Teaching students to understand chemistry and instructing a student to be a trained chemist require different strategies of teaching.
The chemist wants to achieve an end-product or make valid measurements as efficiently as possible. For that, in the laboratory, we have heaters, stirrers, and quite large and sophisticated pieces of equipment from burettes to Gas Liquid Chromatography linked to mass spectrometry. A chemistry teacher though has a different aim.
The teachers' aim is ensure students understand chemistry with the ultimate aim to (yes, pass the exam), inspire students to become chemists, biochemists, pharmacists, technicians, engineers, medics, etc. If the student wishes to go into non-science careers, they will take with them a knowledge of methodology to give them a good scientific background and show them how essential a knowledge of chemistry is to understand the modern world..
This is why some of the microscale techniques outlined below are not what you find in a student text book when starting chemistry. Many text books repeat the same standard experiments the authors did when teaching or being taught. The experiments are merely a side show, not an integral part of learning.
The chemist wants to achieve an end-product or make valid measurements as efficiently as possible. For that, in the laboratory, we have heaters, stirrers, and quite large and sophisticated pieces of equipment from burettes to Gas Liquid Chromatography linked to mass spectrometry. A chemistry teacher though has a different aim.
The teachers' aim is ensure students understand chemistry with the ultimate aim to (yes, pass the exam), inspire students to become chemists, biochemists, pharmacists, technicians, engineers, medics, etc. If the student wishes to go into non-science careers, they will take with them a knowledge of methodology to give them a good scientific background and show them how essential a knowledge of chemistry is to understand the modern world..
This is why some of the microscale techniques outlined below are not what you find in a student text book when starting chemistry. Many text books repeat the same standard experiments the authors did when teaching or being taught. The experiments are merely a side show, not an integral part of learning.