Always move forward and stay positive....

WHAT AM I DOING TO HELP KIDS ACHIEVE?

HOW DO I KNOW WHEN THEY ARE THERE?

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?

     Tough week...I dealt with a funeral and SLO's.  For those of you who do not know what an SLO is...don't worry, I am not going to discuss it here.  Let's just say it is not for me the most enjoyable reason I became a teacher...

     Student's learning is why I became a teacher.  I needed some inspiration so I joined the American Association of Chemistry Teachers and started checking out their resources, especially ChemEdX online.  Great stuff and ideas by creative positive educators.  I would give it two thumbs up.

     The biggest change in my teaching has been the introduction of the particulate level.  I got the macroscopic and symbolic but as most teacher, I felt kids still could not explain what was going on.  I started diving into the world of the particulate and here is what is starting to happen....

     A kid asked me as we were dong density, "Why does ice float on water?"  As luck would have it, I just got a water modeling kit.  We "added energy" to the molecules and made them a liquid with rubbing our hands on them.  As we stopped "adding energy" they kind of "popped" up and formed ice.  Students could see that the ice took up more space and there were "holes" in the ice.  Same number of molecules but spread out...less dense.

     In another class, we were talking about iron reacting with copper (II) chloride.  We were trying to figure out if Iron (III) or Iron(II) would form.  I wrote out both equations and showed the experiment in the macroscale.  I had to stop when I wrote "aqueous" with the copper chloride and iron chloride.  I learned in the TIMU program that if I were to just write "CuCl2(aq)" then students would have a bunch of misconceptions.  So I drew out the individual atoms and their charges dissolved in water.  It lead to a great discussion on why the charges changed in the reaction.  In both cases, some kids got it and some did not but I feel like it is some more than have in the past....

     The plan...try to squeeze the particulate in whenever possible.  This week we are starting with moles in both classes.  In academic I plan on having all types of moles of substances out (the macroscale) and then having them calculate different amounts.  It will culminate is a lab practical in which they are provided a certain number of atoms or molecules that they will have to measure out and then we will check it on the scale.  I will keep you posted...