The biggest lesson I have learned is that my students need to practice. 3 or 4 problems is not enough. They might whine somewhat about the worksheet, but they are hopeless without a lot of practice. The thing to do is not to have other activities replace practice, but to have a lot of practice [...]
Archive for the ‘chemistry’ Category
My first quarter is over
Posted in chemistry, homework, planning, students, tagged lessons on March 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A good start
Posted in chemistry, planning on March 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Today was a bad day in everything but my teaching. We are starting “shape.” This is how I think of Lewis structure/VSEPR stuff. We are taking steps towards thinking in three dimensions, which is one of the wonderful things about chemistry.
I managed to start at the beginning. I reviewed their prior knowledge of valence electrons. [...]
Touchy Feely Flower Child
Posted in chemistry, difficulties, math, students, tagged intuition on March 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
One of my students referred to a task we were doing in class today as “touchy feel-y flower child” methods. Not something that one expects to hear in chemistry class, when classifying compounds as either ionic, polar covalent, or non-polar covalent.
This was because I was discouraging the method in the book, which no one except [...]
The River
Posted in assessment, chemistry, ideas, planning, tagged environmental chemistry unit on February 29, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I have been expanding on my environmental chemistry unit idea. The only problem is that I am not sure if six weeks is enough time. That is what I have between Spring Break and the end of the year. It would encompass just about everything we will do. Electrochemistry, Acid/Base chemistry, concentration, ions and metals, [...]
Environmental Chemistry
Posted in chemistry, ideas, planning, tagged environmental chemistry unit on February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Looking for labs, I found some great ones on water quality. (I should of thought of this myself, they do a huge unit on this in FOS 1)
Edited to add: Here is the link with the lab that inspired me.
Potentially encompasses acidity, metal ions in solution, redox, organic, absorbance (turbidity), and the environment.
I am “fortunate” [...]
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 [...]
Chemistry and Sports
Posted in chemistry, ideas, tagged sports on February 8, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Interesting story about isotopic ratios being used in drug testing. Seems like it could possibly be integrated into the classroom, and interest in sports and steroids is high.
