I might be getting close....

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     All of the pieces are slowly starting to come together.  Between my Project TIMU class at Miami, the research in cognitive psychology and chemical education and my own experience with students, inquiry and the particulate matter, I think I might be on the verge of figuring something out that has been bugging me for a really long time.  I can get kids to do labs (macroscale).  I can get them to do the symbolic (balance equations and math problems)...but can they really explain what is really going on?  Unfortunately....rarely.  I think I have stumbled onto the missing "key".  Instruction on the particulate level and modeling.  This along with guided inqiury might have the best chance of helping me make the greatest improvement in my teaching.  The times I have tried the combination of these I have seemed to have gotten the best from my students.  Start on the big scale, have them come up with questions, give information on the particulate level.  The early results are impressive.  More interaction, better questions, better answers...I plan to keep going.  

     This week in Academic we are going to balance equations by building particulate level models of reactants and products with centimeter interlocking blocks.  I will start each class with a macroscale experiment.  In Accelerated we melted ice and froze lauric acid.  Now we are going into definitions of heat and phase diagrams and particulate level drawings.  I joined the American Modeling Teachers Association and got some great stuff that I can use and adapt for showing the particulate level.  I am hopeful and excited for the first time in a long time.  The problem is....it takes lots of work (see picture below of me coming back from the ACS conference in Dallas).  But...it is good work...