My latest attempts....

Blogs from here on out are posted here...
http://www.chemedx.org/blogs/chad-husting

From Cookbook to Inquiry

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http://www.chemedx.org/blog/going-cookbook-inquirymessy-worth-it

Flipping

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http://www.chemedx.org/blog/flipping-classroomthe-good-bad-and-ugly

Thanks to the Lady from Texas.

Here is a really cool place where you can pick up my blog.

http://www.chemedx.org/blog/thank-you-lady-texas

The Best of Times...The Worst of Times....Why I Blog

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     I get so excited about the beginning of the year.  Who wouldn't be?  I love teaching and I love seeing the kids come in.  I think the first day of the year should be a national holiday.  It is a day of hope and promise.

     Slowly, reality creeps in.  I still believe in hope and promise.  However, I start to learn about the kids and they start to learn about me. If I have 100 different kids, they come in with 100 different stories and ability levels.  On top of that there is the never ending stream of meetings and demands, new programs, testing schedules and unfunded mandates.  Also, each year I like to try some new labs and ideas (can anyone say "ChemEd 2015?).  Finally, I also have to balance all of this with my personal life.

     In other words, it gets overwhelming really fast.

     So what do I do when it gets to be too much?  Focus on what matters....students, learning, teaching and staying positive.  Essentially, that is what this blog is about.  Despite all of the demands, each week I force myself to sit down and make sure that I attempt at least one positive action in a sea of chaos.  I know it might sound stupid.  As teachers we should be doing this every day. There have been times when I have been swimming against such a heavy current of "stuff" that I am not really sure how any of it honestly deals with education.  The three questions above are my road map each week to get me to the next week and hopefully help me organize my time and stay in a positive direction.  No complaining or negativity....

     So what happened last week?  We spent time on Gas Laws in Academic Chemistry and were starting to consider a test.  I did a quick "exit" ticket.  I gave the kids a post it note.  I told them they could either write one item they are sure of or write a question.  Post the question on the question mark paper on their way out or post the item they are sure of on the light bulb paper on the way out.  Here is what I found.....

     The good news is that there are more post it notes on the light bulb side.  I quickly checked them.  I wanted to make sure there were not "misconceptions".  Sometimes my kids think they have the answer but it is a misconception.  The "?" paper had few post it notes but it was all on the gas law equations.  I decided to stop tomorrow and jigsaw a series of gas law problems on white boards to give students a little extra practice with the equations.  I find that universally, my students struggle with the math.  So we went to a "plan B" and the first test scores were fair.  I think math will be something we struggle with the whole year, but it is good to know that.

"What's the Matter?"

     Next, we started Amanda Vilardo's TIMU activity on the "Classification of Matter" called "What's the Matter?"  I had to "tweak" a few things.  Amanda uses colored magnets to show the different atoms and elements.  I substituted paper circles that were different colors (a tip I got from Kim Cooper, my colleague and a great teacher).  For the most part, the students were engaged and asking good questions.  A seven to 10 page packet can be intimidating to grade so I told the students they had to get two teacher "checkpoints".   These are build into the activity.  As I was going around, the same questions popped up so at the end of class we took a 10 minute break to clarify some terms.  The "assessment" portion is the last page that I have not given them yet.  They will be able to use there packets to answer the assessment questions on the last page at the end of class on Monday. All of this hits the symbolic and particulate well.  We will get two the macroscopic on a separation lab we do this week.   I will report back how it goes...  Until then, remember the best thing we can do to help kids is to love what you do, stay positive and have fun teaching and learning.

A Quick Assessment with Google Forms and HTML 5

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     We were in the middle of gas laws.  I wanted to do a quick assessment after some demos, labs and POGILs.  The Concord Consortium has a number of nice tools but it is a bit overwhelming.  I found out that if when you search their site, if you click on "browser-based" they will list all of their HTML-5 simulations and these play on almost anything.  They also have a "New Molecular Workbench".  I essentially converted one of their simulations, "What makes a Weather Balloon Pop" into a google form.  It was quick, fast and easy.  More importantly, when the student's took it I could quickly uncover a problem they were having...they seemed to be struggling with applying Boyle's Law.  I think I am going to try to incorporate more of these from time to time.  By the way, if you have not heard, Flubaroo is the absolute easiest way to grade anything in google forms with the click of a button.

     This week in science?  Hopefully I am going to try to an inquiry lab.  If you were provided a tube, a graduated cylinder and a metal cylinder, how would you find the density of the cylinder with out using a balance?  Find out if it worked...next week....

The Goal for this week....

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     Here is the goal...so far, we have done Gas Laws in Academic.  I hit them with Charle's and Boyle's.  We even attempted a Charle's law experiment.  There was a question on the pre test about how much a model of a gas gets smaller if it cools a small amount.  Almost everyone missed it.  Hopefully, the Charle's Law experiment might help clear up misconceptions.  If I could do it again, I would use a test tube with a one hole stopper in hot and cold water and then just get two points.  Students got the idea.  The data was not great but it hit home the point that 0 Celsius does not work well.  We have done the symbolic (quantitative problems) and now we are going to the particulate with a POGIL.

     Another idea I am going to attempt is to try to build an electronic cloud chamber.  A blaring misconception that students have is they think all nuclear material is dangerous.  Hopefully, a simple cloud chamber with some autunite might help change that misconception.

     In Accelerated, we did two types of water density experiments.  The first one I told them just to get the mass and volume.  The second one we paid much more attention to significant figures.  It worked farely well, but if I could do it over, I would have done the same idea with the BB's.  It shows the differences in accuracy and precision much better.  Hopefully, I will remember that for next year.  This year I am going to have them find the density of a metal three different ways and figure out which is the best.  The big question...how do we define best?