Tag Archives: science

One of the first topics in Chemistry I is states of matter and chemical vs. physical properties.  Pretty much every sample of matter is either a solid, liquid, gas, plasma, or unknown.  Similarly, the properties of matter fit neatly into the … Continue reading →

The College Board is in the process of rewriting the curriculum for science courses to make them more inquiry-based. This has prompted me to revisit my process for converting conventional “cookbook” labs to inquiry format. Note: since writing this post, I … Continue reading →

There seems to be a consensus among AP Chemistry teachers that the test has gotten significantly easier than it was a decade or more ago. However, if we take a score of 5 to mean the equivalent of an A … Continue reading →

Memorizing something essentially means changing it from something you need to think about into something you can do quickly without thinking. Sometimes this is desirable, sometimes not. +40

If I remember my adolescent psychology correctly, Jean Piaget claimed that the average child develops abstract (“formal operational”) thinking around age 16—exactly the age most high school students take their first chemistry course.  Since 2003-04 (the year that Massachusetts’ MCAS … Continue reading →

As we approach the end of the school year, I find myself getting more and more frustrated about my students’ struggles with high-level thinking. Every year, it seems like they’re less and less able to figure out how to solve … Continue reading →

In a post on the ChemEd-L email discussion list, Harry Pence wrote: There is a common assumption that if students can do the calculations, they understand what the calculations mean.  I didn’t always find this to be true. This is … Continue reading →

I always make my students a promise: that I’ll never give them “busy work”—that I’ll only give as much homework as I think it takes to master a particular skill. Of course, I point out that this means that any … Continue reading →