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JCE 92.12—December 2015 Issue Highlights
JCE 92.12—December 2015 Issue HighlightsBest Practices in Chemistry EducationThe December 2015 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education, available online to subscribers, features articles on:...
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Blended Learning Pilot: #1
At the beginning of this school year, I decided my focus would be to not try a bunch of new approaches and techniques. Instead, I thought I’d utilize and improve new approaches/techniques from last...
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Put a Spark in Your Stoichiometry Lesson!
Michelle Okroy recently shared some video resources intended to help students learn about stoichiometry. Also, Chad Husting recently shared a laboratory experiment on stoichiometry that he uses with...
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Especially JCE—December 2015
Think it’s possible to get nostalgic over paperwork? I just did, spurred by editor-in-chief Norb Pienta’s editorial Thinking about Champions in the December 2015 issue of the Journal of Chemical...
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Relative Reactivities of Metals
Last winter I watched a webinar put on by ACS and AACT called "NGSS in the Chemistry Classroom." As a result of watching that webinar, I took an activity that had NGSS Science & Engineering...
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Chemistry Thus Far . . .
Overview:Using a whiteboard or poster paper each group of students creates their interpretation of the model thus far based on a content unit they are given. Concepts: This review activity can be used...
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"Preparation for College General Chemistry: More than Just a Matter of...
Have you ever wondered why so many undergraduate students struggle with their general chemistry courses in college? Various research studies report that a third of college students...
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Gases, the New Year and Getting Brains into Gear....
What am I doing to help kids achieve?How do I know when they are there?What is the evidence? This year our school, through a uniques set of circumstances, had final exams before winter break, two...
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How Running a STEM Club Benefits My Classroom
I run an after school STEM club that involves many projects and activities. Students build robots for FIRST Robotics, race RC cars, use 3D printers, and build underwater vehicles. They dissect...
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Card Sorts... What to do next?.... and Happy Accidents...
What am I doing to help kids achieve?How do I know when they are there?What is the evidence? We just finished an introduction into ionic and covalent bonding. Somehow I wanted to try to figure out...
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January 2016 American Modeling Teacher Association Announcement
ATTENTION SCIENCE TEACHERS!50 Modeling Workshops in high school and middle school sciences will be offered this summer, in many states. Most workshops are two or three weeks long. CEUs; optional...
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JCE 93.01—January 2016 Issue Highlights
Kick Off 2016 with Volume 93The January 2016 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education is now available online to subscribers. Topics featured in this issue include: examining the flipped classroom;...
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Especially JCE: January 2016
I had a conversation with a college freshman after church last Sunday. She had recently wrapped up her first semester’s courses, which included chemistry. I asked what she thought of the class. What...
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Chemistry Infographic Contest
American Chemical Society (ACS) ChemClubs and ChemMatters have teamed up to offer a chemistry infographic contest for teachers, students, and really, any chemistry aficionado out there who would like...
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Inquiry, "Sticky Water" and some great models...
What am I doing to help kids achieve?How do I know when they are there?What is the evidence? I just completed covering "ionic and covalent" bonding with my studenets. I wanted to bridge the gap to...
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Standards-Based Grading in the Chemistry Classroom
An educational reform that has been gaining a large amount of popularity in the last decade is standards-based grading (SBG). The heart of the SBG movement is truly rooted in one very important...
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The first PBL experience I facilitated was a flop.
My first big project my students engaged in during the 2013-14 school year was, at best, a mediocre experience and, at worst, a giant waste of valuable instructional time we'd never get back. I was at...
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Struggles with Bonding...Making it Simple...
What am I doing to help kids achieve?How do I know when they are there?What is the evidence? I have always struggled teaching the concept of bonding. What is a chemical bond? Is it just covalent or...
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New Year. New Labs. New Instructor.
As a new semester begins, I am excited again. Starting fresh, introducing new people to the amazing world of chemistry, and putting my newly edited labs to the test! In addition, another instructor is...
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Unit Cell Modeling
This year my students experienced something a little new to them on the Chemistry Olympiad. It was a question about the crystal structure of a mineral. I have not been teaching the “unit cell” concept...
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