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Allison Tarvin's blog

Are you part of an AP Chemistry professional learning community?

Allison Tarvin | Wed, 09/13/2017 - 20:00

The research says the best way to make your school better is to encourage teachers to participate in professional learning teams that unpack the standards to determine what each student should learn and how the learning will be measured, build a useful warehouse of evidence that learning is occurring, and critically review data collected to determine useful instructional strategies versus ineffective strategies.

Straight Talk from AP Chemistry Students about College Board's "AP Insight: Chemistry" Teaching Tools and Assessments

Allison Tarvin | Mon, 05/15/2017 - 10:05

The College Board offers the opportunity to have access to guided inquiry "Building Block" performance tasks, "Building Block" digital assessments, and FRQ-style end of "Building Block" assessments directed specifically at nine "challenge areas." The "challenge areas" are organized according to the AP Chemistry six big ideas. I have used most of the resources available in AP Insight this year with my honors and AP chemistry students. Today, post-AP exam, I asked the students to provide me with feedback about the usefulness of those resources.

Excellent Resource for Teaching Chemical Kinetics

Allison Tarvin | Sun, 01/15/2017 - 11:03

Chemical kinetics is one of the five challenge areas in AP Chemistry. My students and I have been working our way through one of the teaching and learning activities called Concentration vs. Time. The graphical analysis, guided-inquiry questions, and application to past and future content are seriously challenging, and my students report higher levels of understanding than in past semesters.

A New Standard: Refine the Design of a Chemical System by Applying Engineering Principles

Allison Tarvin | Sun, 11/20/2016 - 14:32

Teachers are accustomed to implementing new learning standards developed by state or national leaders. My state, Georgia, chose not to adopt the newest national standards. State leaders wrote the “Georgia Standards of Excellence” instead. Full implementation of the GSE begins in the 2017-2018 school year.

NO MORE UNIT TESTS...What do you think?

Allison Tarvin | Fri, 07/15/2016 - 20:15

My students are bright and motivated. Most work hard and prepare for class and tests. They perform extremely well on district-wide tests and my own classroom tests. However, I see real weaknesses on cumulative assessments requiring high levels of application. My students simply do not retain the content knowledge. I want to restructure my course to exclude "unit tests" and include only cumulative assessments. I'll share my early ideas here, and I would love to hear your experiences.