I got another suggestion in the box. (By the way, at the beginning of the year, I wasn’t expecting many, but I get one every couple of weeks.) It says “Please no diatomic gases partners!”
I have been pleased with this method, because the students have been working in partners with new people, getting there quickly, [...]
Archive for February, 2008
A Suggestion About Partners
Posted in collaborative learning, tagged group work on February 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Half my students gone…
Posted in chemistry on February 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Tuesday a college group came to do Romeo and Juliet for the Freshman and the magnet students. It was first and second periods (and part of homeroom). Many of my students are in the magnet program, so many of my students were gone. I had no idea what to do. I could present something new, [...]
Improvement in group thinking
Posted in chemistry, collaborative learning, tagged molarity, problem solving on February 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today I learned first hand how much time it takes for students to really think about open-ended questions. I had alloted 10-15 minutes to let them get an answer to my question, and it took over 30 for all the classes.
The focus question for the day was: How can we tell how much solute is [...]
Valentine’s Day in Chemistry Class
Posted in chemistry, demonstrations, tagged attraction, burning candy, evaporation, phermones on February 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The outline: Combustion Demo, Chemistry of Attraction, Evaporation.
I still needed a demo or a lab this week, and although I didn’t have any good ideas for something solution related, I thought that Valentine’s Day was a good excuse to do a demo involving candy. I did a simple combustion reaction, where you decompose KClO3 with [...]
Ionic and Polar
Posted in chemistry on February 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
We did another chalk talk today. It was less successful. The task was to compare and contrast ionic and molecular bonds. They had done this for homework, taking notes from their book as they read. I think it was less successful because it was less open-ended;there was more a sense of needing to have a [...]
When planning goes awry
Posted in difficulties, planning, technology, tagged technology on February 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today I had planned to take my students to the computer lab, to do some computer simulations on Molecular Workbench. I love molecular workbench. I think the models and simulations are very good. They also have ways for students to answer questions (which I have found to be high quality so far) and submit reports. [...]
Homeroom update
Posted in homeroom, tagged homeroom on February 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
As I expected, that one smooth day did not last. It continued to be such a struggle, that the principal suggested that I switch homerooms with my supervising teacher and let him deal with it.
I wrote up the one student who is really a problem again, and he has been suspended for a week. Not [...]
Group Presentations
Posted in collaborative learning, tagged groups on February 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The presentations were pretty good. Most of the students did not go quite far enough with their descriptions of dissolution. I think that is my fault, so I “fixed” it today so they could do their homework. By “fixed” I mean that I tried to do a guided modeling.
Many of my students are extremely nervous [...]
A Good Day
Posted in collaborative learning, planning, tagged chalk talk, collaborative learning, partners on February 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today was a great day, actually. Everything went so smoothly, and it was so interesting.
A brief outline:
For the Problem of the Day I had the students find their partners on their HOFBrINCl gases partner sheet, which I based off of “Clock Buddies,” an idea I found here. I used the diatomic gases because it is [...]
Booooooooring
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged boring, lecture on February 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday, in the middle of the lesson, I was getting a little frustrated with how little participation I was getting, and slow it all seemed.
Then it hit me. I had planned a boring day. No variety, just me leading lecture/ Q&A.
Poor kids.
