In locating an article of relevance to my topic, I had to broaden my horizons and stray away from solely looking at the science program at Santa Clara. Instead, my findings that biology majors spent the most time in lab per week and that freshmen reported feeling the intro science series is very rigorous sparked my interest in the development of science majors core curriculum, mainly of biology and chemistry.
I found a scholarly article titled, “The Impacts of an “Organic First” Chemistry Curriculum at a Liberal Arts College,” using OmniFile- a database that one of our librarians at SCU suggested we use for our further research not in the archives. In watching a tutorial about scholarly articles, I was prepared with what to look for in finding a source that would provide me with rich and reliable information, in addition to providing me with the information that scholarly articles are the strongest to use for research as they must be peer reviewed by those involved in the specific area of interest before publication.
By typing in “higher education,” “biology” and “curriculum” into the search toolbars, I was greeted with 210 results that contained these three key words. I recorded 30 articles for later use, but this one really caught my eye. The article came from results of curriculum change from Washington & Jefferson College.
Because organic chemistry is usually taught during a major’s second year and general chemistry is taught first, this proposal took me by surprise. That is, until I read the purpose for this change:
“…because general chemistry is a disjointed collection of topics that tends not to correlate the reactivity and physical properties of molecules with their structure, it is not necessarily the best entry into the study of chemistry. Additionally, because general chemistry is often very similar to high school chemistry, students may be successful without needing to develop necessary study skills. Finally, general chemistry requires a substantial background in mathematics: students may be more successful with the topics found in general chemistry if given more time to bring their college-level math skills up to speed. Organic chemistry has none of these limitations: it is inherently much more coherent than general chemistry because it is a true subdiscipline of chemistry; organic chemistry is symbolic and conceptual more than mathematical; and it draws on a basic high school background rather than repeat it, thereby placing students on a more level playing field in largely unfamiliar territory” (995).
This article is exactly the type of scholarly contribution I was hoping to find. It challenges the traditional structure of science programs, and provides positive results from the shift, including improved student performance on standardized analytic exams, attracting more majors, and their biology program reported greater success in introductory biology. I want to enter this conversation by further investigating core curriculum of the sciences, and with so many articles of interest at hand I think the only problem I’ll have is organizing all of this complex information.
-FH