Consider the best chemistry textbooks used by teachers in teaching this discipline in middle and senior level.
Currently, textbooks are presented with diverse and numerous requirements. Let us analyze a number of features that are inherent in Russian books, try to find out which chemistry textbook is better.
Assessment Factors
What does the teacher pay attention to when choosing a specific methodological kit? First of all, the teacher analyzes the sequence of presentation of the material. A good chemistry textbook should contain a system of terms and concepts, their qualitative interpretation. The teacher pays special attention to the completeness of the textbook, choosing an author offering books from grades 8 to 11, since the transition from one author of the textbook to another is quite inconvenient and brings a lot of problems to the children and teacher.
General education center
The best textbooks on chemistry, in addition to theoretical material, offer test exercises, tasks of different difficulty levels, which allows teachers to implement a personality-oriented approach when teaching chemistry in a primary (secondary) school.
Since the end of the last century, the content of chemical school education has been based on the concentric principle. The best chemistry textbooks take this fact into account.
The concentric system involves three stages of school chemical education.
Propaedeutics
We will not dwell on this stage in detail, since far from all educational institutions have hours to enter initial information about chemical processes, their signs, and applications. The best chemistry textbooks from scratch involve teaching the Introduction to Chemistry introductory course in grades 5–7. For example, such a course is offered by O. S. Gabrielyan (Drofa Publishing House).
Main level
The first concern for teaching chemistry, which is well known to subject teachers, is the methodological set of authors G. E. Rudzitis and F. G. Feldman. A textbook is written based on the concept of linear teaching of scientific disciplines. Unfortunately, after the modernization of Russian education, the introduction of a new generation of GEF to the main and senior levels of education, the linear set did not allow us to solve the problems that were set forth in the mandatory minimum of chemical education.
It turned out that this is far from the best chemistry textbook for schoolchildren. Therefore, in 2000, at a meeting of the commission, the authority of which included the approval of methodological kits for educational institutions, it was decided not to assign to the chemistry kit authors G. E. Rudzitis and F. G. Feldman the stamp “Recommended for use in educational institutions”. Despite this, in many Russian schools, teachers used this methodological kit for several years, considering it to be the best school textbook on chemistry.
The specifics of the concentric concept
The transition to this principle of constructing educational material required the introduction of organic chemistry into the content of the textbook. A similar introduction was implemented in two ways:
- in the kits of O. S. Gabrielyan, R. G. Ivanova, E. E. Minchenkova, G. I. Shelinsky, N. S. Akhmetov, information on organic substances is proposed at the end of grade 9;
- in the textbooks of L. Kuznetsova and N. E. Kuznetsova, L. S. Guzey, acquaintance with the main classes of organic compounds is proposed as part of the study of the elements of the carbon subgroup (IV-A group) in 2-3 quarters of grade 9.
In addition to such a difference, each textbook has a number of individual features that depend on the professional preferences of the teacher. For example, many teachers are convinced that the best chemistry textbooks should contain a minimum number of specific terms and concepts. They are convinced that the methodological set of L. S. Guzey (Drofa publishing house) fully complies with these requirements.
It sets out the material in such a way as to minimize the need for mechanically memorizing new information. The material in this book is presented so that the student is aware of its practical application, which greatly simplifies the task of the teacher. That is why for a long time it was the best chemistry textbook for beginners.
Set O. S. Gabrielyan
In this methodological set, created for grades 7-11, theoretical material in chemistry is offered in the first year of study, that is, as part of the eighth grade course.
Among the minuses that can be noted for this chemistry kit, teachers call the mismatch of the material with the psychological and age characteristics of the students. They can perceive scientific material in chemistry not in the logic of its awareness, but as an abstract image. Law formulations, basic definitions, eighth-graders memorize, which negatively affects the quality of students' universal learning skills, reduces their interest in the subject.
The course of inorganic chemistry was constructed by the author of the textbook so that only material related to the periodic system of elements is submitted to the ninth grade. This material does not fit with the topic “Atom structure”, which is considered in the physics course in grade 8. The lack of intersubjective communication is the main reason for the difficulties experienced by the guys when comparing the oxidation and reduction properties of metallic and non-metallic elements.
Chemistry kit N. E. Kuznetsova
Organic chemistry is quite understandable and qualitatively presented in it. It is rather difficult to choose the best textbook, but the set of N. E. Kuznetsova published by the Ventana-Graf publishing house has been appreciated by many school chemistry teachers.
Teachers note the presence of a clearly stated methodological material in the kit. The author devoted a separate place to the methods used in modern chemistry, proposing in the textbook the section "Methods of Chemistry".
Course R. G. Ivanova
The kit is designed for grades 8-11, published by the Enlightenment publishing house. It is the only methodological kit in chemistry, within the framework of which the preliminary study by students of grades 6-7 of the propaedeutic course "Natural History" is stipulated. During this course, children get initial ideas about chemical terms at the molecular and empirical levels. The teacher gives the concept of valency, simple and complex compounds, introduces the main classes of inorganic substances: oxides, acids, salts, bases.
The advantages of the set of R. G. Ivanova are that before the children begin to study chemistry in the eighth grade, they will already have formed the basic ideas about the method of compiling chemical equations and arranging stereochemical coefficients in them. Pupils easily compose the formulas of binary compounds by valency, possess practical skills, and know the basic safety rules.
This gives the teacher the opportunity at the beginning of the eighth grade to immediately begin to study the structure of the atom, saving time. Unfortunately, far from all educational institutions, the administration allows chemistry teachers to choose the methodological kit of this author. The reason is the need to devote extra hours to this subject in grades 6 (7).
Course E.E. Minchenkova et al.
The specificity of this methodological kit published by the School Press publishing house is that its authors first offer a superficial acquaintance with the topics, and then offer the teacher to consider them at a deeper level. Such an approach contributes to a better perception by schoolchildren of complex chemical terms, memorization of material, awareness of the possibility of its practical use.
The authors assigned a significant place in this chemical course to a practical experiment. The textbook includes material, during the teaching of which, the teacher reveals to his pupils the unity of the material world.
Conclusion
Analyzing the main methodological kits currently used in teaching the school chemistry course, we note that each of them has certain positive and negative features. That is why it is difficult to choose a universal textbook. Each teacher selects for himself those textbooks which, in his opinion, are the most understandable and convenient for schoolchildren. Among the requirements for school books on chemistry, which must be taken into account by all teachers, we note the presence of the heading book "Recommended by the RF Ministry of Defense."
What else do teachers pay attention to when choosing a specific methodological kit for work? It is desirable that in addition to the textbook, the author creates a workbook for the teacher, a notebook for students, as well as collections of tasks and exercises.
For example, the course of S. I. Shelinsky (publishing house "Special Literature") contains the best, in the opinion of many teachers, scientific and theoretical basis of the school chemistry course, but does not imply additional methodological literature.
Despite the variety of methodological literature that is currently offered to teachers of chemistry at secondary and high schools, it is rather difficult to single out one universal textbook that has only positive characteristics.