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Building Buy-In Through a Growth Mindset Classroom Culture

Lauren Stewart | Wed, 08/16/2017 - 11:42

When you incorporate non-traditional pedagogies and grading systems into your classroom like Modeling Instruction and standards-based grading, you need to be concerned about buy-in from students and parents. Implementation without buy-in leads to frustrated students, parents and most of all teachers. I have saved myself from this frustration by establishing a growth-mindset classroom culture from day one. Here are my tips for building a classroom where students feel comfortable to fail.

Editors Note: This post was submitted for the 2017 ChemEd X Call for Contributions: Creating a Classroom Culture.

Accepting Our Role in Developing Science Literacy

Ben Meacham | Sun, 08/13/2017 - 15:11

Though we may recognize its presence, teachers, scientists, and policymakers still disagree on the most practical and effective methods for developing scientific literacy in our students. Herein lies our challenge as science educators—what can we do in the classroom to create experiences for our students that involve the understanding and appreciation of the most valuable traits associated with being scientifically literate? This article includes resources and a sample assignment that will hopefully get all of us off on a good start. 

JCE 94.08 August 2017 Issue Highlights

Mary Saecker | Sat, 08/12/2017 - 07:45

The August 2017 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online to subscribers. Topics featured in this issue include: visualizing the chemistry of climate change; environmental chemistry; chemistry education for medical preprofessionals; tools for learning and student engagement; training laboratory teaching assistants; biochemistry; forensic chemistry; nanoparticle experiments; materials science; resources for teaching; from the archives: climate change.

Classroom Culture - Phoning Home...before there is a problem...

Chad Husting | Tue, 08/08/2017 - 07:38

A couple of years ago I was asked to be a mentor teacher to a new teacher. We sat in on what seemed endless meetings for first year teachers. Frank Forsthoefel told a story about his young daughter. His daughter's teacher called home to talk to her...before the first day of school. He mentioned the positive impact it had on both him and his daughter. A light turned on. What would happen if I called home to everyone of my students BEFORE the first day of school?

Elemental Haiku

Dan Meyers | Tue, 08/08/2017 - 07:25

In the August 4th issue of Science Magazine, author Mary Soon Lee shared a review of a periodic table that contains haiku for each element. There is an interactive periodic table you can click on; it was easily viewable in the mobile version of the article. 

SAFER SCI: Be Protected!

Ken Roy | Fri, 08/04/2017 - 14:03

As we all know, research and general educational practice clearly indicates that students learn science best by doing it – not just reading about it. Hands-on, process and inquiry based science is the key to understanding science. Unfortunately, this is a double edged sword for science teachers in that doing science has its potential hazards and resulting risks. Science laboratories, classrooms and field work sites can be unsafe places to teach and learn. If a student gets hurt while doing an activity in the lab, in the field or even at home if it was a teacher’s assignment, there is potential shared liability for both the teacher and the school. 

Summer Reading/Book Review: Four Laws That Drive The Universe, by Peter Atkins

Lowell Thomson | Mon, 07/31/2017 - 14:49

In a previous blog post, I shared a book Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction, by Dr. Peter Atkins. For my summer reading I wanted to get back to reading some chemistry non-fiction. I did, however, diverge from my original plan to read Eric Scerri's The Periodic Table: It's story and significance. Instead. "Four Laws That Drive the Universe" (with an alternative title of The Laws of Thermodynamics: A Very Short Introduction) became my next book as I so thoroughly enjoyed the writing style of Peter Atkins. The Kindle Version is only $6.15 and worth every penny in my opinion.