AP Teach had a great monthly meeting on Thursday, August 22nd. We had around 45 participants join us for an opportunity to learn, collaborate, and have fun! The meeting kicked off with a mention of changes to the AP Chemistry exam including the new hybrid digital exam format. The presenters focused on using data to address the misconceptions students often have in Unit 1. Various presenters explained what students need to be able to do or explain to be successful on each of the Unit 1 topics. We then looked at past AP exam questions and common student mistakes. Instructional strategies and activities were presented to help address the misconceptions in the classroom.
There was an engaging activity using stations over Topics 1.3 and 1.4 that was shared, resources to find more practice problems for students, and helpful suggestions to share with students to help them improve their periodic trends explanations. A great activity that was presented to help students with photoelectron spectroscopy(PES) was How I Fell In Love With PES from Melissa Hemling’s article on ChemEd X from 2019. This engaging activity allows students to see the connection between an element’s electron configuration and the PES spectrum. It also gives students the opportunity to see the connections between ionization energies and the interactions between the electrons and the nucleus. The last part of the meeting was an opportunity to share in small groups the topics our students struggle with most often and the strategies we use to address them. I know that I left with a few strategies that I will be utilizing in my classroom this year. See the video below for some highlights of the event. If you were not able to attend, you missed out on a great evening!
Video highlights from the August 2024 APTeach Session.
Watch the APTeach Session Notes and Updates article for summaries of past meetings and announcements for upcoming presentations.
Each one hour APTeach Zoom session provides 15-20 minutes of a discussion centered around a challenging chemistry topic before moving into breakout rooms that allow small groups of teachers to share their best teaching practices related to that content.
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