Join APTeach to discuss assessment strategies that will improve your students' performance on the AP Chemistry exam.
Past Events
APTeach is now partnering with ChemEd X! Join us for the next Zoom session!
Recently I shared my experiences with the AP Chemistry WE Service Project on the following blog post: AP Chemistry with WE Service
If you are interested in participating in the WE Service project with your AP class, CollegeBoard is hosting a webinar on October 3, 2023 to help get you started!
The new edition of “POGIL Activities for AP Chemistry” is on track to be released next winter. Get a sneak peak of the new activities and improvements that have been incorporated into the new edition. Join us for this ChemEd X Talk presented by Laura Trout. We will start with a brief description of what POGIL pedagogy is, and how it can improve your classroom. Then, everyone will have an opportunity to try out a brand new AP Chemistry POGIL activity from the student perspective.
Learning chemistry requires students to become fluent in the symbolic language of chemistry. Developing expertise requires that students move beyond manipulating equations and symbols to create explanations with particulate models of matter to explain their observations in the laboratory. Failure to accurately interpret and connect these multiple representations of matter and Johnstone’s Domains – macroscopic, particulate, and symbolic - is one source of students’ misconceptions.
The primo Chemistry Education conference in North America returns to Canada—in person—this summer. From July 23 – 27, ChemEd 2023 will be hosted by the University of Guelph. High School Chemistry teachers and Introductory Chemistry instructors from across North America—and beyond—will attend sessions and workshops.
Interactive notebooks are a useful tool to help students interact with course content, and show them the flow and evolution of a course - particularly in courses that may not have a textbook. Students use blank composition notebooks and create their own textbook during the year with topics covered in two-page spreads. The rules of notebooking are generally loose and they should encourage creativity on the part of both students and teachers.
Many chemistry teachers use models and diagrams to help students describe how matter behaves at the particle level. ChemEd X Talks with Doug Ragan about how he uses colored magnets in his classroom to represent things such as subatomic particles, states of matter, balancing chemical equations, types of bonding, molecular geometry and much more. Join the conversation! Register for this 45 minute Zoom meeting to be held April 14th at 8pm EST.
You are invited to attend a zoom meeting hosted by Dr. Melanie J. Harvey, Johnson County Community College, on April 7 at 7:00 pm CST (8:00 pm EST) to discuss Dr.
Solutions are all around us in life and chemistry class! Our presenter, Kristen Vanderveen, will focus on how she approaches teaching the solution process, solubility curves, molarity, dilutions and related material.
Gas Laws are an essential and easily accessible area of chemistry to understand. They can be an excellent foothold into the inner workings of chemistry. In this ChemBasics Talk, Daniel Radoff will be arguing for moving a discussion of gas laws earlier in the school year. He will suggest ways to introduce gas laws earlier and reasons they can and should be incorporated earlier in the educational process.
Chemical bonding is a pivotal topic in chemistry classes that can be overwhelming for students and teachers alike - so much to teach, so many ways that it can be overwhelming! In this ChemBasics Talk, Nora Walsh will share her favorite activities, tips, and discovery activities for teaching chemical bonding and naming. Participants will leave with a variety of class-ready materials, ranging from a Google Slides gallery walk to a dry lab for forming ionic compounds and a wet lab that ties all 3 types of bonding together.
Learning about the periodic table and how the elements are arranged are both essential to success in chemistry. Students and teachers have struggled to explain periodic trends based on the placement of the elements on the periodic table. In this ChemBasics Talk, Rachmad Tjachyadi offers everything necessary to plan a unit on the topic including linked NGSS standards, introductory activities and handouts, student and teacher notes, and manipulative activities.
An invitation from Bob Worley, reaching out from across the pond.
Now I know you all like to get up early* in the States and Canada. Here is an extra incentive for you along with your crispy, streaky bacon and maple syrup waffles (I shall miss the opportunity to have them at Chem Ed 2021).
VisChem is a National Science Foundation funded (Award #DRL-1908121) professional development program and study to determine how teachers’ use of dynamic, molecular-level visualizations in secondary chemistry classrooms affect affordances and constraints for student learning as well as students’ ideas about molecular-level behavior underpinning chemical and physical changes.
Upcoming PD from Illinois Science and Math: This self-paced online professional development opportunity features two inquiry-based chemistry labs that use familiar and easy to find materials, making these activities suitable for in-person or remote learning.
This self-paced online professional development opportunity features two inquiry-based learning experiences that use familiar and easy to find materials, making these activities suitable for in-person or remote learning.
The Center for Teaching and Learning at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy now offers a variety of online professional development opportunities. Among the current selection, there is a chemistry offering titled Gamifying Chemistry.
ChemEd X Talks with members of ACCT, Assessing for Change in Chemical Thinking. Scott Balicki, Gregory Banks, Michael Clinchot, Marianne Dunne and Robert Huie will all take part. In order to teach chemistry effectively, we must ascertain what our students are thinking about chemistry and make a decision regarding what to do with what we learn. Formative assessment questions provide a useful lens into students' minds regarding what they are thinking about chemistry.