Great Inservice

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     Happy to say I had a great inservice today.  Meri Johnson is a science consultant who did a great job.  We had worked on an inquiry lab last fall and then she provided a great wrap up.  It is called CERR. It stands for Claim, Evidence, Reason and Rebuttal.  Honestly, if you think of every science fair, poster session or good short answer it follows that method (although I hate more acronyms, I'll buy this one).  Here is what I hope to try to introduce it.  I am going to have students do a lab about the electron around the atom (Hydrogen atom electron distribution lab).  They drop a marble on a target 100 times and record each drop.  They then compare that to the electron around a hydrogen atom.  Both graphs look similar.  I hope to add to the lab a card sort.  They will have the cards C, E and R and they must place claims, evidence and reasons in the correct place.  The key is that next time, they will develop CER on their own.  I was going to have a teacher led discussion about the rebuttal which is "People still believe in the planetary model of the atom.  After all it explains atomic spectra."   This would then tie into the next topic, which is orbital theory and geometry.  I'll take pictures....

And so it goes...

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     We went over the atomic theory and nuclear and are starting to finish up.  I have a question about Rutherford and gold leaf on the exam and on a homework assignment.  That should be the "What is the evidence?" part.  This week is a bit crazy with early release and trainings...I am going to give students a quiz on Monday that is a bit different.  Each question will be on the interwrite board.  They will respond with clickers and we will immediately check the answers and look for misconceptions.  I then plan assigning problems based on the topics that experienced the most misconceptions.  Hopefully we will be able to clear up any problems before the test on Friday.

     Had and interesting experience with one of my other classes as we were doing percent composition.  It was decided by us as teachers that perhaps a better lab might be needed than the one we had used in the past.  Kim had a lab that involved the decomposition of a compound with oxygen.  Students would mass the compound, heat it and mass it again.  The difference in masses would be due to the missing oxygen.  They could find the percent composition of oxygen of their compound from the experiment and then compare it to the theoretical.  As teachers, we had to "tweek" the lab a bit but we did get it to work and students got reasonable data.

     The good news is that I placed the students in new groups at random and they worked well together.  I also told them we were trying a lab that we thought would be better but we needed their help with it.  It worked well and the conversations that took place as they were helping each other were just what I would want as a teacher.  The bad news is that it was not planned.  It was kind of what I call "accidental teaching". I would love to be able to figure out how to encourage that on every lab.

     I also, after the fact, had an idea to make it more inquiry.  We would do the same lab but they would have to use their experimental results to determine WHICH compound they used.  I would provide three similar formulas that would be the same except each would have varying amounts of oxygen.  Can they solve and figure out which one they decomposed?

Atomic Theory and inquiry??????

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     How do you do inquiry with nuclear chemistry and model of the atom?  Especially when you have a time crunch?  Not sure if this counts as inquiry but here goes...

     First, I did a flipped assignment on the history of the atom.  Then I demonstrated some of the original experiments (cathode ray tube).  Next I did a "gold leaf" experiment.  I had a board that was "gold leaf" leaf on four blocks with a fifth in the center.  The board was covered with paper.  I then shot "alpha particles" or marbles through.  Most went through, with the exception to the one that hit the center block.  Each shot was recorded, and path, on the paper on the board.  It was a model of the gold leaf experiment.  I then gave them the question, "Compare and contrast the model of the atom by JJ Thomson, Rutherford and Dalton".  We tackled it as a class on a Venn Diagram.  Finally, we started with a POGIL activity on isotopes.  The good news is that one student said, "Hey, the gold leaf experiment was on the SAT!"  I almost did cart wheels.  I tried cramming in a lot but I think this is the last week we will have without interruptions from now until June....oops...it almost sounds like I am whining but it is late....

Maybe a better way....

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

    I felt like I was kind of in a "funk" with one of my classes.  Things were going fair but I wanted them to go better.  Typically when I need to make some changes I do the following....find someone who seems to be doing a really good job and do what they do.

     Kim Stites is a new hire at Sycamore.  Although I have not observed her classes, we talk and I admire her enthusiasm and creativity.  I decided to pick her brain on doing empirical, molecular and percent comp.  She gave me two good ideas.

     The first is almost like "speed dating".  There are four students at a lab bench, two in each group.  They have three minutes to solve a problem.  After the three minutes they flip coin.  One pair has to leave and go to the next station, one pair stays and keeps working.  At the end, you gather as a class and review all the problems.  It might be just what I need for my first bell class.  They need to keep moving and they need to be thinking.  There is significant research that shows that if kids can move a little during class instead of sitting for 50 minutes that it is beneficial.  I think it is true for most people.

     Her other idea was to make a flip book for empirical molecular formula determination. Geyer has a poem, "Percent to mass, mass to mole, divide by smallest, multiply to whole."  These are the steps to solve empirical and molecular formulas.  Kim showed me how to make a little flip book with tabs.  Each tab could be a line and the page would be examples and notes.  It might be just the thing to help students "break things down".  I will keep you posted.

Moles - Post Assessment...

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     I did a quick "post assessment" on moles after we finished with a moles mini lab, a mole POGIL and mole problem of the day's.  It was essentially the same "chained notes" and question that I asked in the pre assessment about moles.  "What is a Mole in chemistry and how is it used?"  I scanned in and tried to upload the evidence but I was having tech issues.  The evidence was convincing.  It was far better POST assessment than PRE that students had a better handle on the concept of moles (used for counting small things, it is a big number, the mass of elements on the periodic table is a mole of a substance...).  They can verbalize the concepts but the math part is a struggle for them.  This tells me to continue with the mole ideas next year but to hit math ideas (factor labeling, proportions, scientific notation and basic operations) early and often.  Hopefully then by the time they get to the concept of moles they will have a better handling of the math.

     Here is a crazy idea for some of my classes...an experiment in biomimicry.  (I did not know what it was either...check out this TED Talk).    Biomimicry is not learning about nature but learning from nature.  An example... a group of waste water treatment people were having a problem with limestone deposits (calcium carbonate) in there pipes.  It was a big problem and hard to remove.  A biologist mentioned that sea shells have been doing this for centuries.  A protein string encourages limestone deposits on the protein from the ocean in a particular pattern.  Another protein stops the deposit, thus creating the seashell.  What if we did the same at waste water treatment plants to control limestone deposit???  In other words, look toward nature and millions of years of evolution for design solutions that solve our own problems. 

     I am going to try the following....I am going to have my students look to nature for a design solution...build a better way to filter and take care of my fish tank.  It should be interesting...I will keep you posted.

Moles - Take 2

Moles...Moles...and more Moles...

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

Just did a quick pre assessment with moles.  I put up the question, "What are moles and what do they have to do with chemistry?".  We had some minor exposure to the topic (mole day) but not much.  They had to write on a piece of paper something they knew about the topic and pass it along.  They could not write anything that had been written.  It helped me realize we are starting at ground zero.  We then found the amount of MM's in a container by comparing weights of known MM's and then started a POGIL on moles.  I think they are getting the "count by weighing" idea but will do the chained notes again at the end of the week.  Only one comment on counting atoms and several repeated answers on "measurements".

Moles...Moles...and more Moles...

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     Starting a new year and I have a week to get across the idea of moles to my academic kids.  We did "Mole Day" so they have some idea of what a mole is.  I do not want to repeat or re do what they may already know.  I have decided to start with a formative assessment activity.  I am going to provide a POD about moles and then start a "Chain" note.  Each student will have to write down something about moles but they cannot repeat what someone else has said and they have to sign their name to it.  I will take a quick glance at this and determine if we should do a "count by weighing activity" with MM's or do something a bit more challenging which is the POGIL activity.  Hopefully, the formative assessment will help me "diagnose" where they are at and the next steps.  The end result is that I want them to be able to convert mass, to moles to molecules and understand moles helps us to count small things by weighing them.