Chemical Education Today
Letters Systemic Approach to Teaching and Learning Some of your readers might be interested in the continued proliferation of the use of the ideas encapsulated in the education technique described as the Systemic Approach to Teaching and Learning (SATL) in this Journal (1). I have recently returned from the 4th Arab Conference on SATL held in Cairo, which was devoted entirely to the SATL method as it has been used in teaching a variety of subjects other than chemistry, namely biology, physics, mathematics, and, indeed, even religion. Chemistry continues to be the focus of much activity, for example, an application to physical chemistry by a Chinese scholar, and various subsets of organic chemistry such as heterocyclic chemistry done in Egyptian universities. Work has been reported on the application of SATL methods for teaching the appropriate chemistry subjects to students whose primary interests are in what might be described as “associated disciplines”, such as pharmacy and the biological sciences. That the SATL method has firmly penetrated pre-college science education in Egypt is illustrated by the report that 30,000 teachers have received formal training in SATL sponsored by the Egyptian Government. Your readers will recognize the relationship between a given teaching/learning approach and the kinds of questions that are appropriate to that approach for the assessment of student progress. The developers of the SATL technique have also addressed this issue by developing philosophically com-
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patible types of questions for those who employ the SATL approach in their classes; the standard multiple-choice format also works well with SATL techniques. An interesting part of the 4th Arab Conference involved the participation of approximately 3000 chemistry teachers in Egypt using video conferencing technology. The attendance of these teachers at this video conference of chemistry-related papers speaks to the extent of the use of the technique in teaching pre-college chemistry courses. There is much anecdotal evidence that teachers who teach chemistry and are trained in the use of SATL methods, also begin using this approach successfully in teaching science subjects. Much detailed information concerning the application of SATL methods to chemical subjects can be found at the URL site http://www.salty2k.com/satlc/satlc_ca.html (accessed Dec 2004). Literature Cited 1. Fahmy, A. F. M.; Lagowski, J. J. Systemic Reform in Chemical Education: An International Perspective. J. Chem. Educ. 2003, 80, 1078–1083. J. J. Lagowski Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 78712-0165
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Vol. 82 No. 2 February 2005
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Journal of Chemical Education
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