If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it. Albert Einstein’s quote might be the idea behind the ScienceMagazine and AAAS-sponsored “Dance Your PhD” contest. The idea is for PhD candidates to visually interpret and explain their dissertation research. There are now years of submissions: some funny, some beautiful, some art-house-worthy, but all about research and sciences. So why leave the fun to graduate students?

As part of advocating science literacy in my classroom, I have my 10th grade Honors Chemistry students dance their first semester final. This Dance Your Final semester final is to force students to actually read real, published scientific research; have a group final; eliminate test anxiety; and help students have fun with the content. Truly, of all assignments I give during the school year, this is the one that students say they sweat the hardest on, enjoy the most, and are the most proud of their work.

Unlike the PhD version, students do not have to do their own research or experiments. Instead, they find a published, peer-reviewed article on a science-related topic and rhumba, pop-n-lock, mechanically-robot, lyrically ballet, or otherwise rhythmically explain. Fortunately, our library and librarian (and public library system!) are amazing, and we have a lot of databases and resources. Really, my students’ problem is choosing a topic from seemingly esoteric scientific titles and abstracts. I give them very little homework during the year anyway (a topic for another day), but I consider this assignment their homework for about three weeks’ time (after Winter Break until Finals period). This final is a lot of work for students. In the past, I haven’t distributed an official schedule, but during class, I do offer periodic verbal descriptions of where I think their progress should be.

I have had problems with students choosing interesting topics, but not being able to dive into the research because the websites they chose were too simplistic. To that end, here's a checklist with a mix of current rules and new rules I'm going to try next year:

Figure 1 - Readers can find a downloadable version of this student document under Supporting Information.

Nearly all of my students choose to film their dances. If you intend on doing this kind of assignment, I recommend that students either submit a secured YouTube or Vimeo link, or post the video to a secured site.

I also lay some ground rules (listed on our Learning Management System), including that they may (or may not) use costumes and props, have a narrator, use subtitles, play music or sound effects, use images, film different scenery, etc., as long as the science of the article is communicated clearly to classmates and me. I have seen beautiful lyric dances about the science behind dejá vu, a PSA-style movie about concussions, walking paths through multiverses, backflipping exploding stars, modern dance illustrating Elizabeth Blackwell’s life, and an analysis about memorization of patterns.

Readers can find the list of ground rules and a rubric I use for grading the performances in the Supporting Information below this post. Enjoy the science!

Raise your hand if you've had students who felt personally victimized by stoichiometry! 

I know. We’ve all been there. Ugh. The year is cruising on, and there your students are, nailing experiment after experiment, mastering atomic structure and dominating nomenclature. You’re hopeful that success will carry into stoich even though they, on the other hand, have no clue what’s on the horizon. Then along comes dimensional analysis setting the stage for a bait-and-switch of monumental proportions, until WHACK – stoichiometry smacks them right in their sense of accomplishment.

Never mind that great percent yield lab you were looking forward to, now!

You see, some kids catch on to the steps involved with doing stoich, while others get seriously mixed up and flounder. And once the stoichiometry wheels have come off the wagon, it can feel like there’s no going back, especially after you’re hit by exchanges with your students like these:

Student:“which number is supposed to go on bottom of the conversion factor?”
Teacher:“look at the units you need to cancel.”
Student:“do we multiply or divide here?”
Teacher:“multiply, you’re ALWAYS multiplying by something!”
Student:“I thought it was H₂O; so, why are we using 5 for water in this problem?” 
Teacher:“5 is the coefficient in the balanced equation, it’s different than a subscript”
Student:“Oxygen is the limiting reactant, because there is less of it” 
Teacher:“no, it’s not always the one there’s less of”

Oh, it gets worse, and we all know it. 

The Issue at Hand

Discouraging stoich conversations can easily deflate any hope you had that students understood what all the symbols and numbers physically mean. And that confusion about how to view quantities, especially ratios, as representing physical substances in a reaction, is why they struggle to proportionally reason with them as such. Now, proportional thinking is tough for teens in general. It requires more abstract thinking than they typically have developed when they take chemistry. However, regardless of whether or not students possess the cognitive capacity for proportional thinking, often the seeds of thinking around proportions and ratios are planted in math courses before chemistry teachers even meet their students. In math courses integrating physical meaning with proportional thinking is just not the focus (yeah Algebra, we’re talking about you!) The focus is teaching the calculation steps, formula, oralgorithms. And something critical gets glossed over in that math learning, which then becomes significant in chemistry, a single word: “per.” If chemistry teachers ignore this crucial aspect of students’ prior knowledge, then some students will be destined to struggle with stoich.

But There Is Good News

Teaching students the proportional reasoning skills needed for stoich doesn’t have to be that daunting. By adjusting how your students talk about stoich, you will adjust how they think about it; eventually, they’ll proportionally reason in a more effective manner. Language is key to learning and chemistry is often regarded as its own language; so, armed with the right choice of words at your disposal, you could easily create a culture of proportional thinking in your classroom. What I have seen with my own students over the past decade is that, by taking advantage of something called neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), you can easily train students to think proportionally, even if they’re still concrete thinkers – all without elaborate hot-dog-and-bun metaphors, fancy picket-fence templates, or Khan Academy videos. Best of all, it only requires trading one Latin preposition you already use – “per” – for its two-word English meaning: “for every.” Commit right now to adopting “for every” speak in your chemistry class this year, and we’ll walk through how to introduce it and use it with students. When we’re done, you’ll know exactly how to scaffold student thinking to nail the setup of a stoich problem in no time, and possibly where this cognitive approach to proportional thinking could apply elsewhere in your class.

Ready? Let’s get to it.

These Two Words Will Change How Students Think About Ratios for the Better

Just like you might not make a big deal about Avogadro’s number, in an effort to keep it from becoming a hangup, don’t make a big deal out of the fact that you’re using the words “for every” over “per.” Once I made “for every” my default way of talking about ratios (as opposed to using “per”) students naturally followed my lead in talking and thinking about proportions. Before you launch into “for every” speak with your students, remember this is not a mere ‘shortcut’ or ‘trick’ to help them with chemistry. This is a shift in the way we talk about ratios to use language that embeds the steps to reason proportionally into it. Introducing “for every” speak to your students doesn’t have to wait until stoichiometry, it can be introduced in any context that uses proportions or ratios (e.g., density, molecular mass, graphing). You will, however, want to establish it before stoichiometry with concrete examples. Keep in mind that the context need not be complex.

I. Introduce that “per” actually translates to “for every”

Step 1: Choose a context to activate prior knowledge of the word “per”

Step 2: Elicit some ratio examples from students to list out for them

Step 3: Ask them to define the word “per” (without using the word itself -- so you don’t get “um, like, miles per hour”)

Step 4: Reveal that the word is Latin, meaning “for every”

Step 5: Have them read the example ratios to each other using the words “for every” instead of “per”

Step 6: Ask them a (simple) proportional reasoning question about the ratio in question to prime their thinking.

See, nothing fancy going on here.

By introducing it conversationally and through some pedestrian example of using the word “per,” you can actually focus on the physical meaning of the ratio. A great starting context is vehicle speed (or speed limits).

A target student response about speed would be something like: “for every hour a car travels, it goes 50 miles.” (This convention has a very specific order of independent variable – dependent variable, that way the “for every” speak can naturally be applied to graphs as well.)

II. Help students to apply the “for every” speak about ratios to reason proportionally with ratios.

Step 1: Pose an application question of the ratio.

Step 2: Elicit responses to your question.

Step 3: Have students explain the thinking that led to their response. (and encourage the use of “for every” in the rationale.

Step 4: Write down the response and explanation using mathematical terms to make their thinking visible and start building connections between language, thinking, and symbolic representations.

Step 5: Point out the mathematical steps that they did to arrive at their answer, without even using “an equation” (per se) so they begin to realize they can proportionally reason.

Step 6: Ask a follow-up question that requires inverse mathematical thinking about the ratio ( and then repeat steps 2-5.)

Example teacher questions could include things like: “how far would a vehicle travel, at this rate, if it drove for 2 hours? 4 hours? 6.5 hours?”

A target here would be to get students to be able to say something like: “for every hour it travels 50 miles, so four hours would be 200 miles; because 4 compared to 1 is four times bigger, the miles would have to be 4 times bigger than 50.”

Follow-up questions for inverse thinking could include: “how long did a vehicle travel, at this rate, if it drove 150 miles? 75 miles? 1,100 miles?”

A target here would be for them to say something like: “for every hour it travels 50 miles; so, 150 miles would be 3 hours, since 150 miles is 3 times bigger than 50 miles, the hours would be 3 times bigger than 1.”

Depending on how the responses are worded when students share, you might need to push them to elaborate on the thinking behind their calculation, so that they see a difference from the other question. You could ask “how did you know 150 was 3 times bigger than 50?” (or whichever number) until the use of division is revealed as part of the calculation.

Help students to make connections between the two questions, the inverse relationship between the operations that led to the two responses, and the ratio itself. All of this can later on segue into your choice of dimensional analysis formats once students have a conceptual understanding of the relationships between quantities and skill with proportional reasoning.

III. Move on to some ratios without units and follow the same approach to a thought experiment. 

Step 1: Write a simple ratio out (e.g., 2/5 or 1/3)

Step 2: Ask students to read them aloud

Step 3: Coach students to read them using “for every” language (e.g., for every 5 parts, you have 2; or, for every 3 parts, there is 1)

Step 4: Point out that even without units, these ratios (e.g., fractions) can be interpreted as a proportion using “for every” speak

Step 5: Ask them to discuss with a partner how the same thinking used in earlier examples with speed could be applied to ratios without units, like these).

Step 6: Elicit responses to invite a discussion that should end in consensus about the similarity between ratios, regardless of their units, being a way of showing “for every something…something else” and lead them to realize the reasoning potential behind talking about ratios like this.

Again, all we are doing here is translating the word “per” from Latin to English. And using “for every” to talk about ratios contains the blueprints for how we can think about ratios and 
proportionally reason with them.

IV. Move on to “for every” speak using ratios in a chemistry context.

Finally, after you've established “for every” speak with students in a simple context, figure out the chemistry content in which you’ll allow students to apply “for every” language. You could choose anything – density, molar mass, or balancing equations – depending on when you introduce “for every” language into your curriculum.

Think of this step like the transition between unit and non-unit ratios – you're scaffolding them to use their own thinking and reasoning in a chemistry context, so that they can work with the ratios you ultimately need them to navigate.

After all, that’s what you ultimately want here, isn’t it?

Let’s say that you chose molar mass. It might shake out like this:

Step 1: Provide students with some molar masses

Step 2: Ask students to read them aloud using “for every” language

Step 3: Pose questions about the molar masses as you did in earlier examples, like speed.

Step 4: Have students share responses and reasoning to the questions

Step 5: Discuss their answers and record the mathematical steps that they verbalized to make the thinking visible

Step 6: Summarize the connections between the ratios, language used to describe them, and the physical meaning of the quantities.

Ideally, students would see the same line of reasoning they used earlier can be applied here, despite differences in units, because they’ll start to understand that the ratios represent physical quantities and the language used to talk about them signifies how to work with those quantitites.

A target here would be to get students to say something like: “for every 1mol of carbon dioxide, a sample would have 44g of mass; therefore, 3.72mol of CO2 would have a mass that is 3.72 x 44, which would be 163.68g.”

You want to make sure students can always come back to talking about things in proportion using “for every” language, regardless of the context, but especially when they get to stoich. Your students should be able to make “for every” statements about the coefficients in the balanced equation as compared to given/experimental amounts of each substance. That way, they are always maintaining connection to the mole ratios in their calculations and thinking during stoichiometry.

Last, but certainly not least, you want to keep in mind that there is no algorithm here, though it may look procedural. That way, you’ll know that this two-word approach to ratios can be applied in many settings and is simple for students to use. Thinking and talking about proportions using “for every” language is about developing student thinking and giving them a reliable means to reason through their chemistry.

Putting “For Every” Speak to Work in Your Classroom

Ultimately, answers, calculations, and students’ reasoning are all important to understanding in chemistry, especially when it comes to stoichiometry.

If students are not able to make the connection between what’s physically represented by the numbers and symbols, they run the risk of struggling when asked to compare more complex proportions, like those of the ideal ratios (e.g., coefficients) of a balanced chemical equation to actual experimental amounts.

For students who make it through first-year chemistry, stoich might just be the topic that they talk about “surviving.” And rightfully so. It’s tough. But maybe it doesn’t have to be.

By using intentional language to teach students to think more precisely about ratios using the language of “for every” instead of “per,” then we can get them to proportionally reason more effectively and work through quantitative problems with greater confidence.

At this point, you probably have a pretty clear idea about how to introduce and use “for every” statements with your students, which means you start thinking about how they might apply with more context-rich topics such as:

• Enthalpy
• Gas Laws
• Electrochemistry
• Solution Chemistry

As you’ve hopefully seen here, language is key to the formation of our conceptions, and proportion is one concept that’s key to doing chemistry. If we know that helping students better grasp ratios and proportional thinking can help, and if it only requires a simple adjustment in our language to address that issue, then we can make a difference for our students.

At least, that’s what I found in teaching hundreds of chemistry students and in training hundreds of chemistry teachers, as well. Central to “for every” speak is the notion that a change in our language triggers a change in our understanding, and eventually leads to a change in our behavior. Proportional reasoning is no exception to this principle.

With “for every” speak you’re simply translating the Latin word “per” into English. For the wise investment of two measly words, your students just might find that stoichiometry isn’t so daunting after all.

So why wouldn’t you want to give “for every” statements a try with your class?

References

* Abud, G. G. (2011). "For every" speak: A cognitive approach to teaching proportional reasoning (accessed 8/28/17). Paper presented at the biennial meeting of ChemEd, Kalamazoo, MI.

* Gabel, D. (1999). Improving teaching and learning through chemistry education research: A look to the future (accessed 8/28/17). Journal Of Chemical Education, 76(4), 548. doi:10.1021/ed076p548

* Draper, S. W. (2003). Vocabulary as a barrier to learning. Retrieved from http://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/vocab.html#WS  (accessed 8/28/17).

* Cassels, J.R.T. & Johnstone, Alex. (1983). The meaning of words and the teaching of chemistry. Education in Chemistry, 20, 10-11. 

* Johnstone, A. H. & Selepeng, D. (2001). A language problem revisited (accessed 8/28/17). Chemistry Education: Research and Practice in Europe, 2(1). 19-29. 

* Muzio, E. (2017). Coaching: 5 levels of learning. Retrieved from http://www.managetrainlearn.com/page/5-levels-of-learning  (accessed 8/28/17).

* Dilts, R. B. (2016). What Is NLP? Retrieved from http://www.nlpu.com/NLPU_WhatIsNLP.html  (accessed 8/28/17).

* Garmston, R. & Wellman, B. (2016). The adaptive school: A sourcebook for developing collaborative groups (3rd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

* Scarino, A. & Liddicoat, A. J. (2009). Teaching and learning languages: A guide (accessed 8/28/17). Carlton, Victoria, AU: Curriculum Corporation. 

* Stewart, L. (2016, February 3). Rethinking stoichiometry (accessed 8/28/17) ChemEd X Blog post.

* Carney, M., Smith, E., Hughes, G., Brendefur, J., & Crawford, A. (2016). Influence of proportional number relationships on item accessibility and students’ strategies. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 28(4), 503-522. doi:10.1007/s13394-016-0177-z

* Ramful, A., & Narod, F. B. (2014, March). Proportional reasoning in the learning of chemistry: Levels of complexity. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 26(1), 25–46. doi:10.1007/s13394-013-0110-7.
 

It all started with a couple of summers spent on fellowships at the Institute for Chemical Education at the University of Wisconsin: Madison. In 1990 after two years of teaching high school chemistry I transferred to help open a school to specialize in Health and Medical education. I was 23 years old and ready to take on the world. The school’s student body was high poverty, 96% of the students qualified for the federal lunch program, and almost the entire student body was classified as minority. It was a good first year.

During the year I read in the Journal of Chemical Education about the availability of summer fellowships at the Institute for Chemical Education (ICE) for people interested in technology. At the time video discs and computer interfaces were a big deal and the brand new school building I was working in had plenty of computers and videodisc players that no one knew anything about. So I applied, got a phone interview, and convinced them to bring me on for a summer (which turned into two summers).

Leaving out some of the detail about what transpired next, I spent a lot of time in awe about the amazing things that were happening at ICE and asking myself if I could recreate them at a high school. It is truly amazing what you think you can accomplish when you don’t know any better. My first quest was to try public outreach to promote chemistry. I was an ACS member, loved the concept of National Chemistry Week, and had been very impressed with what Ron Perkins was doing with his high school students. Ron was in the room next to me at ICE and doing public outreach with his kids. Don Showalter and Marv Lang discovered my interest in chemical demonstrations and were already using me as an assistant that summer and I wanted to do the same with my students. So I called a couple of local elementary schools and found two principals willing to host us for assemblies for their students. I convinced my magnet coordinator to give us a couple of buses and rounded up 20 kids who wanted to, and I quote a wonderful student named Miguel, “Go blow stuff up for some 5^th graders”. We needed equipment and raided every storeroom on campus. My Grandmother donated a lot of kitchen gear she was no longer using. I even convinced one of the local research labs affiliated with school of medicine we were across the street from to give us some liquid nitrogen and dry ice. With the supplies we gathered, we were able to perform a two-hour demo show.

Being young, probably foolish, and full of dreams I submitted a grant application to the school of medicine and asked for $10,000 to start an outreach program. I knew it was foolhardy but I was young and idealistic. The biggest surprise was they not only gave me the money, but also said I could use one of their office staff to help schedule the trips. We went to elementary schools, our local Children’s Hospital, and once even to Disneyland to do a demonstration show under the Monorail stop.

This was the beginning of NERDy at BRaVO.

Over the next decade or two the program morphed into many different things. We became involved with the National Science Bowl and Ocean Bowl. We became involved in Chemistry Olympiad, that in turn led to physics, biology, and math competitions. Popsicle Stick Bridge Building and Science Olympiad also shaped what our program is today.

Now to the more nitty gritty of this story. The name of my school, Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School, can be very misleading. The school is a public school in East Los Angeles, we are a Title One School, and we are not legally allowed to have any entrance requirements. So we are not only attracting students who have strong backgrounds in math and science to begin with. We get a little bit of everything. There is large gang population in the neighborhood and we are fighting to keep the students on the right track. What my little program has done is create a home away from home for the kids who choose to be there. I am giving them an outlet for their energies and an alternative to the not so desirable life they could have on the outside. I do not require any testing to get into the program, we take whoever walks through my classroom door. I will find an event for every student to take part in. Not all of them will be in the high profile events like Science Bowl but everyone will compete. I love events like Chemistry and Biology Olympiad since there is no limit to the number of students who can be involved. My school has tested as many as 125 students for Chemistry Olympiad in a given year.

My classroom is open all day, just like many of the other successful teachers you hear about. I have students arriving as early as 7 AM and staying until as late as 6 PM. We practice something every chance we get. Both the nutrition break and lunch are filled with activity. I give lectures and labs almost every day after school and on many Saturdays. Every student can participate. I have adopted the habit of bringing at least one student to every event whose sole job is to carry around the cooler of food and drinks that my wife so patiently puts together for every event. The “Water Boy” is a vital part of every team and the students refer to the position with the phrase “Everyone has to start somewhere”.

Each year the students design their “NErDy” shirt. It always has some pun based on periodic table squares and the year is listed in Roman Numerals. In fact one year at Science Bowl the kids were laughing because one of the science bowl questions was to express the year number in Roman numerals and they had it printed on their shirts. I have made sure to control the shirts carefully and each of the students who are involved in the program can get one. We don’t give them out to anyone else. They have become the most desired team uniform on our campus.

Now that we have run this program in one way or another for almost 3 decades it has become a tradition and a challenging undertaking every year. Many siblings and other family members have walked in on day one of their ninth grade year and stayed for four years straight. Many keep coming to our Friday afternoon extra chemistry lectures even when they are in college. It has been successful in a measured way. We have produced almost 20 semifinalists in chemistry Olympiad, over 20 in biology Olympiad, two in physics, ten in math, and one student who has gone on to Team USA in Physics. Many of my former students are now professors in four year universities.

I do want to point out one major point in all of this. I have made the choice to undertake all of this without any extra pay. Many of my colleagues ask me to not do it because it sets what they think is a bad precedent for uncompensated time. But it is my choice and I have decided that it is what I do and it is who I am. Paying for al the events can be a challenge also. I have run fundraisers online and done well in getting former members of these teams to help keep the new ones going. Having several successful doctors in the group helps! They never fail to help us reach our goals!

A whole culture of “NErDy” has grown out of these endeavors at Bravo. It is a safe place for the kids and well respected by the administration and other teachers. Several years back I was given an award by the local United Way chapter and they sent a photographer and journalist to my room for a day. I am not great at self promotion and the journalist was kind enough to help me prepare some answers to typical questions asked in that type of interview. One that has been picked up many times over is “What we have done is made it cool to be a high achiever”. I am very grateful to that writer for catching the sentiment and the mood of my program.

I also would not have been able to do any of this without the support of my wife who is constantly at these events and usually coaching one of the squads while we compete.

I don't look like an organized person. At least, the appearance of my desk lies about my organizational skills (I know what's in all of the piles, I promise!) But I do insist on my curriculum write ups being organized, which is how I came up with my lab handouts. Let me introduce The Teacher Page. 

The Teacher Page includes all of the notes I need to set up, run, and clean up the particular experiment. I record from whom I obtained the lab. I list the location of chemicals in the stockroom (I follow Flinn Scientific guidelines). I've added what does and does not work, so that I don't have to remember it from year to year. I have notes of things to try in the future. The most important part, however, is the giant spreadsheet to calculate amounts of chemicals needed to make multiple volumes of solutions. This saves so much time and repeated effort!

Figure 1 - My Teacher Page for Determining the Formula of a Hydrate Lab

The Formula of a Hydrate Lab (Fig. 1) is a pretty simple Teacher Page (although the lab itself is not!) It’s nothing mind-blowing; just a list (easier than reading through the procedure and missing things) of everything to check before lab. There’s not a whole lot for me to set up before students get to lab, no solution prep, but there’s a reminder for me to tell my students at the beginning of class. You can see a slightly more complicated set-up for me, a thermochemistry lab that needs four solutions of a specific molarity in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2 - My Teacher Page for a Thermochemistry  Lab

The top part looks familiar. The middle section looks a little more confusing, so let me clarify the inserted-spreadsheet-parts: The first section is how to make the solutions from dry chemicals. The second section is for diluting the aqueous materials. The third section calculates approximate volumes needed for my classes as a whole. This is the best part of the spreadsheet! I’m the only chemistry teacher at my school, so my class sizes fluctuate a bit from year to year. I have found stacks ( stacks! ) of hastily-scribbled-on notes for dilutions of just a bit more of this or that. Now with The Teacher Page, I already have the calculated numbers and just stuff in the values for my groups. Additionally, I have relatively limited chemical storage for excess materials. While I keep several dilutions of, say, hydrochloric acid, I don’t want a bunch of bottles of random chlorides that I won’t use again until next year: I just don’t have the shelf space. Using the spreadsheet, it’s easy to make just enough of each solution.

Figure 3 - My Teacher Page for a Hydrolysis Lab

The Teacher Page for my Hydrolysis Lab (Fig. 3) is more clear: materials, mixing solutions, and materials needed per groups of students. And yes, frozen blueberries saved the day!

Now, how to organize my files so that my students don’t see my magical Teacher Page. I am comfy in a word processor. My students want to digitally access everything over any number of platforms and devices, and I create my files in a word processor. When the file is ready for students, I print a PDF of everything except the last page (the Teacher Page). Each year, I make my modifications in the word processor and re-print the student file so I don’t have multiple versions floating around. Yes, my file lists seem to have duplicates, but it’s also how I know which is the student file (.pdf) and which is the teacher file (.doc), as well as being able to match files together. Easy peasy!

I still kick myself for not having thought of The Teacher Page earlier in my teaching career. It’s a staple in my laboratory write ups. I hope it’s also helpful for other seemingly-disorganized people! 

What are we doing to help kids achieve?

     I want to share a measuring activity for you to consider. First, start with two baseballs. The first baseball is a regular baseball. The other baseball is called a "small ball". Small balls are the exact same as regular baseballs just smaller. Coaches use these to help players with fielding and hitting. You can buy them at a sporting good store, online or if you are like me, make friends with the baseball coach. Next, get six to eight students to volunteer. Without talking at all the students must hold the normal baseball and the small ball. They then must decide if the normal ball has more, less or the same mass as the small ball. The students write their decisions on the board.

     I have been doing this for twenty years with students, parents and teachers. Overwhelmingly, most people think the small ball weighs the same as or more than the large baseball. Find the mass of each ball. The balance indicates the larger baseball always has much more mass. Students are somewhat shocked at the outcome. The point I make with kids when they see the measured mass is that our senses can deceive us. Good practice and instruments help eliminate this deception.

     Next, I place my students in lab groups. Each lab group is assigned a paper taped to the chalkboard. One student must go to their group paper on the board and make an estimation. Usually, the estimation involves a simple measurement (How much mass is in this penny? How much water is in this cup?). The student quietly writes their estimation underneath the paper taped so noone else sees it and goes back to their group. A different student from the group goes to the board to retrieve the object. They make the actual measurement and record this next to the paper on the board.

     Now the fun part. I go to the board and compare the estimated answer under the paper with the measured value next to the paper for each group. The team that has the measured value closest to the estimated value wins a point. Did the students use units? Did they use metric or english units? Did they use the equipment correctly? All of these questions come up quickly. Each incident provides a nice learning opportunity. Overall, this is a quick, simple activity that provides much information for students and the teacher. It engages students and helps with measurements at the beginning of the year. Do you have a "go to" activity for measurement?  Please share...I would love to hear about it.....

"What are we doing to help kids achieve?"

     If you are looking for a measuring and density activity that will be challenging, allow students to experience success early on and can be boxed up to use again, you might consider trying the activity that I am sharing in this post.  

     Students just finished work on measuring. I wanted an activity where they had to put their measuring skills into pratice. The activity developed into one in which they immediately know if they measured correctly. The objects they measure are five pieces of polymer clay.  Polymer clay is a relatively inexpensive material that can be molded easily and baked in the oven. The final product are plastic-like pieces. The five pieces in each lab set are different shapes, sizes, mass and different markings. Each group gets a different color. One of the five pieces of clay has metal shot (lead works well) embedded inside it. Students are not allowed to break open or destroy the clay pieces. Students are told that somehow they must determine which of the five pieces has been tampered with and is not pure clay. 

     The class spends time brainstorming. The brainstorming session usually leads to determining the density of each piece. The density is usually found by getting the volume through water displacement and then finding the mass. The water displacement is familier to some students but not all. If students do not carefully measure to the correct significant figures then they will struggle with determining the correct "tampered" piece.

     This activity for me as a teacher has morphed over the years. The activity lends itself well to differentiation. Some classes are given more or less information depending on the level of the class. The class can also be given "distractors" (What is this funnel for ?). The students in the class can get instant feedback. The student's success depends more on an actual action and less about "Did I get the right answer on my paper?".  It is appropriate for most student skill levels at this time of the year. Students are also provided the option of doing a retake if they did not identify the correct piece.

     There are many density and measuring activities to choose from. This is a nice one with little prep time (after the initial creation of the pieces). The activity can be boxed and done year after year and changed depending on the level of students. Do you have a similar activity? Please share...would love to hear from you.

When I first started teaching I was very fortunate that a local teacher invited me to a high school chemistry teachers meeting. I was really young and really motivated to be a better teacher. I registered immediately and went to an all day event held at Occidental College here in Los Angeles. I don’t think many of you would have heard of Oxy except maybe if you had read President Obama’s Biography since it is where he spent his first two years of undergrad.

I was floored by this meeting. It was nothing like an NSTA meeting. It was just a room full of chemistry teachers (over 100 of them) watching their colleagues get up and share 10-15 minute talks about a lab or demo that they had a really neat trick for. I think I learned more that day than I did in all of my teacher training. It was for chemistry teachers by chemistry teachers. I told the organizer I wanted to present the next year, went back to my classroom, and used some of what I saw the very next week. One of the best things about this meeting was it only cost $5 to register and they even fed you lunch in the faculty dining room!

Over the next five year or so I presented at every Occidental meeting, started going to their physics teachers meetings also, and made some very valuable contacts that I still work with to this day. But the meetings started getting smaller and eventually the organizer stepped down, and they disappeared. I really missed that meeting and a few years back reached out to a few friends and said, bad movie pun here, “Let’s get the band back together”.

So what do you have to do to plan a meeting? The first step was to find out if Occidental was still interested in hosting it. I spoke with one of their chemistry Professors who had been at every one of the meetings. He was on board and even willing to get us the space for free! But he could not convince the department to pay for lunch. I had become quite active with the local ACS section and was a member of their executive committee so they were willing to help with logistics. That was great because you never want to mix school money with your own personal accounts! They even agreed to keep track of the registrations. Food was a challenge. We decided to use the in house catering at the college. They knew the “Lay of the Land”, were reliable, and not that much more expensive than what we could find on the outside.

Now the hard part. The majority of the teachers who had been present for most of those meetings and had presented were retired. Who was going to talk? I convinced a few of those retired teacher to come out of retirement for a day. I got a bunch of my friends to come and one person from the local ACS chapter was willing to come and talk about National Chemistry Week and Chemists Celebrate Earth Day.

We sent out the announcement and got a small but a good crowd to come. We were not able to reach the same numbers of attendence as those meetings in the 1980’s. Not as many of our colleagues today are willing to give up a Saturday. But it worked and we are now trying to host it again every year. Reaching out to teachers is a challenge. The local ACS section had a mailing list of teachers, I reached out to all the local science advisors I could find in southern California, and did something new! I contacted the teacher training programs at local colleges to invite preservice teachers also. But I have tried to keep to the original theme of the meeting, “By high school teachers for high school teachers”.

That first attempt at reviving the meeting was certainly different from my past experience! Three of the speakers were focused on classroom management systems and other technology applications. Fewer people wanted to show demonstrations and only one came to talk about a lab experiment. But, of course, times change.

I have received support from the American Association of Chemistry Teachers with advertising and cool swag to give away at the meeting. Great things have also been donated by Flinn Scientific, Educational Innovations, ACS Chem Clubs, ACS Publications, the ACS Office of High School Chemistry and some publishers. Of course, ChemEd X and JChemEd are sending swag as well.

2017 will be the fifth time we have had what we now call the AACT.SCALACS/Oxy Chemistry Teachers Meeting. I am sending out emails and trying to convince my friends to present. So if you are in the greater Los Angeles area please come by. You can find more details on our website.

So with all of this now said, have you ever considered sponsoring a local teachers meeting?

The Board of Publication of the ACS Division of Chemical Education announces the opening of a search for the ninth Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Chemical Education (JCE). The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for all aspects of JCE publication either directly or cooperatively through the co-publication agreement with the ACS Publications Division. Visit DivCHED.org or read the announcement I authored for the September issue of JCE, Announcement and Description of the Journal of Chemical EducationEditor-in-Chief Position*, for more information about the search, including how to apply. You can also learn more about the job and associated responsibilities of the position by viewing the video interview with the current Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Norbert Pienta.

07212017_Pienta Interview from ChemEd Xchange on Vimeo (Accessed 9/13/17).

Given the importance of the Journal of Chemical Education to the whole chemical education community, every member should be one of these three types related to the editor search. 

Advocate - Speak to strong candidates and encourage them to apply; send them to the website.

Explorer - Learn more about the position to consider applying yourself. Seek out information from the DivCHED site and talk to others who can help to inform your decision.

Applicant - Apply for the position and prepare your application due on January 31, 2018!

Which one are you?

*Yezierski, Ellen, Announcement and Description of the Journal of Chemical Education Editor-in-Chief Position, Journal of Chemical Education 2017 94 (9), 1183-1184

I grow most when I dig into the content and pedagogy with experienced chemistry teachers. I believe most of you would agree. I've read the research. I need practical advice. Help.

My district-level supervisor asked me to facilitate a district-wide AP Chemistry professional learning community (PLC) with 16 teachers, which is a fancy way to say an online discussion board with two or three face-to-face staff development days. In my dream, we are engaging in conversations about teaching kinetics, equilibrium, and buffer systems while sharing lab experiments and inquiry-based activities. Everyone is comfortable sharing. Everyone is contributing. Everyone, even the most experienced teacher with the highest scores, is growing. In reality, we haven't started with much of a bang. 

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. (Hattie) He developed this opinion after compiling over 800 studies on factors contributing to student performance. Robert Marzano called PLCs “one of the most powerful initiatives for school improvement I have seen in the last decade.” The research speaks clearly about the significance, and I crave more. I want to hear reports from the trenches. What really makes a group of teachers grow? What really impacts the classroom? 

• Are you part of an AP chemistry collaborative team of teachers? If so, is it working? If not, what would be your dream of a functioning team? 
• What questions would you want to ask your peers?
• What would make you comfortable sharing your "stuff"?
• What would make you comfortable using someone else's "stuff"?
• If you were going to meet face-to-face, how would you hope to spend the day? What would you hope everyone would bring?

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to student achievement. New York: Routledge.

Marzano, R. (2003). What works in schools: Translating research into action. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

DuFour, R. (2009). Professional Learning Communities: The Key to Improved Teaching and Learning, SOURCE. http://www.advanc-ed.org/source/professional-learning-communities-key-im... (accessed 9/14/17)

The first chapter of every middle and high school science textbook I have ever seen contains a section on “the scientific method.” As a result, by the time your students get to you they are probably very adept at reciting how science is done, or at least how they think it is done. A short list of easy steps is presented which always, incomprehensibly begins with forming a hypothesis (which some people insist must be an if-then statement), and then BOOM! Science has happened. This oversimplification and the dry exercises I’ve seen used to “teach” it led me to dispense with teaching the scientific method explicitly for several years. Rather, I wanted my students to gain an understanding of science by doing science, as best as we can replicate in a classroom, though inquiry labs, class discussions, and defending claims with evidence. However, I came to find out that while my students comprehended how our classroom functioned; they still did not understand what scientists did or how to evaluate claims outside of the classroom.

For the past three years, I have spent the first couple of class days on the Build a Boat Challenge in order to build classroom culture. This year, I wanted to follow this up with an additional activity that challenged students to comprehend the nature of science and have another class discussion in which they could engage without worrying if they were getting to “the right answer”.

To this end, I pulled reading selections for my students from two of my favorite sources. The first is the introduction from Richard Feynman’s first Lecture on Physics, Atoms in Motion. The lecture is worth reading in its entirety and does a wonderful job of eloquently surveying the key points of basic chemistry. The second is an excerpt from Antoine Lavoisier’s The Elements of Chemistry (French: Traité Élémentaire de Chimie). In both, the authors discuss the nature of science, the role of experimentation, the definition scientific truth, and the best way in which to teach science.

I assigned these two readings as homework and gave them a couple of nights to read them and prepare draft answers to a set of discussion questions. Though the passages are not lengthy, they are dense, especially the Lavoisier, which was originally written in French in the late 18^th century. Students told me that it was a difficult read, but I am confident that they understood Lavoisier’s arguments after listening to those same students during class discussion. The day of the discussions I sat the students in a semi-circle and opened the conversation with Feynman’s opening in which he claims that all of their professors assume every one of them will become experts in that field. I posed the simple question: if Feynman’s assumption is accurate, how do you feel about your teachers designing their course assuming you will one day become an expert in that subject? For me, opening with a question about how they feel was important, because then all are explicitly aware that there is no correct answer and, therefore, more likely to engage with the debate.

The conversations that followed were fascinating. In the course of a single class, we discussed both articles using their prepared discussion questions as a guide. These questions helped immensely because all students had something prepared before class began. We discussed scientific truth, experiment, the components of a defensible conclusion, and everything that students should discuss when trying to understand what science is. Because both Lavoisier and Feynman discuss the necessity of building complex topics on simple foundations, I was also able to explain my rationale behind the structure of my course.

Lavoisier and Feynman agree on most fronts but differ on one nuanced point that is rich in discussion: the role of imagination in scientific research. Feynman argues that imagination is necessary to inspire the researcher to conceive of and explore his/her various questions. Lavoisier dismisses imagination outright, arguing that it does no more than to deceive people in to making suppositions instead of conclusions. The conjecture of the natural philosophers was the contemporary target of his ire, but the proclivity for people to deceive themselves with “knowledge” that is easy to understand is something all students can understand and cite examples of. A wonderful debate was had and one of my students, drawing on her knowledge from literature and history, pointed out that Lavoisier was writing during the rise of the Romantic Era so his quantitative, Enlightenment fueled research may have found detractors in its time. This cross-curricular connection was one I was not expecting and is one of many anecdotes I could share about the benefits of this exercise.

I hope that you find a place for a discussion like this in your classroom. I have linked my copy of the two passages and reflection questions I used. If you have any feedback or if this sparks any ideas for you, let me know!

Enhancing Student Success in Chemistry

The September 2017 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online to subscribers. Topics featured in this issue include: student thinking and student success; computational thinking; using games to teach: developing and making tools for teaching; understanding catalysis; green chemistry; food chemistry in the laboratory; exploring edible fats and oils; NMR spectroscopy; laboratory cross-course collaboration; physical chemistry; distilling the archives: scents and smellability; announcing the search for the next Editor-in-Chief.

Cover: Student Thinking and Student Success

In Students’ Concept-Building Approaches: A Novel Predictor of Success in Chemistry Courses, Regina F. Frey, Michael J. Cahill, and Mark A. McDaniel discuss the use of an online concept-building task to differentiate students based on their concept-building approach. Recent basic cognitive science research suggests that some learners tend toward rote concept learning (exemplar learners), whereas other learners tend to use abstraction concept learning (abstraction learners). Students in general and organic chemistry completed a concept-building task, and their subsequent course performances were tracked. Abstraction learners consistently outperformed exemplar learners, with performance differences most pronounced among students taking the higher-level course, Organic Chemistry 2. Performance patterns differentiated by concept-building approach were evident even when standard ability indices (college entrance exam scores and prior chemistry performance) were factored into the analysis. One implication is that as chemistry content demands more abstraction, the way students approach learning concepts becomes more critical for success in chemistry courses. (Photograph courtesy of George Chafin and used with permission.)

The association of thinking processes and success are also discussed in:

Thinking Processes Associated with Undergraduate Chemistry Students’ Success at Applying a Molecular-Level Model in a New Context ~ Melonie A. Teichert, Lydia T. Tien, Lisa Dysleski, and Dawn Rickey (This article is available to non-subscribers as part of ACS Editors' Choice program.)

Computational Thinking

The Development of Computational Thinking in a High School Chemistry Course ~ Paul S. Matsumoto and Jiankang Cao

Teaching the Growth, Ripening, and Agglomeration of Nanostructures in Computer Experiments ~ Jan Philipp Meyburg and Detlef Diesing

Using Games To Teach

Analogue Three-Dimensional Memory Game for Teaching Reflection, Symmetry, and Chirality to High School Students ~ Daniel de Melo Silva and Carlos Magno Rocha Ribeiro

CHEMCompete: An Organic Chemistry Card Game To Differentiate between Substitution and Elimination Reactions of Alkyl Halides ~ Kristin Gogal, William Heuett, and Deana Jaber

Making a Game Out of It: Using Web-Based Competitive Quizzes for Quantitative Analysis Content Review ~ James P. Grinias

Developing and Making Tools for Teaching

Three-Dimensional Printing of a Scalable Molecular Model and Orbital Kit for Organic Chemistry Teaching and Learning ~ Matthew R. Penny, Zi Jing Cao, Bhaven Patel, Bruno Sil dos Santos, Christopher R. M. Asquith, Blanka R. Szulc, Zenobia X. Rao, Zaid Muwaffak, John P. Malkinson, and Stephen T. Hilton

Hands-On Data Analysis: Using 3D Printing To Visualize Reaction Progress Surfaces~ Carolyn S. Higman, Henry Situ, Peter Blacklin, and Jason E. Hein

Developing a Magnetic Circular Dichroism Apparatus Equipped with Neodymium Magnet for Students To Investigate the Electronic Structures of Transition Metals and Lanthanoids ~ Abdallah Yakubu, Takayoshi Suzuki, and Masakazu Kita

Understanding Catalysis

Heterogeneous Catalytic Oxidation of Simple Alcohols by Transition Metals ~ Leon Jacobse, Sebastiaan O. Vink, Sven Wijngaarden, and Ludo B. F. Juurlink (This demonstration is available to non-subscribers as part of ACS AuthorChoice program.)

Misconceptions in the Exploding Flask Demonstration Resolved through Students’ Critical Thinking ~ Rick Spierenburg, Leon Jacobse, Iris de Bruin, Daan J. van den Bos, Dominique M. Vis, and Ludo B. F. Juurlink (This article is available to non-subscribers as part of ACS AuthorChoice program.)

Green Chemistry

Reaction Scale and Green Chemistry: Microscale or Macroscale, Which Is Greener? ~ Rita C. C. Duarte, M. Gabriela T. C. Ribeiro , Adélio A. S. C. Machado

Designing and Using a Safer, Greener Azole Oxamide for Chemiluminescence Demonstrations ~ Fabrizio Roncaglia

Teaching Green Chemistry with Epoxidized Soybean Oil ~ Homar Barcena, Abraham Tuachi, and Yuanzhuo Zhang

Introducing the Concept of Green Synthesis in the Undergraduate Laboratory: Two-Step Synthesis of 4-Bromoacetanilide from Aniline ~ Ratul Biswas and Anuradha Mukherjee

Introduction of a Simple Experiment for the Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory Demonstrating the Lewis Acid and Shape-Selective Properties of Zeolite Na-Y ~ Vincent Maloney and Zach Szczepanski and Keith Smith

Food Chemistry in the Laboratory

Investigating the Antioxidant Capacity of Fruits and Fruit Byproducts through an Introductory Food Chemistry Experiment for High School ~ Cristina Soares, Manuela Correia, Cristina Delerue-Matos, and M. Fátima Barroso

Determination of Titratable Acidity in Wine Using Potentiometric, Conductometric, and Photometric Methods ~ Dietrich A. Volmer, Luana Curbani, Timothy A. Parker, Jennifer Garcia, Linda D. Schultz, and Endler Marcel

Introduction to Validation of Analytical Methods: Potentiometric Determination of CO₂ ~ A. Ricardo Hipólito-Nájera, M. Rosario Moya-Hernández, Rodolfo Gómez-Balderas, Alberto Rojas-Hernández, and Mario Romero-Romo

Introducing Undergraduate Students to Metabolomics Using a NMR-Based Analysis of Coffee Beans ~ Peter Olaf Sandusky

Exploring Edible Fats and Oils

Lipid Residue Analysis of Archaeological Pottery: An Introductory Laboratory Experiment in Archaeological Chemistry ~ Clare S. Harper, Faith V. Macdonald, and Kevin L. Braun

A First Laboratory Utilizing NMR for Undergraduate Education: Characterization of Edible Fats and Oils by Quantitative ¹³C NMR ~ Charles G. Fry, Heike Hofstetter, and Matthew D. Bowman

Identification of Edible Oils by Principal Component Analysis of ¹H NMR Spectra ~ Shauna L. Anderson, David Rovnyak, and Timothy G. Strein

NMR Spectroscopy

Biomolecular NMR Assignment: Illustration Using the Heme Signals in Horse Cytochrome c ~ Ana V. Silva and Ricardo O. Louro

Building “My First NMRviewer”: A Project Incorporating Coding and Programming Tasks in the Undergraduate Chemistry Curricula ~ Francisco M. Arrabal-Campos, Alejandro Cortés-Villena, and Ignacio Fernández

Quantifying the Product Distribution of a Chemical Reaction by ¹H NMR Spectroscopy: A Cooperative Learning Approach for the Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratory ~ Craig J. Yennie, Russell Hopson, and Kathleen M. Hess

Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution—Addition and Identification of an Amine ~ Steven W. Goldstein, Ashley Bill, Jyothi Dhuguru, and Ola Ghoneim

Chiral Analysis by Tandem Mass Spectrometry Using the Kinetic Method, by Polarimetry, and by ¹H NMR Spectroscopy ~ Patrick W. Fedick, Ryan M. Bain, Kinsey Bain, and R. Graham Cooks

Laboratory Cross-Course Collaboration

Cross-Course Collaboration in the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum: Isotopic Labeling with Sodium Borodeuteride in the Introductory Organic Chemistry Laboratory ~ Richard A. Kjonaas, Richard W. Fitch, and Robert J. Noll

Cross-Course Collaboration in the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum: Primary Kinetic Isotope Effect in the Hypochlorite Oxidation of 1-Phenylethanol in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory ~ Robert J. Noll, Richard W. Fitch, Richard A. Kjonaas, and Richard A. Wyatt

Physical Chemistry

To Be or Not To Be Symmetric: That Is the Question for Potentially Active Vibronic Modes ~ Sarah F. Tyler, Eileen C. Judkins, Dmitry Morozov, Carlos H. Borca, Lyudmila V. Slipchenko, and David. R. McMillin

Some Considerations on the Fundamentals of Chemical Kinetics: Steady State, Quasi-Equilibrium, and Transition State Theory ~ Joaquin F. Perez-Benito

Phase Relations in Ternary Systems in the Subsolidus Region: Methods To Formulate Solid Solution Equations and To Find Particular Compositions ~ Victor E. Alvarez-Montaño, Mario H. Farías, Francisco Brown, Iliana C. Muñoz-Palma, Fernando Cubillas, and Felipe F. Castillón-Barraza

Distilling the Archives: Scents and Smellability

This issue includes two laboratory experiments that involve scents and smell:

Synthesis of the Commercial Fragrance Compound Ethyl 6-Acetoxyhexanoate: A Multistep Ester Experiment for the Second-Year Organic Laboratory ~ James V. McCullagh and Sophia P. Hirakis

Testing the Vibrational Theory of Olfaction: A Bio-organic Chemistry Laboratory Experiment Using Hooke’s Law and Chirality ~ Rajeev S. Muthyala, Deepali Butani, Michelle Nelson, and Kiet Tran

Past issues of JCE also contain many engaging olfactory articles. Here is a small sampling:

Bringing Organic Chemistry to the Public: Structure and Scent in a Science Museum ~ M. Kevin Brown, Laura C. Brown, Karen Jepson-Innes, Michael Lindeau, and Jeremy Stone (highlighted at ChemEdX by Erica Jacobsen in Especially JCE: February 2017)

The Chemistry of Perfume: A Laboratory Course for Nonscience Majors ~ Jennifer L. Logan and Craig E. Rumbaugh (includes extensive references to JCE literature on fragrances in the Supporting Information)

Using Flavor Chemistry To Design and Synthesize Artificial Scents and Flavors ~ Jessica L. Epstein, Michael Castaldi, Grishma Patel, Peter Telidecki, and Kevin Karakkatt

Discovering Chemical Aromaticity Using Fragrant Plants ~Tanya L. Schneider

Introducing Bond-Line Organic Structures in High School Biology: An Activity That Incorporates Pleasant-Smelling Molecules ~Andro C. Rios and Gerald French

A Closer Look at Acid–Base Olfactory Titrations ~Kerry Neppel, Maria T. Oliver-Hoyo, Connie Queen, and Nicole Reed

Isolation and Analysis of Essential Oils from Spices ~Stephen K. O’Shea, Daniel D. Von Riesen, and Lauren L. Rossi

The Scent of Roses and Beyond: Molecular Structures, Analysis, and Practical Applications of Odorants ~Albrecht Mannschreck and Erwin von Angerer

The Enantioselectivity of Odor Sensation: Some Examples for Undergraduate Chemistry Courses ~Philip Kraft and Albrecht Mannschreck

Esterification Reaction Utilizing Sense of Smell and Eyesight for Conversion and Catalyst Recovery Monitoring ~ Nikki Janssens, Lik H. Wee, and Johan A. Martens

How Does an Orange Peel Pop a Balloon? Chemistry, of Course! ~ Tom Kuntzleman, Tori Talaski and Charles Schaerer (at ChemEdX, an activity that involves limonene)

Editorial News

The Board of Publication of the Division of Chemical Education has announced the opening of a search for the ninth Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Chemical Education. The September issue contains details of the Announcement and Description of the Journal of Chemical Education Editor-in-Chief Position. A discussion of this is also available on ChemEdX, including direct access to a video of the current Editor, Norbert Pienta, discussing the job and its responsibilities.

Enhance the Success of Your Students by Using JCE

With over 94 years of content from the Journal of Chemical Education available, you will always discover something useful—including the articles mentioned above, and many more, in the Journal of Chemical Education. Articles that are edited and published online ahead of print (ASAP—As Soon As Publishable) are also available.

At some point in the late 90s, I suggested to my principal that a chemical inventory should be completed and many chemicals should be disposed of. I had inherited a large amount of chemicals when I took the chemistry teacher position (the only one in the district). Many of them were known carcinogens that I did not feel comfortable using with my students. Some were in extraordinarily large quantities that I knew I could never use up. There were bottles that had clearly passed their shelf-life because the crystals would not separate or they were no longer in a solid state, but a gooey mess instead. And, yes, the chemicals were stored alphabetically rather than by families. I estimated the time required and my principal agreed to compensate my work over the summer. Too much time has passed for me to be certain, but I believe I documented about 60 hours. (I know that I had done some upfront work during the regular school year that I did not bill for since it was before I realized how much time it would require.) I used the Flinn catalog to help me determine the storage pattern. I also used their guide to determine how to dispose of unwanted chemicals. As I worked, I entered every chemical that was reshelfed in an excel file. I included the name, formula, the mass or volume, Molarity when appropriate and also the location where it would be stored. I printed the document and kept it in a folder in the prep lab along with the MSDS files. I recorded the amount of each chemical used or replaced on the printout and once or twice per year, I made adjustments in the excel file. I also documented the details related to the chemicals that I could not dispose of safely myself in the lab and boxed them for the district's maintenance department to deliver them to a disposal site.

With the relatively new Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labeling of Chemicals (GHS) in place, I had been updating my storage methods and labelling the last few years. I soon realized that I needed time outside of my regular teaching schedule to complete another inventory and disposal. I felt that because my teaching strategies had changed drastically since the last inventory and disposal, there were many chemicals that I no longer had a use for. So some chemicals were disposed of just because I had excess quantities, but there were also some that had passed their shelf-life. This time around, I convinced my principal to purchase software from Flinn, ChemInventory, along with labels that I could use to ensure all of the data required by GHS was on every container. 

The Flinn website sums up their software with these sentences, "Flinn’s Online Chemventory™ Inventory Management System is a cloud-based lab management system that allows multiple users on multiple devices from multiple locations! Available as a 1-Year, 3-Year or 5-Year license." My district purchased the 5 year license for $349. The one year price is $99. I found the tool to be easy to use. I uploaded chemicals, entered an estimated quantity we were starting with and added a minimum quantity so that I could easily generate a report of all chemicals that needed to be reordered at the end of the school year. I helped some of the other science instructors to upload their chemicals. The program asked for the specific storage location. Several of our staff liked that they could easily search the system to see if a chemical was available in someone elses storage area. Many of our containers had been handwritten, especialy if the contents were a solution. It was simple to tag the item in the Chemventory system and then print off labels with appropriate safety symbols and details expected by the GHS. I still keep a print copy of the inventory in the prep lab. We write notes if we use or add a quantify. When we have time, we update the online platform.

It is very simple to invite other science teachers in your district by email to log themselves into the program. They can upload their own chemicals and print their own labels with the right credentials. You can also invite administrators or others to log into the system without allowing them to modify anything. I appreciated the ease of using the platform, the ability to easily print labels including the safety symbols, allowing many teachers to access and be able to search what is available in different classrooms. I am confident that the program will be worth the price if our science department follows through with continually updating the amounts used and added.

As I did with the first inventory, I disposed of many chemicals with the help of the Flinn catalog. When the inventory in our district was complete, I provided a hard copy to the main office in case the fire marshal stops in to ask for it. When all was done, I had spent about 90 hours. This time around, I had to create a lot of labels to meet the newer standards and I also visited the science classrooms in the all the district facilities (except for the elementary schools). 

This resource has been valuable to me, but it is not really the method you use that is important. The most important pieces of this are that you have the Safety Data Sheets (SDS) available and you are storing your chemicals and disposing of unwanted chemicals safely and to the standards of GHS. It is also important to have an inventory available for the local fire department. 

You learn something new every day. I feel like I do anyway, sometimes through the connections made on social media. A couple of days ago, Deanna Cullen tweeted about one of the articles from the September 2017 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education (JCE).

Good read. EditorsChoice articles can even be read w/o a JChemEd subscription. https://t.co/7qa90nwSHF

— Deanna Cullen (@CullenChemEdX) September 15, 2017

She pointed out that it was an ACS Editors’ Choice article. The benefit is that these selected articles are open access (and according to the website, always will be), available to anyone whether they subscribe to JCE or not. That wasn’t what was news to me—it was where a follow-up question from another educator on Twitter led me afterward.

I didn't know this, Deanna. Thanks 4 sharing.
On a side (but related) note, is there a cheat sheet for open access articles in ACS journals?

— Rissa Sorensen-Unruh (@RissaChem) September 15, 2017

I have seen ACS Editors’ Choice articles before, but had really just stumbled across them by seeing the special icon next to them in the online article listing. Could I go somewhere to view them as a group? Yes! An ACS Editors’ Choice page offers a new peer-reviewed research article from an ACS journal daily, along with the past Editors’ Choice articles. If you’re feeling serendipitous, you can browse through the months and days, to sample from other ACS journals that you don’t regularly read. Or, you can use a drop-down menu to select a specific journal, such as the Journal of Chemical Education. Deanna’s recommendation was right at the top: Thinking Processes Associated with Undergraduate Chemistry Students’ Success at Applying a Molecular-Level Model in a New Context, by Teichert, et al.

It is an excellent article, and I’m always pleased when an article that caught my eye in an issue to share in an Especially JCE post is one that is freely available to non-subscribers as well. Although the title specifies that the chemical education research was performed with undergraduate students, the subject matter is completely relevant to high school classrooms as well. The students underwent a unit on dissolving compounds such as salt and sugar and constructed molecular-level models on what they thought was happening. It included collecting experimental data such as conductivity readings to use as evidence to support one’s model. Students made an initial model, collected data, then refined their models. The focus of the study was not whether students could correctly model the dissolutions. Rather, it highlighted the thought processes that were/were not taken to reach their final models, and related these processes to how well students could transfer the dissolution knowledge to a new context. I strongly second Deanna’s recommendation to take a look.

How are the articles selected? About ACS Editors’ Choice states, “These peer-reviewed, open access articles consist of research that exemplifies the Society’s commitment to improving people’s lives through the transforming power of chemistry. The selection of these articles is based on recommendations by the scientific editors of ACS journals from around the world; all ACS Publications articles published in 2014 and forward are eligible to be recommended for ACS Editors’ Choice®.”

Now I learned two new things today.

More from the September 2017 Issue

Mary Saecker collects the rest of the issue in her JCE 94.09 September 2017 Issue Highlights. I especially like her section “Distilling the Archives,” where she collects past articles related to scents and smellability (I’m assuming and appreciating a hat tip to Jane Austen there too).

Have another ACS Editors' Choice article that you think is worth pointing out? We want to hear! Start by submitting a contribution form, explaining you’d like to contribute to the Especially JCE column. Then, put your thoughts together in a blog post. Questions? Contact us using the ChemEd X contact form.

With its focus on geology and chemistry, this year’s National Chemistry Week (NCW) celebration is a chance to show students that Chemistry Rocks! An upcoming free webinar will show you resources that make it easy to integrate geology and chemistry.

Join Erica Jacobsen and Michael Tinnesand on Thursday, September 21, 2017, 6:30 p.m. Eastern. Anyone who wants to connect science to this high-interest, real world topic will find ready-to-use demonstrations, lab investigations, videos, background information, and more. Resources will focus on the middle school and high school levels, but some can be adapted to other age groups.

Register in advance for this free webinar. If you can’t visit the live presentation, visit the NSTA Web Seminars site later to view the archived webinar and to download related materials.

Visit the American Chemical Society’s NCW page for more information on the celebration.

     Augmented reality is a type of technology that uses an app to turn a hidden QR code into a three dimensional object on a screen as viewed by your camera. I have heard that there are biology related augmented reality pictures. You can look at a heart on a piece of paper but when it is viewed through the app it appears to be beating and you can follow the blood flow with the camera. Elements 4D attempts to bring augmented reality to chemistry.

     Here is how it works. First, go to the Elements 4D website and download two items; the app on an android or apple device and the paper "blocks". Second, print out the element paper blocks on some card stock. Next, carefully cut these out and use tape to form blocks. I was able to glue them onto some homemade wood blocks. You could just as easily use styrofoam. You can choose to have them filled with nothing and just tape the sides together. You will just need to be careful not to crush them.

    Now that you have a set of cubes and the app, the fun begins. Open the app. Now view one of the cubes through the camera on your device. You will now see the element as it exists in nature. The element looks like it is three dimensional and inside the cube. As a bonus, if you place two elements together, as an example Na and Cl, it "reacts" and you see the compound.

     There are some good and bad points about this app. First, it is kind of cool that I can show a 3-D version of elements that I could never get my hands on such as gold, plutonium and chlorine. It is also nice to see the elements react to form compounds. The bad news is that I was not able to get all of the elements to react as expected. It may have been user error or possibly a bad print job on my part but some of the elements that should have reacted did not.

Overall, it is nice to have a set of these cubes around to show to students at various times. They can also make their own set for home. Both the app and the cubes are free. We were doing a "classification of matter" activity and I was able to quickly show how elements have different properties than the compounds they form. Granted, I believe that real chemicals should always be used but this came up at the end of class. It was quick and easy. The kids really liked to see the app in action.

     Do you have an augmented reality app or some technology that you cannot live without in the classroom?  How about sharing it as a pick?  Would love to hear from you.

The Role of the Journal of Chemical Education in Teaching and Learning will be presented on October 18, 2017. The webinar will air 7-8pm EST.

The host: Kimberly Duncan of AACT

The presenters: Norb Pienta, Editor in Chief of the Journal of Educaton and Deanna Cullen, Associate Editor Precollege Online.

The Journal of Chemical Education (JCE) has a long history of supporting chemistry instructors by providing high quality information. As a world leader in the publication of primary research in chemical education, as well as a source of many practical ideas for teaching chemistry, JCE provides both broad and deep coverage of teaching and learning the central science. The presentation will provide a brief outline of the history and structure of JCE, provide examples of exemplary high school level content and how teachers have used it, and show attendees how to best take advantage of the new AACT benefit of 25 free ACS downloads.

Register for the webinar

I have been using videos as a primary means of delivering new content to my IB Chemistry classes for quite a few years. I view this as a viable method for a few reasons. But that's not the focus here.

Rather, I would like to discuss the use of the EdPuzzle online platform for video delivery in place of Haiku. With Haiku, my videos were hosted on YouTube (and that hasn't actually changed, as I still use YouTube for hosting my videos). In this format, students watch the video as homework and take notes on the handouts (graphic organizers) I provide (some discussion in a previous blog post). Throughout the videos, I ask checkpoint questions - which I use as formative assessment. In the past my students filled out  Google Form (documented here in a blog post). It worked reasonably well, but I have found over the years that as the course progresses, fewer and fewer students were completing the Google Form for each video. Hence, my desire to try something new that would allow for a bit more accountability.

With EdPuzzle, I have created three classes for my Year 1 IB Chemistry course. I then create a new video in EdPuzzle simply by using the URL from YouTube. Once I have created the content in EdPuzzle, I can edit the video by cropping each end to make it a bit shorter. And the really cool feature that drew me to EdPuzzle is the ability to insert questions. As the students watch the video, it will pause and ask them to respond to a question that I have inserted. This can be a multiple choice question or a free response question. Additionally, I can simply insert some text as a description. For example, if I'm using a video from YouTube that isn't mine and I want to annotate a main idea from the video this feature would come in handy.

My last question on every video is, "What questions do you have that we should discuss next class?" These student-generated questions then drive the majority of my review discussion from the videos, as I take time to answer each question. Within EdPuzzle I can comment on student answers as well. I sometimes use this to give students links to resources related to their question to give them a head start on the answer.

Below are some screenshots of EdPuzzle, with a caption to offer some description.

Image 1: Editing the video to insert questions - viewed as green question marks near the end of the video.

Image 2: Content Overview for Current Unit

Image 3: Student Viewing Data. Notice the section where the student reviewed the video twice, and the section skipped.

Also note the green question answered correctly, the red question answered incorrectly and the last question left blank.

Image 4: Class data for a particular video, showing completion of the video (green check) or incomplete viewing (red X).

Scores on questions are also given.

Image 5: Question data for a specific video, showing the number of student responses to each question.

Image 6: Multiple Choice Data for a Single Question from a Video.

Image 7: Student answers to free-response question - with student names redacted for privacy.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with my choice to move to EdPuzzle. I like being able to track how the students are watching the videos. I don't give any points/grades for the videos - but when students struggle, I can offer this data to parents as a possible indication of the reasons for a student's struggles. I also appreciate the formative assessment data that is generated by student answers to my questions. I can see if I am teaching a concept well enough - or if there are gaps in my explanations and I need to revisit concepts in class. And as mentioned, the ability to provide comments to individual students is a nice feature. Student response to using EdPuzzle as a platform for videos has generally been positive - although to be fair I started from Day 1 using EdPuzzle with this group so maybe they don’t have a fair comparison. They have not used Haiku. And best of all, EdPuzzle is currently FREE! All of the features described here are available in the free version. However, schools can purchase a premium gradebook feature.

A few suggestions that I have passed on to the programmers at EdPuzzle: I would like the ability to randomize - or NOT randomize - the multiple choice questions. Currently the MC questions are randomized and I would prefer to turn that function off. And I would love to have students get a notification if there is a comment for one of their answers. EdPuzzle has been responsive to these suggestions, which is refreshing to see.

If you're using a Flipped or Blended model, what platform for videos do you use?

Collaborative activities are becoming increasingly prevalent in classroom instruction. Often, when instructors start to incorporate collaborative activities in their instruction, they also start “flipping” the classroom. Flipping the classroom means to replace in-class lectures with more interactive activities. Having students solve problems collaboratively is just one example. To make room for such collaborative activities, the content that’s traditionally covered in lectures is assigned as preparatory material before class. For example, students may be asked to watch a lecture online or to read texts before class. Then, in-class activities serve to engage students more actively with the materials they read or watched before class. 

Figure 1– “Students were seated at round tables of six. Collaborations involved pairs of students, groups of three, or the entire table of six.” Used with permission.* 

But does flipping the classroom actually enhance students’ learning, above and beyond just incorporating collaborative activities into classroom instruction? John Moore, one of the chemistry professors at my university, the University of Wisconsin - Madison approached me with this question. We ended up conducting a research study on one of his chemistry courses. John taught three versions of that course. He taught one version in the traditional format with mostly lecture-centric instruction. He also taught a second version where he incorporated in-class collaborative activities, but without flipping the classroom. And then, he taught a third version with collaborative activities while also flipping the classroom. To test which version of the class was most effective, we analyzed students’ learning outcomes in these three versions of the class using data from students’ final exams, and also from their final grades.

You can read about the details and analysis of our research in our recently published Journal of Chemical Education (JCE) article, Unpacking “Active Learning”: A Combination of Flipped Classroom and Collaboration Support Is More Effective but Collaboration Support Alone Is Not.* My colleagues and I worked to answer our research question: “Is active learning instruction more effective than traditional instruction if it combines collaboration support and flipped classroom methods?”* We also investigated how active learning might affect student attitudes and how those attitudes relate to students’ learning.

We found that students in the version of the class with collaborative activities but without the flipped classroom did not show significantly higher learning outcomes, compared to students in the traditional lecture-centric class. But students in the version of the class where collaborative activities were combined with the flipped classroom had significantly higher learning outcomes, compared to the traditional class. We also gave students a survey that assessed how they liked various aspects of the class. Students rated their liking of several aspects of the class worse in the collaboration and flipped classroom, compared to the other versions of the class. For example, they felt less competent and enjoyed the class less, including the collaborative activities. 

Figure 2 - “Estimated marginal means 30 of exam scores (left, in %) and course total scores (right, in %) by condition.” Used with permission.* 

Looking at our data, it seems that students get the most out of collaborative activities if they have to prepare class materials themselves before class, but they like it less! We think this is because students notice more how their own knowledge is limited when they prepare class materials before class. That feels uncomfortable, and they like it less. But, it makes them learn more.

To summarize, this may signal to instructors that we have to be very careful when using flipped classroom methods. On the one hand, they can improve learning beyond just incorporating collaborative activities. But on the other hand, we need to make sure that the burden of preparing materials before class does not reduce our students’ feeling of competence or their joy of learning.

My research has also investigated how best to help students learn with visuals that are prevalent in chemistry, such as ball-and-stick models and Lewis structures. I speak to this idea in the video below. For even more information about my research, I invite you to follow my video blog on YouTube.

*Quote and figures reprinted with permission from Unpacking “Active Learning”: A Combination of Flipped Classroom and Collaboration Support Is More Effective but Collaboration Support Alone Is Not, Martina A. Rau, Kristopher Kennedy, Lucas Oxtoby, Mark Bollom, and John W. Moore. Journal of Chemical Education, Article ASAP. Copyright 2017 American Chemical Society. (Accessed 9/19/17) 

As I began to prepare my labs for this upcoming year, I decided to put a bit of a twist on a previous density of a block lab I had used in the past entitled the Measurement Challenge that is sold by Flinn Scientific. This lab requires the students to determine the volume of different size blocks that are made of different materials and then either determine the density of the block by obtaining its mass after measuring and calculating its volume. It can also be used to find the mass of a block given the materials density and requiring students to measure and calculate the blocks volume. According to the lab handout, it covers the concepts of significant figures, density, volume, mass, and measurement. Other topics include percent error, accuracy and precision, and true or accepted values.

As mentioned earlier, I wanted to change things up just to keep things interesting. I wanted to show the importance of using significant figures and appropriate measuring devices. So, I handed each of my four-student lab groups four blocks of different volumes but still made of the same material. Then I asked them this question:

 "Do these blocks made of the same material, but different measurements, have the same density?" 

After some class discussion, my students decided that yes, the density did not depend on the size of the sample. I mentioned that density is indeed an intensive property meaning that it is a physical property of a system that does not depend on the system size or the amount of material in the system. My students recognized that mass and volume did depend on the sample size but gave the reasoning that because density was a ratio between the two that it remained constant.  So now that we knew the density was to be the same, in other words, the claim had been made, I simply asked my students to prove it!  Meaning go ahead and collect the data discussed in the Measurement Challenge activity as evidence to support the claim that was just made. 

When the students finished gathering data, I asked them to present their findings to the rest of the class using large whiteboards. As the students began to present, I explained to them that I was likely going to point out a few things that would help them improve their presentation skills. Many of the groups did not introduce themselves as they started their presentation. Many of the groups neglected to state the purpose behind the data that they had collected. These issues were pointed out to the first groups in each of my classes and the presentations improved as each class progressed through the groups. However, what I found most interesting was that after considering their data, many of the groups stated that the density of the blocks made of the same material was not the same! They had recognized that the density of the four blocks they had considered in the prelab had been identical.  You can see the results of the student's data in the sample boards shown. Some values had a large difference in density while other density values were closer together. 

Of the majority though, the theme that the density was not the same amongst the same types of blocks was mentioned several times. As we further discussed why this may have happened the students began to see that they may have estimated their measurements and that they were in their opinion “rough measurements”. This led to a great discussion that the technique they used to collect their data was not that good. I then asked the following questions:

"Did your group have more than one person take measurements of the same pieces?" 

"Did you double check your data and results with another lab group using the same types of blocks?"

"Did you have more than one person complete the calculation solving for density to double check the answer?"

Many of the groups simply stated that it never occurred to them to have their work double-checked by their lab partners or to have other lab groups check their findings. Of course, this prompted a few more questions from me.  

"Well why not?"

"Do you think that was wise?"

"Do you think that is what scientists do?"

"I then asked the students if they thought that their data could have been improved if they had another member of their lab group check their measurements." 

Many of the groups decided that double checking measurements, calculations and results would be good ideas. They also felt that this is indeed what scientists do. Students recognized that scientists probably check the work of other scientists and also have their own work evaluated and checked at times. This may occur when presenting their work at conferences, at lectures or before their research gets published. 

And then this happened in one of my classes!

Note that the density listed in the board above is all the same and before I could even get a better look at it I had a student exclaim, "Wait, that math doesn’t work! Wow, I feel like a scientist, I just corrected their data!"

Now I don’t know the intentions of this particular group that decided to alter their density calculations to match their claim that the density should be the same. I was too busy grabbing my camera before their board got erased. I knew I had to share this. This activity led to great class discussion and I hope this practice continues throughout the remainder of their lab experiences. 

In this activity, we were calculating the density of the blocks. Later in the unit, we discussed significant figures, how to measure to the first digit of uncertainty, and how to calculate with significant figures. After that, students were given a lab practical. I gave each student their own block and asked them to determine the mass of the block given its density. I was very pleased to say that what I witnessed was awesome. Students measured to the correct number of significant figures. Calculations were done correctly. Students had other group members check their measurements, calculations, and significant figures (which I allowed). Several students got less than 1% error on determining their blocks mass!

Researchers have identified many reasons for the perception of chemistry as a challenging subject. General chemistry introduces more terms and concepts to students than a first-year foreign language class (Rowe, 1983). Students have struggled with the relationship between the macroscopic and sub-microscopic levels, as well as conventional, inaccessible textbooks (Taber, 2002). Another difficulty students have encountered is that some everyday terms take on different meanings in chemistry. For example, dispersion forces in common language implies to spread apart, but in the world of chemistry, this refers to the forces that hold particles together (Bucat, 2004). Another example of this sort of student confusion is the belief that the melting point of a substance must be a hot (high) temperature and the freezing point for the same substance must be a cold (low) temperature (Taber, 2002). Moreover, in addition to confounding words, students often have difficulty developing a macroscopic understanding of what materials with strange sounding “chemistry names” look like. Students are not often asked questions related to chemicals with which they are unfamiliar and when questioned may be unable to envision a mental picture or establish a connection (Gabel, 1999).

One aspect of the organization of chemistry education that makes it more complicated is related to the structure of American high schools, where each discipline is taught in one year (Sheppard & Robbins, 2006). Children have been taught enormous amounts of content, with massive books they may not be able to comprehend, often leading to cognitive overload. Students in other countries, who learn the same content over multiple years, have outperformed students in the U.S. in science as evidenced from benchmarking studies such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study ([TIMSS], NCES, 2016. Johnstone (2009) suggested a total reexamination of high school chemistry because so many students have been “turned off” due to its de-contextualization and the absence of links to the real world. Further, if students can’t understand the language of the text how can they understand the content embedded in it?

One way to help make chemistry more comprehensible to students is through literacy stations. The best elementary school strategy I have “borrowed” and implemented at the high school level are centers. My students generally complain about reading and writing so I took a tip from the elementary school teachers and created literacy stations to help increase the amount of reading and writing in my classroom. Literacy centers support students by arming them with the tools to utilize when examining text documents, charts, graphs, pictures etc. to take the content and make it comprehensible. Here I will provide examples of literacy centers I utilize in my classroom. Any station can be used as a stand-alone station for a one day activity. In my classroom, I have allowed students to complete any seven of the ten to twelve stations I may have for a particular unit. 

Write Around The Station

In the write-around station, students are presented with a large piece of blank paper or a white board. In the middle of the poster is a small picture, some phenomena for them to observe. Students have a silent conversation with each other where they pose questions, answer each other’s questions, and initiate conversation for a minimum of five minutes. Each student writes with a different color marker, and at the end of the activity the students write their name and their color marker on the back of the poster or in a key on the whiteboard. The teacher is assessing the type of questions asked, as well as the type of responses provided. It’s amazing how much students write when they’re not allowed to speak to each other. Students often draw arrows on the picture and can initiate the conversation by asking something as simple as, “What is this?” or “Why is this happening”? The write-around station can also be introduced at the end of the unit. Students are required to summarize or draw on the diagram to show understanding of a particular concept. This station has also been used to have students complete one particularly long question. For example, students write out the procedure for completing a combustion reaction for another student to complete. Figure 1 shows a picture of magic sand that students observed and reflected on during a unit on bonding that led to a conversation about molecular polarity. As a follow up to silent conversations, sometimes a picture of the poster is taken and put up on Google classroom to elicit more conversation and discussion about the comments. 

Figure 1 - Write Around Station

Frayer Model Station

This station requires students to make index cards for key vocabulary in the unit. Students use large index cards and divide each card into four equal sections with the following titles for each: Definition, Facts, Example, and Non-examples. (See Figure 2.) Another option for this station would be to replace one of the sections with “Picture” requiring students to draw a particle level model. 

Figure 2 - Frayer Model Station

When students have completed this station, they hole punch the index cards and add a binder ring around them to serve as an assessable study guide. A couple alternatives for teachers with chrome books are to have the students create a quizlet or use vocabularly.com to practice key terms. 

Math Scaffold Station 

The scaffolding station breaks down the mathematical calculations in a unit by first isolating what types of vocabulary terms students will see in conjunction with certain equations (see Figure 3A). For example, when learning about various heat equations, students might struggle to identify which of the following heat equations should be used; heat of fusion, heat of vaporization or specific heat. In the first part of the scaffold, students identify which key words are associated with each specific equation. Once students have gained a thorough understanding of which equation to use in different situations they are given a question using one of the equations that is scaffolded with support questions to help solve the problem. The example in Figure 3B is a “heat of fusion” question with prompts. 

Figure 3A - Math Scaffold                             Figure 3B - Math Scaffold with Prompts

Annotation Station 

The annotation station (Figure 4A) requires students to read the question and then write everything they are thinking about the question. Student can annotate the question as well as the answer choice, and should write any knowledge they think will assist them in answering the question or notes that would be helpful if they were trying to explain the correct answer to a friend. This allows the teacher to formatively assess student understanding. It also allows misconceptions to be explicitly identified when false conceptions are presented.

Figure 4A - Annotation Station

Sometimes students get stuck and lack confidence because they feel they do not have a deep enough understanding to annotate adequately. If this situation arises, a scaffold such as the one in Figure 4B, can be provided to support those students by providing additional prompts.

Figure 4B - Annotation Station

Text-Set Station

In this station students read an article or some anchoring text. I typically require students to complete this station to ensure all students are reading about some real-life application or extension of the curriculum. Students have often been asked to read articles and summarize them in other courses. I avoid using that strategy because my students have not shown enthusiasm for completing that common assignment. Instead, I present four other options and they like these alternatives. One is the creation of a three column chart where they write: “What surprised me”, What did the author think I already knew” and “What changed, challenged or confronted what I already knew”. The example in Figure 5A is one created from a ChemMatters article (Brownlee, 2009).

Figure 5A - Text Set

Alphabet Round-UP is another Text-Set option. Each student in the group is provided a sheet of paper with all the letters of the alphabet. Students spend thirty seconds trying to record as many key words from the article they can that begin with each letter. They then pass their paper and add to the words their partners listed. They continue writing and rotating this for a total of two minutes and then together identify what words are common to all the pages. After that, they write a summary of the article together.

Another Text-Set option is called Gist. For this station, students read the article and write five to six words or phrases that they determine are important. Each student then describes their text to their partner. After this exchange, both students individually write a passage about the gist of the article.

SOS stands for Statement, Opinion, Support. This Text-Set option requires the teacher to prepare a debatable statement from the assigned article. Students then circle whether they agree or disagree and support their choice with evidence from the article. This is similar to the CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) for laboratory investigations. Figure 5B provides an example for a unit covering the periodic table.

Figure 5B - SOS Station

The Double Entry Diary station asks students to divide their notebook paper in half. On one side, they write down notes, quotes and interesting facts as they read the article. On the right-hand side they write their reaction to what they wrote on the left hand side. (See Figure 5C.) This has been adapted for multi-step questions where students are required to answer the question on the left and describe their thought process on the right column.

Figure 5C - Double-Entry Diary Station

Word Splash/Concept Map

At this station students are provided a word splash. They then need to create a concept map showing relationships between key terms. Students can complete their map on a white board or poster paper. Students are asked to first write all the vocabulary words out on post-it notes and place them near ideas they think are connected. Students then link the words together by writing sentences or phrases. Once all words are on post-its and organized on the poster or board the post-its are removed and a final map is created using markers. See Figure 6.

Figure 6 - Word Splash/Concept Map Station

Additional Station Ideas

• Comic Book Station - students read and reflect on a chemistry cartoon. Another option is for the students to create their own cartoon or drawing, or to create a new panel on an existing cartoon.
• Animation Station - students can use Animator, Atomsmith or any other animation software to view a particle level animation and then write a reflection about what they see happening. 
• Listening Station- In this station, students listen to a song and then answer a series of prompts about it. I typically use Michael Offut's music, but you can find other songs on the National Science Teacher Association website or with a quick search on YouTube. 
• Simulation Center- For this station teachers provide simulations that students can choose from that address the content of the unit. Students complete questions that go along with the simulation. Sources of simulations include PhET, AACT, and VisChem.  
• Foldable Station - Students create a foldable to summarize some aspect of the unit they are working on. This simply involves folding the paper to create a graphic organizer. For my atomic stucture unit, each student in the group is required to read a cartoon about the history of the atom and then jigsaw a discussion. At the end of the jigsaw, students collaborate to make a five-fold graphic organizer of the scientists involved in their story.
• Dance Station - Students create a dance or rap to show understanding of the materal learned. For additional resources about this, check out Dance Your Final, recently published on ChemEd X.

How to Assess Stations

Sometimes I evaluate students by walking around and making observations while the students are working on their station. I use a plus-minus chart that you can see in Figure 7A. I make note of positive behaviors I observe as well as negative behaviors. I add the initials of students in parentheses after any correct or incorrect quotes I have recorded to keep track of who is saying what and to ensure that over the course of a week, all students are provided some feedback. At the end of the class, I announce the positive content statements I heard as well as positive behavior in general. For the negative comments, I ask students to find the flaws in the incorrect quotes I recorded without identifying the students. I do check in with those students later in the week to make sure they understand why their statement was incorrect.

assessing_stations.png

Figure 7A -Assessing Stations

Another strategy for assessing stations is to have students complete reflections after each activity to describe what new knowledge they added to their toolkit via the station. This can be in a written paragraph or a "3, 2, 1" style where students list three things they learned, two examples (or non-examples) and one question they still have. The Exit Ticket (Figure 7B) provides students with a question that they can examine through a series of prompts. This can be turned in daily. Figure 7Cshows another Exit Ticket that can be turned in at the end of the week.

Figure 7B -Assessing Stations with a daily Exit Ticket

Figure 7C -Assessing Stations with a weekly Exit Ticket

Ben Meacham just published an article, Accepting Our Role In Developing Science Literacy, on ChemEd X that provides additional information about incorporating literacy into the chemistry classroom. 

References

Beers, G.K., & Probst, R.E. (2013). Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading.

Brownlee, C. (2009). What Uought to Know About Elements 112-118. ChemMatters Magazine, October 2009, 9-10.

Bucat, R. (2004). Pedagogical Content Knowledge as a Way Forward: Applied Research in Chemistry Education. Chemistry Education Research and Practice. 5(3), 215-228.

Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Hattie, J. (2016). Visible Learning for Literacy, grades K-12: Implementing the Practices that Work Best to Accelerate Student Learning. Corwin Press.

Gabel, D.L. (1999). Improving Teaching and Learning Through Chemistry Education Research: A Look to the Future. Journal of Chemical Education. 76(4), 548-554.

Gillespie, R.J. (1997). Reforming the General Chemistry Textbook. Journal of Chemical Education. 74(5), 484-485.

Keene, E.O., & Zimmerman, S. (1997). Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader's Workshop. Heinemann, 361 Hanover Street, Portsmouth, NH 03801-3912.

Johnstone, A.H. (2009). You Can't Get There From Here. Journal of Chemical Education. 87(1), 22-29.

Kenney, J.M. (2005). Literacy Strategies for Improving Mathematics Instruction. ASCD.

Rowe, M. (1983). What Can Science Educators Teach Chemists About Teaching Chemistry? A Symposium: Getting Chemistry Off the Killer Course List. Journal of Chemical Education. 60(11), 954-956.

Sheppard, K., & Robbins, D.M. (2006). Chemistry, the Terminal Science? The Impact of the High School Science Order on the Development of U.S. Chemistry Education. Journal of Chemical Education, 83(11), 1617-1620.

Taber, K. (2002). Chemical Misconceptions: Prevention, Diagnosis and Cure (Vol. 1). London: Royal Society of Chemistry.

Tovani, C. (2004). Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Content Comprehension, Grades 6-12. Stenhouse Publishers.