I had a conversation with a college freshman after church last Sunday. She had recently wrapped up her first semester’s courses, which included chemistry. I asked what she thought of the class. What would you predict her response to be? It was, “I’m glad there are people out there like you who like chemistry,” but it wasn’t for her. She had survived it, and it was done.
50 Modeling Workshops in high school and middle school sciences will be offered this summer, in many states. Most workshops are two or three weeks long. CEUs; optional graduate credit, stipends at grant-funded sites. Modeling Instruction is research-informed.
This year our school, through a unique set of circumstances, had final exams before winter break, two weeks of break and then one week left in the semester after break before second semester officially ends. It is a weird situation. We were in the middle of gas laws and now have to pick up where we left off after the kids have not been attending school for two weeks.
Have you ever wondered why so many undergraduate students struggle with their general chemistry courses in college? Various research studies report that a third of college students taking a STEM related course will either fail, with a D or F, or withdraw from the course with the rate increasing if one focuses on general chemistry specific courses.
Think it’s possible to get nostalgic over paperwork? I just did, spurred by editor-in-chief Norb Pienta’s editorial Thinking about Champions in the December 2015 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education.
Last year, I researched and practiced what I thought to be "flipping the classroom". But, now that I am taking part in a district-wide "High School Blended Learning Pilot", I can say that I was attempting blended learning early in my teaching career. You see, the flipped classroom is really a small subtype of blended learning. So, the goal of this post is to define blended learning and share what my professional development has in store for me during this academic year.
The December 2015 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online to subscribers. Topics featured in this issue include: learning in the laboratory; understanding structure–property relationships; using ACS exams data; inquiry- and problem-based learning; foundation-level instruction; teaching physical chemistry; examining protein structure; interdisciplinary laboratory experiments; from the archives: chemistry and toys.
This month I spoke with Debra Johnson who teaches a variety of science subjects, chemistry and AP chemistry among, them at North Muskegon High School in North Muskegon, Michigan. Below she tells us how inquiry works in her classroom. Let us know what it looks like in yours!
Late last school year at a staff meeting, teachers were informed that we were going to be coached and encouraged to introduce more vocabulary instruction to
“So what corners of the periodic table do I have to memorize in order to get an A on the trends quiz?” This was a question that was asked by one of my students at the beginning of our periodicity unit. For countless educators we teach chemistry because we have a passion for trying to understand the world from an atomic level. However many of our students have extrinsic motivators which result in attempts to find shortcuts to recall the material. If we want to avoid responses like the one stated above we have to identify if we are asking thorough questions when assessing our students.
