Building Summer Assignments for Next Year’s First-Year Chemistry Students

The countdown has begun…6 full days and two exam days left. Summer is in sight! Exhale. Almost.

My school’s upper middle class student body is capable of more. Our new administrative team now strongly encourages all core content teachers to provide a summer assignment to prepare students for the first day of school. Outside of the summer reading for literature classes, we’ve never done this. I see the potential for class time-savings and improvement of student understanding. Will the students see the possibilities? What should I assign? Is it realistic to expect next year to begin differently?

The team of chemistry teachers met a few times, and we established a plan. It’s not too late to adjust! Do you have experience or advice?

Here is our current plan:

• All upcoming chemistry students will join a Schoology course, “Preparing for Chemistry: 2016-17.” The site will help us to track student access to the material. Do they wait until the night before school? Do only 15 of 400 students ever even join the course?
• Within the Schoology course, students will select their particular level of chemistry from a list of folders: on-level, honors, honors/AP combo, and AP chemistry. All students will have access to all preparation materials, however. Who knows? Someone may be planning to request a schedule change to move up a level, right?
• All of our first year students, on-level, honors, and honor/AP combo, will have similar summer assignments.
  
  • Units of Measurement: Students will watch my flipped classroom video tutorial addressing simple metric conversions and scientific notation and answer a five question online quiz. The required time commitment is 25:00 minutes.
    • We know this content has been taught in many previous science and math classes.
    • If students recognize a weakness requiring extra practice in this area, we have optional Khan Academy video links and our own worksheets with answer keys.
    • The online quiz will provide diagnostic data for teachers to use on day one of the new school year.
  • Density: Again, students will watch my video tutorial and answer a five question online quiz. The overall time commitment is just over 15 minutes.
    • Again, we know students have learned to calculate density. We are using this topic to force unit conversions, simple algebra, and critical reading of scientific word problems or data tables.
    • We will teach significant figures in class rather than as a part of the summer assignment. It seems too overwhelming. Thoughts?
    • Similar to the units of measurement lesson, students have access to tutorials and practice problems if they feel weak in the area.
    • Also, the online quiz may help teachers to diagnose possible algebra or problem-solving weaknesses early in the semester.
  • Dimensional Analysis: Rinse and repeat. Students will watch my video tutorial and answer a short online quiz. The overall time commitment is just over 15 minutes.
    • Our students learn to use dimensional analysis to convert units in ninth grade. This is another review for them.
    • Again, students will have access to additional tutorials and practice problems if they experience difficulty with dimensional analysis.
    • The online quiz asks learners to choose the appropriate conversion factor and determine the appropriate orientation of conversion factors. We hope to recognize common mistakes and correct them during the first week of the new semester.
  • Elements of the Periodic Table: Students will be asked to become familiar with common element names and symbols. We plan to use Quizlet to provide learning tools. No online quiz is required.
  • Honors/AP Combo Chemistry ONLY: Students will review simple graphing skills to prepare for graphing lab data.
    • Students will review graph titles, labeling each axis, and finding the line of best fit.
    • Students will use the R² value to choose the “best” straight line and review the slope intercept equation for the line.
    • Students will be encourage to learn to create and interpret simple graphs on their own calculators and in Excel.

What are we missing? Please share your wisdom. Do you “count” summer assignment grades?