I just finished my first week of school, like many teachers in the Midwest. I work hard to get my Honors Chemistry students in a lab setting as soon as possible. It is difficult to find a perfect lab to do on the first or second day of school. In my mind, the ideal first chemistry lab would require no prior chemistry knowledge, involve interesting chemistry, address an NGSS standard, be relatively safe, not require expensive glassware or lab tools, and reinforce positive class norms. I have found engineering labs fit the bill! I don't know if I have found the "perfect" lab, but I have found something close I want to share!

It is back-to-school time! I started school on September 3rd so I am just getting back into my school “groove.”  On August 1st, College Board released its new AP Classroom platform (myap.collegeboard.org). While exploring this new online resource, I couldn’t help but reflect on how I teach AP Chemistry and what changes I will make in light of AP Classroom to ensure this year will be a great one!

This post describes some simple experiments using various coins and neodymium magnets that connect to the 2019 National Chemistry Week theme of Marvelous Metals! 

I recently participated in a conference known as the Digital Pedagogy Lab as a fellow, which required leading a workshop (or an equivalent). I chose to structure my workshop around the ideas of critical pedagogy and STEM, and particularly how we use these ideas in a practical way in the classroom (both F2F (face-to-face) and DL (distance learning)). This blog will be one of a two-part series on these topics.

What value does spending time explaining our syllabus in class provide? How much time should we invest in going over the syllabus with our students? Thoughts on talking about the syllabus during the first class meeting.