CLEAPSS is a subscription service, but our YouTube Channnel is an open source. The videos are designed for teachers and technicians in schools. They may just give you ideas. I have just put one up about electrostatics and the effect of magnets on water and oxygen. In a couple of weeks I hope to have a sequel showing the effect of magnets on precipitates and complexes.
Get ready for a splash of color during this year’s National Chemistry Week (NCW) celebration, October 18–24, 2015. The theme “Chemistry Colors Our World!” gives a chance to explore the chemistry of dyes, pigments, and light. An upcoming free webinar can get you started with resources.
Throughout my 21 previous years as a teacher, I have really struggled to provide meaningful (and timely!) feedback to my students on their lab reports. Teaching IB Chemistry has really forced me to get better - and I have. Yet I still feel like this is an area for more improvement.I've got a series of blog posts planned to share some ideas with you - and hopefully garner some discussion that will be helpful for me also! First I'd like to share the mechanics of how I provide feedback.
There have been numerous educational initiatives that have driven the push for helping students develop deep conceptual understanding. One of the difficulties for educators is assessing whether students have actually made gains in understanding. Ask any teacher to define “conceptual understanding” and their definition may be very different from the next teacher’s definition. The authors of this timely article have taken the definitions of well over a thousand instructors and identified a consensus articulation of what conceptual understanding is. This article will be of interest to any teacher struggling to assess their student’s conceptual understanding of content.
Earlier in the summer, I was shopping around for a standards-based gradebook. As the lone teacher at my school venturing into this unchartered territory, I did what any responsible techie teacher would do. I turned to the twitterverse for suggestions. I quickly identified the two most recommended platforms.
Check out this overview of what a PBL unit has looked like in my classroom. I provide concrete examples and an outline of how I plan a project.
Build a propane gun for your students! Construction is inexpensive, easy, and the effects are spectacular.
Michael Morgan has used this demo for over 25 years! His students from 20 years ago still remember the first day of chemistry!
A great book for summer reading is "Rust: the longest war".
Cars rusting! Bridges collapsing! Rust, and corrosion in general, is probably the most important topic that is not on most people's radar. This is definitely something people should be paying more attention to.
Larry Dukerich has been using Modeling Instruction for many years. He is a founding member of the AMTA.
