ChemEd X contributors offer their ideas and opinions on a broad spectrum of topics pertaining to chemical education.
Blogs at ChemEd X reflect the opinions of the contributors and are open to comments. Only selected contributors blog at ChemEd X. If you would like to blog regularly at ChemEd X, please use our Contribution form to request an invitation to do so from one of our editors.
We were converted; we saw the light. No more playing with a balance. Reverence, dude. Without a balance we got nuthin’.
Interested in building a healthy sense of belonging for students in chemistry class and laboratory? In encouraging students to form study groups that lead to friendships post-chemistry class? Try the Study Group Selfie.
After teaching the concepts and calculations for acid and base strength, concentration, percent ionization, and pH I noticed many of my students were struggling to make meaningful connections between these calculations.This lesson was created to strengthen the understanding of the relationships between these concepts and skills.
Beautiful, metallic mirrors of copper or silver can easily be formed in test tubes. Simply add the appropriate metal salt to a test tube, and heat! These reactions should be performed in a fume hood.
Boredom needs no explanation; we were all (Chemistry) students. A bored student is not an engaged student, and likely not a student who wants to learn. How can we make our lessons more engaging?
Meet one of our newest lead contributors, Michael Jansen, who teaches high school chemistry in Toronto, Ontario!
In order to teach chemistry effectively, we must ascertain what our students are thinking about chemistry and make a decision regarding what to do with what we learn. Formative assessment questions provide a useful lens into students' minds regarding what they are thinking about chemistry. Let us consider then, how categorizing formative assessment questions could help us plan out our classes more deliberately, in order to better design purposeful written formative assessments that align with our curricular goals.
Doug Ragan has been working with the Alchemie team -- founded by a former chemistry teacher, Julia Winter -- for a number of years. They have been working over the last year on a new project, named Kasi, which delivers sound-based feedback to students as they learn with tactile pieces on a magnetic whiteboard. The goal is to build an accessible learning system that helps ALL students learn, and is particularly important for those with visual impairments.
Chad Husting shares a microscale Reactions Lab and outlines his goals and plans for labs in his classroom as he prepares for next school year.
Context-based chemistry aims to make chemistry learning more meaningful for students. With an emphasis on inquiry-based activities, context-based chemistry improves student interest and motivation in chemistry by linking content to real-world situations. Though the idea has been around for over 20 years, researchers are still learning the best strategies for teaching context-based chemistry. Here, we will explore some of the benefits and challenges unearthed up until this point.