching (ci) (i = 1, ..., 11).
(Learner-Centred Assessment on College Campuses by Huba and Freed 2000)
www.archive.jfn.ac.lk>Academic-articles.
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(a1) Knowledge is transmitted from professor to students.

(b1) Students construct knowledge through gathering and synthesizing
information and integrating it with the general skills of inquiry, communication,
critical thinking, problem solving and so on.
(c1) Inspiration by this hypothesis leads to encouraging the students to read the
topic of study before the lecture and build some primary understanding about it.
A serious attempt of this kind will definitely raise questions and enquiries that
may go beyond the limited information in the book. Inquisitive questions and
assertive presumptions widen the scope of understanding simple facts and
phenomenon. An example is the concept of electron transfer, redox reactions
and electrochemistry may appear different chemistries but interactive teaching
will reduce this erroneous understanding and lead to the unity and firmness of
chemistry.
(a2) Students passively receive information.
(b2) Students are actively involved.
(c2) See c1.
(a3) Emphasis is on acquisition of knowledge outside the context in which it will
be used.
(b3) Emphasis is on using and communicating knowledge effectively to address
enduring and emerging issues and problems in real-life contexts.
(c3) Emphasis on real life problems is mentioned only briefly or not at all in
teaching lectures. The problems and exercises may involve only one application
and it is usually the last one. To make this more seriously taken and considering
the benefit of the web, essay writing and seminars addressing the applications is
one way to contribute to tying chemistry principles as they are presented in
class to their outside world applications. Another slightly different aspect is the
concern with current global issues like global warming pollution abatement and
environmental impact assessment. A primary question is how chemistry is
involved and if it is not then invite clever suggestions. Topics can be proposed
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by the teacher or a joint search for relevant topics, then, serves as interactive
joint learning. See b4 below.
(a4) Professor’s role is to be primary information giver and primary evaluator.
(b4) Professor’s role is to coach and facilitate. Professor and students evaluate
learning together.
(c4) The search for sources of information in a particular topic is a learning
opportunity for both teacher and student. Thanks for the world web. This may
participate in curriculum development by pointing to missing important ideas or
applications that became supportive and complimentary to the topic.
(a5) Teaching and assessing are separate.
(b5) Teaching and assessing are intertwined.
(c5) In fact this became part and parcel of any plan during implementation;
reviewing the plan during execution. Teaching bear to this quite a lot in its
modernized form. As has been mentioned before and will be below the expected
outcome is acquiring knowledge for the student and the teacher. The process is
the method of teaching and the plan is the curriculum, therefore both should be
subject to reviewing and feed back.
(a6) Assessment is used to monitor learning.
(b6) Assessment is used to promote and diagnose learning.
(c6) This is a very sophisticated and advanced exercise in learning. Let us
assume before hand that there is a measure for how much a student acquires
knowledge with respect to a particular unit or module of the curriculum. This
should not be confused with the assessment itself. It could be one of the tools
used in the assessment or an ad hock measure say a questionnaire. If a goal
achievement is set for the area of knowledge in question it it is then possible to
associate a failure to achieve goal with some rational. Two aspects stand before
hand; the method of teaching and the curriculum. Both can be reviewed as a
result of the feed back of the measurement above. In chemistry the case may be
home made in a very specific manner. Say the course is a bit advanced dynamic
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electrochemistry. The target or goal is the student being employed as a

researcher in an electrochemical industry firm for electroplating or corrosion
protection. Can the student join the research team immediately after graduation
or he needs some coaching? The importance of the employer in accreditation
systems of higher education in S&T asserts the importance of goal achievement.
(a7) Emphasis is on right answers.
(b7) Emphasis is on generating better questions and learning from errors.
(c7) The right answer does not exist. There is a tenable answer depending on
human knowledge. Even quantitative answers depend on some assumptions and
premises so far acceptable. This usually leads to a dynamic situation which is,
naturally, ever evolving to the better and then it implies the “questions and
problems” has to evolve. Probably the sciences and applied sciences are faster
and more elaborate in showing this compared to humanities and the border line
economics. There are definitely many new types of questions unanticipated
before. How can redox reactions of carbonyl compounds be used in nano-
molecular dying, or how alkaloids be incorporated in “from bench to bed” or
calcium gates control can be a research topic in translational medicine.
(a8) Desired learning is assessed indirectly through the use of objectively
scored tests.
(b8) Desired learning is assessed directly through papers, projects,
performances, portfolios, and the like.
(c8) Writing essays makes imagination and inner thinking louder and allow
ideas to surface. Nothing emerges for the first time as mature as it is after
technical manipulation and translation into an application. The assessment of
essays can not be objective. It can, with a little bit of effort, be useful and
enlightening and if written negligently it may not be very useful.
(a9) Focus is on a single discipline.
(b9) Approach is compatible with interdisciplinary investigation.
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(c9) Chemistry is unique in being interdisciplinary. Biology and it’s applied

science like medicine and agriculture are sound and firm on chemical facts.
Most of the measurements in quantitative experimentation are chemical or
physicochemical in chemistry, biology and parts of physics. In teaching and in
curricula the interdisciplinary aspects must be accompanied in tutorials and
discussions. Many disciplines has benefited from chemistry. Biochemistry and
geochemistry the earliest, now the recent bioinformatics, incorporate biology,
biochemistry, chemistry, physics, mathematics, statistics, computer science and
computational chemistry. On the other hand chemistry as core subject has
benefited from mathematics, physics, computer science and natural biological
reaction models, templates and nanomolecular system control. These provide
rich topics for the essay writing training in c8.
(a10) Culture is competitive and individualistic.
(b10) Culture is cooperative, collaborative, and supportive.
(c10) Culture is a social interaction medium. Like the electric field where the
charges present determine the forces they are going to experience, the
individuals social behaviour, knowledge ethics etc. determine peace,
tranquillity, satisfaction and happiness and ultimately creativity. A well
educated chemist can give and participate in a liberal, respecting, successful
society and probably nothing to an antisocial and anti-culture society.
(a11) Only students are viewed as learners.
(b11) Professor and students learn together.
(c11) The fastest and most efficient way of learning a course unit is to teach it,
a lower level of instructive learning is to attend the course both lectures and
practical and least is self studying. The latter is more hectic, slow and a long
term process. In interactive teaching as have been described in several of the
points mentioned above a teacher gets automatic, fast and efficient extra
learning as a bonus by the modern learning methods and processes. This require
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the curriculum to be open and dynamically changing and updating and the
teacher well equipped with the basics to acquire the add-ons.