Stamp of Approval

Jun 09, 03:44 AM

Current Headlines: By Meraw, Leonard J

Abstract: Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry and the National AP Chemistry Examination are both critical to secondary level institutions nationwide. The use of a national embossing stamp to attest to successful completion of an AP Chemistry course and exam to ensure college credit is a novel idea worth consideration. Moreover, the concept could be expanded to all AP science disciplines conducting laboratory exercises. Keywords: advanced placement, chemistry, college credit

Contrary to popular belief among students, parents, teachers, and colleges, many high school chemistry teachers do not engage students in any laboratory exercises throughout the school year, especially with real chemicals. However, according to the national Advanced Placement (AP) Chemistry Examination, students require laboratory knowledge to achieve high scores. In addition, without meaningful laboratory exercises, students never achieve a satisfactory level of manual dexterity necessary in professional careers, obtained by working with chemicals, glassware, electronic measurement devices, and other precision laboratory equipment.

In the mid-1990s, before I entered public school teaching, I had spent nine years in the chemical industry. Personal research and inquiries into how colleges and universities treated students with AP Chemistry scores of three, four, or five, surprisingly revealed that even with an aforementioned passing score, some students did not receive college credit. These students were not awarded credit because they informed their college advisers that they had never conducted any high school laboratory exercises in chemistry. In addition, it appeared that colleges had the discretionary right to not award college credit on that basis even in light of a passing AP score.

During my first year of public school teaching, one of the four subjects I taught was AP Chemistry. I needed to do much diligent work to deliver the nationally outlined curriculum, as well as set up as many laboratory exercises as possible. The results paid off because during the subsequent summer, I learned that many of my students had scored a three or higher on the exam.

Thereafter, I came up with a novel way to authenticate AP Chemistry laboratory exercises so that students who earned scores of three, four, or five, on the AP exam would have something tangible to show their college advisers to ensure that the students received proper chemistry college credit on the basis of their exam scores.

However, I learned that in order to legally authenticate the laboratory exercises, formal approval would first be required from the College Board because they possess the trademark rights to both of the following: AP and Advanced Placement.

I corresponded with a former College Board president, and finally his successor granted me a unique license to authenticate AP Chemistry laboratory exercises.

I achieved the authentication method by using a personally designed embossing stamp that is raised, circular, and fifty cm in diameter. On the top circular inner perimeter is my full name, on the bottom circular inner perimeter are the words chemistry teacher, in the middle of the stamp is a book with AP written on the open pages. The stamp also has a few artistic components in its design; for example, the outermost edges of the embossed areas have a series of parallel lines to differentiate the stamp from the paper.

Although I was the only U.S. teacher to possess this special, annually renewable, license from the College Board in the past five years, the stamp and its future use carries with it some far- reaching, long-term educational implications, if it were to be formally introduced nationally.

The use of the stamp would only be available to high school instructors who have taught AP Chemistry and who have had students earn a passing score on the national exam. This would lend great credibility to the usage of the stamp. In addition, colleges and universities could go online to view qualified AP Chemistry teachers recognized by the College Board, which is the author of the exam and owner of the intellectual property trademark rights.

Furthermore, the concept of authenticating secondary level science laboratory exercises could be extended into the other two AP sciences, that is, biology and physics.

The long-term value of the embossing stamp would achieve several primary goals. First, any parent, university adviser or instructor, school board member, or student would have online knowledge of high school teachers recognized by the College Board as proven AP science professionals. Second, universities and colleges would know unequivocally that a student conducted chemistry labs under the supervision of a nationally recognized instructor and should, therefore, receive college credit in light of an AP passing score.

Because the vast majority of my experience lies in secondary- level chemistry instruction,

I firmly believe that instructors should conduct laboratory exercises for students using real chemicals- not gumdrops, toothpicks, cotton balls, paper squares, etc.-at least once every other week. In addition, instructors should set up viewable demonstrations from which students can explore various concepts.

They only way in which an instructor can ensure total chemistry education is to offer laboratory exercises that challenge students' higher-order thinking skills and improve students' manual dexterity skills. Moreover, meaningful laboratory exercises should provide students with reasoning abilities to do well on national exams, such as the AP science exams.

NOTE

The College Board owns the proprietary rights to both AP and Advanced Placement.

Leonard J. Meraw is a chemistry instructor at University High School, a part of Ferndale Public Schools and in partnership with Lawrence Technological University. He is author of numerous publications, a multipatent holder, a U.S. licensed patent agent, and active in the field of design. Copyright (c) 2007 Heldref Publication

Copyright Heldref Publications Jan/Feb 2007

(c) 2007 Clearing House, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.