Teaching Strategies

 

The following are the strategies I employ to create a relatively low stress

community of learners in my AP chemistry class:

 

  1. I give  six problem sets covering chapters 1-3 as summer assignment to be turned in to me twice during the summer.  In addition, students outline the three chapters.  During the first week of school, I go over the high points of these chapters such as writing formulas and nomenclature, dimentional analysis, problem solving strategies, based on my analysis of their summer work.
  2. On the first day of school, I give my students a handout titled “Lessons of the Geese”. This is to emphasize the advantage of  a community in which members work together and help one another to succeed.  Like the geese, those who understand concepts must pull those who are slow to understand along so that everybody passes the AP exam with a minimum score of 3.  I encourage them to form study groups and this has worked extremely well
  3.  I limit my lectures to briefly explaining the essential points of the concepts. I spend a lot of time on group discussions, solving example problems on the board, usually past AP questions.  I teach them how to analyze a question and break it down to solvable steps.  Students take turns to solve problems with prompt and hints from me.
  4. During second semester the first 5 minutes of class is spent on the “Net Ionic Equation of the Day”  taken from past AP questions. We analyze, classify the reaction, review the applicable  solubility rules, the correct molecular and/or ionic formulas as well as balancing the equation.
  5. For each chapter, I assign 20-25 problems on “Webassign”, a web based program with multiple submissions for questions.  The questions are from the required textbook.  Students outline each chapter to include essential points and equations.
  6. I give short quizzes(10-15 minutes), project the solutions and have students grade themselves.  This allows them to see model answers, identify their weaknesses and build confidence.  Honesty is emphasized in this activity.
  7. I assign topics that relate chemistry to every day life (Ex. Alternative energy sources, greenhouse gases and global warming, indoor air pollution, Benefits and Risks of Nuclear Energy) to students for them to research, make Power Point slides and make presentations to the class at different times during the year.
  8. I give major tests on two chapters at a time to include multiple choice and free response sections. Most of the questions are past AP questions.
  9. I do demonstrations and also use animations to clarify some points and make the atmosphere lively.
  10. Students turn in ten abstracts of current articles related to chemistry during the fall semester.  Periodically, I pick the articles that have strong relevance to the topics we cover for class discussion.
  11. Three weeks are spent on structured review for the AP exam.
  12. All my AP students must take the ACS Local Chemistry Olympiad exam in March.  This enables students to identify their weaknesses.