After my first year of teaching, I’ve been pretty good at letting school go during the summer unless I’m at a workshop. This summer that was not the case. Last year was my sixth year of teaching AP Chem and my first year of teaching it at my current school. I teach at a good old-fashioned public high school in a fairly rural area of VA, and for most (if not all) of my students, taking AP Chemistry is a huge jump for them. They are interested in pursuing careers in science-related fields, including medicine, pharmacy, physical therapy, and engineering. They enjoyed their first chemistry class and wanted to be better prepared for college. It was the largest group I’ve taught in AP (19) and by far my most challenging. I tried a variety of strategies throughout the year, but I never found the right mix of techniques with this group. The students who took the AP exam did fine, and their results on the test were above average on the multiple choice and all free response questions. However, my students have the option to earn dual enrollment credit, so only a small percentage actually took the exam.
This summer, I spent a lot of time reflecting on what went well, what didn’t, and what I wanted to change. I kept in mind what my goals are for this class. I want my students to learn chemistry, to not completely despise it when the course is over, to develop/enhance study and problem-solving skills, and to be prepared for collegiate studies. With this in mind, here are a few of my thoughts.
1. I want to involve students more in problem solving – I plan to have students more actively involved in discussing homework problems this year through desk whiteboarding, SMARTboarding, or class whiteboarding. I also want them to take the lead in going through free-response questions.
2. I know there will be times when I have to provide direct instruction (i.e. lecture), but I want to minimize this as much as possible. I want my students actively engaged, and at my school, lecture turns them off very quickly. One of my goals for this year is to minimize my ramblings to 15 to 20 minutes, and hopefully less. My students need to hear from me less and to be practicing more with scaffolding. I’ve never been a big talker, but I know I need to be as economical as possible.
3. I want to start using free-response problems throughout the chapter (albeit smaller pieces) rather than just at the end. I will still use them at the end, but hopefully at the point students will be better equipped to work through them.
4. I want to incorporate demos/simulations at the beginning of each class as much as possible with the KISS idea in mind (keep it simple stupid) to help students see practical connections. I also do labs outside of class, so this will help mix things up somewhat.
5. I REALLY want to make labs more effective. Part of the problem with labs last year was not enough equipment for 20 students, but another major issue involved the calculations students had to perform. These were not always the most clear, so I am planning on guiding students more through the complex calculations.
6. I want to include descriptive chemistry in class discussions at least weekly. I tried this last year, got busy, got behind, and it “disappeared”. I have to be more focused and utilize every minute of every class from day 1.
7. I want to get everything covered and not feel insanely rushed trying to get this done. I’ve spent quite a lot of time mapping out the year, and I’ve done the most mapping I’ve every done in my 13 years of teaching. Here’s hoping this helps.
8. I want my students to want to work together in class on problems and to give them 15 to 20 minutes or so to do this daily. I know how insane their lives are, and if they are having trouble solving problems during class time immediately after we’ve covered content, how am I ever going to expect them to work through them independently 24-36 hours after class? (Note: Class meets for 90 minutes every other day.)
9.I try not to overwhelm students, but I know at times I do with packets that are intended to be helpful. Economy of words will be key here as well as providing clear explanations as to why they are getting them.
10. I plan to quiz and test less. This is going to be very difficult for me, as I like students to have those checks in place. I know students aren’t quizzed often in college – it’s the teacher in me wanting them to have that feedback. I still plan to give them that feedback, but I have to work on doing that more via homework and other in-class practice.
Okay – stopping here. Please feel free to share any comments or suggestions 🙂