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 [...]
Archive for the ‘math’ Category
Touchy Feely Flower Child
Posted in chemistry, difficulties, math, students, tagged intuition on March 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
The joy of stoichiometry
Posted in ideas, math, tagged math, stoichiometry on February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I want to come up with some good equations, give the students one or two pieces of information (e.g. grams starting material) and make them tell me everything they possibly can about the equation. I mean everything. Classify the reaction, name the compounds, identify them as ionic or polar, calculate their molar mass, and calculate [...]
A Voice of Experience
Posted in difficulties, ideas, math, tagged inspiration, math, videos on February 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
One of my teachers got back to me right away with math ideas.
There are two videos that he made last year, mini-documentaries that I found inspiring. And yes, I did spend my Saturday night watching them. (family was asleep or at departmental parties).
Here are the links, but I will also keep them on my video [...]
