Melissa Hemling

This is Part 3 of a 5-part series on National Board Certification in Adolescent and Young Adulthood (AYA) Science. This post will focus on Component 2 - The Differentiation Portfolio.*

This is Part 2 of a 5-part series on National Board Certification in Chemistry. This post will focus on Component 1 - The Test.*

I remember my alarm waking me up early on a Saturday in December. Realizing my kids were still asleep, I pressed snooze so I could steal a few extra minutes of rest before the breakfast cheerios and cartoon chaos began. Before I could doze off again, my phone received an email notification. It was score day for National Board Certification.

When the topic of Photoelectron Spectroscopy (PES) was added to the AP Chemistry curriculum during the 2013 redesign, I was apprehensive.

A few months ago I was searching the internet, looking for a better way to teach stoichiometry to my pre-AP chemistry students. While my methods of dimensional analysis “got the job done” for most students, I would still always lose students and many lacked true understanding of what was happening in the reaction.