I looked into using software to support student understanding in Chemistry for my 5%.   Here are a few that I found useful.  If you know of any others let me know.  During my student teaching I used the Chembalancer, described below, with great results and I would like to incorporate more into my teaching.

Balancing Chemical Equations with interactive software -

I used the on-line software called Chembalancer to give my students practice with balancing chemical equations.  The best aspect of using this type of software is that it provides automatic feedback, which keeps the students engaged and makes it more fun.   This particular software also shows the numbers of each atom on both sides of the equation as you enter the coefficients, which is a helpful way for students to visualize the balancing of the atoms.  This also helps explicitly connect the idea of idea of conservation of mass with this process - namely that no atoms are created or destroyed in the process – they are just rearranged into different molecules. 

http://funbasedlearning.com/chemistry/chembalancer/ques4.htm

Exploring Atomic Structure: Molecular Workbench – Free Software

You can download this software directly from the MOLO – Molecular Logic webpage

This site is generally geared toward biology, but the software for helping students explore the structure and properties of atoms is useful for chemistry.   It is well thought out and guides students through the process of learning the different components of the atom, the idea of isotopes and electron orbitals.  The core “model” for the software is that the students start with a hydrogen atom and add either protons, neutrons or electrons to it and note how the atomic structure changes along with the mass #, atomic # and name of the isotopes.  I haven’t actually tried this with a class but it looks worth using if you can easily get your hands on the mobile laptops.  The students can print out their work and hand it in.  Several sections also include open-ended questions, for example, “Explain how can you predict the overall charge by knowing an atom’s number of protons and electrons.  Also here’s a related link to an example of atom from this web site concept map

The Molecular Workbench also has software to show simulations of molecular interactions for Chemistry as well as various models for physics and biology.  Check it out to find what is useful to you. 

http://mw.concord.org/modeler/

Virtual Chemistry – the Completely safe way to play with explosive chemicals

Here’s a link to Yenka software – It’s pricey (about $500), but intriguing.  Students can do pure inquiry by combining chemicals of their choice under the complete safety net of the virtual world.  You can also simulate labs that the students are actually doing (in real life) to show details that would be difficult to measure directly, such as the amounts of reactants and products during the reaction.  THere is also an atomic scale model of what is happening during the reaction, so that students can related their macro observations to what is happening on a molecular level.   Hmmm – time to start writing some of those grants. 

Lots of stuff out there – not sure how to sort through it all. 

In general, there is a wide range of software available in enhance the classroom.  It would be nice to have some sort of consumer’s report to sort through it all.  

One of the most positive aspects of my second student teaching placement was that I had the opportunity to incorporate many hands-on activities into my lesson plans.   I noticed that student engagement was particularly high during these hands-on activities as suggested also by the written feedback from students:

Based on this exit survey, the favorite lessons were the hands-on activities.  The top three favorites being the Rock Cycle (Starburst) Lab (33%), the Mineral ID Notebook lab (23%) and the Rock ID Lab (15%).   These lessons were also voted to be the top three “lessons or assignments in which you think that you learned the most.

I was glad to get this feedback because it suggested that that the students were actively involved in their own learning process.  If the students can associate learning with fun, they may be more intrinsically motivated and also more likely to retain the information.  This initial engagement is also good starting point for students to stretch themselves to higher-cognitive levels of thinking and gain confidence in their abilities.   

These activity-based lessons also went more smoothly in terms classroom management, although in themselves they can’t solve all of the classroom management issues.  There are always a few isolated cases of students who were determined not to work and instead disrupt the class, but these are easier to handle if most of the other students are interested and on task.   By management I am not implying that the students were all perfectly focused and quietly working.  It was more of a controlled chaos.  If someone had walked into the classroom they would have seen a lively and talkative bunch, but when you looked around they were on task, working in a safe manner and following directions.   I made sure there was little down time and that there was always something for the students to do.  If a student finished the assigned tasks early I tried to offer even more engaging tasks for them to do.  For example, they could play a game or look at the library books that I brought in showing pictures of different minerals. 

Another great part of this placement was that I worked closely with several other teachers, including my CT, the inclusion teacher and the math who I shared a duel period with.  These teachers helped support these lessons by manning stations and providing feedback to the students as they were working.  During these activities we worked well as a team and it seemed to me that students appreciated our joint efforts.

We started our lesson on the excretory system with a reading from the Grossology series on the topic of Pee.  The article starts out by stating that at some point in history pee was actually used as a refreshing drink and mouthwash.  That’s a good way to get the students attention, then the reading throws in some pertinent facts followed by a few more gross statements and so on.   

This helped to loosen the students up for questions.  ”My doctor said that if you have pink eye, you can put pee into you eye to clear it up – is that true?”  - That may have some basis to it because of the ammonia in pee, but there are much safer and effective medicines available.  I’d definitely get a second opinion.  

“I read that baby’s pee is much cleaner than your pee when you get older – so if your changing a diaper and it pees in your eye it won’t hurt that much, but if a big kid peed in your eye it would hurt a lot.” – That’s true – we’re are going to learn more that when we talk about the function of kidneys.   Babies generally don’t have as much impurities in their system so their pee is cleaner.  

“I heard that if you put pee on your skin it will clear up pimples.”  - Wow that’s interesting, but again there might be something better for that. 

“My grandmother said that if you have plugged ears you should put pee in them to clear it up” – Yikes – Don’t do it!

This week we studied the respiratory system.  I used two hands-activities: measuring lung capacity and building a lung model to help illustrate the workings of the lungs.  The basics for both of these ideas came from Invitations to Science Inquiry by Tik L. Liem.  All of the students were able to make a lung model (I spent a few weeks rummaging through my neighbors recycling bins to get enough 2 liter bottles) but the lung capacity activity was too messy for the whole class to do – so I had to pick a few volunteers to come up and demonstrate.  Basically you take a 1 gallon water bottle (with pre-made markings on it for every 2 cups), fill it to the brim and cap it.  Then you place this bottle upside down into a small plastic tub half filled with water, and you remove the cap underwater.  The student then blows through a tube (or two bendable straws stuck together) displacing the water (see the diagram below).   

This really played into the students competitive nature and everyone wanted to try it.  I told them that I didn’t have enough material (i.e. bottles and tubs) but if anyone wanted to come in during lunch I would be around.  Come lunch time sure enough there were 5 boys at the door.  I was surprised that they actually showed up.  We ended up spending about twenty minutes checking out lung capacities and how the tube was displacing the water.  We also talked about variables that might decrease their lung capacity (smoking being the most obvious).  These were students who are barely passing the class so my CT thought that this was pretty cool.  This really showed me how the students’ natural interest in competition, especially at this age (7th grade) can be used as a hook.  

During class we also talked about lung disease.  The students told me that they had learned about the hazards of smoking in health class so we didn’t dwell on it too much.  But I couldn’t resist showing a few intriguing slides for cigarette ads. 

Most of the kids tried to stick up for Beyonce – “Someone paid her to do that ad”

“That is not a real picture – someone photoshopped a cigarette into it.”

However no one stuck up for Santa.  

Here’s one of my favorite non-smoking ads.  It went well with the discussion of alveoli and emphysema.  

In the past two weeks I’ve had the opportunity to attend five parent teacher meetings and these have been a valuable part of my student teaching experience.  Generally the entire team of teachers, along with the counselor, meets with the parent and student, however, thus far only 2 or 3 of the 5 teachers have been there (there seems to be a bit of confusion about notifying the teachers ahead of time). The meetings usually take place in my CT’s classroom and she has been a key participant in providing a balanced point of view.  All of the parents come in with a genuine interest in helping their children, but I’ve noticed that with some parents the conversation seems to somehow end up focusing on their own issues rather then what is happening with their children.  For example, one of the parents came in to discuss her daughter and stated that this student had been diagnosed with clinical depression (which was a surprise to the teachers and counselor) .  She then went on to describe her own personal issues and battle with depression.  The mother was interested in getting her daughter transfered to another school in order to get her away from some of the other students who were a negative influence.  She seemed to think that this was not only in her daughter’s interest but also what she also wanted (the student, who generally was not shy, did not say anything).  My CT seemed to know better and as they were leaving she took the student aside and asked her if she wanted to transfer to another school. The student told her she didn’t and she started to cry.  After the parent left, the teachers noted that this student had presented a very different picture of herself to her mother than what they had seen at school.  My CT, who in general is very tuned in to what is going on with the students, seems to know some of these students better than their own parents, especially in those cases where the parents are highly preoccupied with their own troubled lives.  For these kids in particular she is an amazing resource.  I am also happy to report that there were several meetings in which the parents were obviously more tuned in to what was going on with their children.  The major difference that I observed in these meeting was that the parents did not wander into talking about their own lives. They kept the conversation focused on their children and were an obvious support.  

SInce I’ve had a little bit of extra time this week, I borrowed my CT’s book, Tools for Teaching by Fred Jones.  I don’t think Fred Jones actually taught outside of his workshops (correct me if I’m wrong) but he did get the inside story from his wife, who was a teacher. In any case this book is helpful on some very practical levels.  For example, the idea of the “helpless handraiser” is something that I came across in my last placement, but I didn’t really think about the problems it could cause in a classroom until I read his section on this topic.  Basically, he says that there are kids who have been inadvertently encouraged to  use this technique throughout their schooling.  They’re the kids that raise their hand to ask a question and when you ask them what part of it they don’t understand their reply is “all of it”.   They don’t seem to even make a try, and are waiting for their private tutoring session to begin.  How are you supposed to address this?  Fred Jones has some great ideas to help these students reach independence.  Basically he suggests that you provide a simple prompt to help them go the next step and then instead of waiting to see that they understood it, leaving them to work it out themselves.  My first inclination would have been to wait to check to see that the students were following what I said, but after my experience with my last placement I think this makes a lot of sense. 

It was a real treat to visit our disciplinary mentor’s class last week.  Her teaching is in line with the Warner School ideas, so it was great to see applications of the theory that we are currently learning.  One thought that came to mind was, why wasn’t she one of our CT’s – Oh well?  

As the students arrived and got situated, the class atmosphere was calm and organized.  This is a suburban group of well behaved students.  If there were any students with learning or behaviorial  problems it was not evident.  The focus of the class was to write-up a lab based on a rock candy experiment that the students completed at home.  For the first ten minutes of class the students briefly discussed their experience making their rock candy and had fun looking at each others creations (the instructions provided the basic procedure but allowed for variations through the addition of favoring and color).  

The students then broke up into groups and listed all of the possible variables and used these to provide explanations for varied results in the rock candy formation.  The class then put all of the results together on the front board to identify trends.  Students suggested conclusions based on these trends – maybe the strawberry syrup was the reason for poor formation, but another student had success with strawberry syrup – as so on.  The process was clearly more important than the results and the teacher helped to facilitate this discussion and get the students thinking about experimental variables.  

The students then took this information to complete their individual lab write ups.  This lab write-up included the following question related to the nature of science, which I found interesting, “How did the rock candy experiment make you feel?  Successful? Frustrated? Determined? Compare how these feelings may relate to how research scientists feel.  How do you think they deal with the frustration of failed experiments?”  

While the class was going the four of us visitors poked around the room and found some great activities on display as Chris mentions in his post.  For example, hand sewn moles of all sorts, Periodic Table-type posters showing trends in shoes, and Disney characters and cleverly designed ornaments for the “Chemistry Tree”.  My favorite was the small wrapped box with a tag “to: non-metal, from: metal” on it.  You could open the lid to find an electron inside.   

This course explicitly requires the students to complete “Scientific Literacy” Projects.  This is something, I have not yet seen for a Regents chemistry course, but it seems like a great idea.  According to the class website: “Being literate in science means being knowledgeable about science concepts and skills that affect our everyday lives.  We hope our focus on literacy will help yo understand the importance and relevance of science in our world.”  The students are asked to complete one literacy project (given a few to choose from) for each unit.  For example, “Airbags- Research the chemistry behind airbags and relate it to what we’ve learned in class about chemical changes and gas laws.”  These literacy projects are kept in a portfolio type notebook, that the students easily refer back to and use as an example of their work. 

All in all this was an inspiring experience and this person is a great resource for chemistry teachers trying to find a way out of that Regents teaching to the test trap.  

Here are some ideas for a modified lesson plan developed by out 448 group (Kathryn, Alicia and I).  This is based on the idea that these lesson plans would be part of an overall unit lesson plan.  Also this design is optimized for practical use, as a reference within the classroom.

Sections 1 and 2 (Content Area and Purpose/Goals) would be part on the overall unit plan along with section 4 (Science Std) and would therefore not need to be included in the lesson plan.

For the procedure section use a template that includes the following sections (time, teacher activity, student expectation, transition).  Using this format makes it easier to refer to refer to throughout the lesson.

         I shadowed a student (let’s call him student X) at the “I’m Ready” community-learning center.  “I’m Ready” is an acronym for I am a Responsible Engaged A (I forgot what A was for) Determined Youth.  This is part of the RCSD ISS (in-school-suspension) program, located in a separate building on Austin Street (near Lyell Avenue), for students in long term ISS.  I have a friend who teachers in this program and asked if I would be able to “shadow” one of her students for the day.   She immediately thought of student X, who is a junior at East High and has been in the program since Nov. 21.  When he leaves a week from today he will have been there for over three weeks. 

         I arrived at about 8:00 and met with the teacher who set up the observation.  The building is located in an old Catholic school.  A police car is stationed at all times during school hours in front of the building.  Some students arrived early for the free breakfast.  Student X arrived at 8:30 for his first class. He drives himself to school and was not interested in the free breakfast.  His school day is divided into four blocks for the four core subjects: math, science, social studies and English.  He stayed with the same group of students, all high schoolers, throughout the day in all of his classes.   The teachers noted that they try to keep the students that have come into the program at about the same time grouped together. 

        In the first class, the teacher had worksheets for the students to complete.  There was a lot of talking among the students.  Cell phones and iPods were allowed, which was very distracting.  Every few minutes someone’s phone went off to announce an incoming text message and he/she typed in a response.  The teacher couldn’t really do anything about this because there was no set school policy in place to ban cell phones and iPods from the classroom (according to the principal this policy will change as of next week).  I noticed that this classroom had a Smart board.  The teacher said that all classrooms have Smart boards (a total of 13) but they are not being used as of yet because there is no computer support for them. 

         Student X thought that the math sheets were kind of a joke and not challenging enough.  I asked if he was getting work from his teachers at East High and he said that he had not received any work from them and he felt that the teachers here were just trying to keep the students busy.  To him, he said it felt like a sort of holding tank; he didn’t feel like he was learning much. 

        Following math was the science block.  It turns out that the science teacher here is Iggy Urbanski, the brother of Adam Urbanski.  This class also went in a similar direction.  Student X is taking chemistry at East High so he using a chemistry book here and works on problems from the book.  Again, no material was provided from his teachers at East High.  A lot of the class is spent dealing with management issues.  There is no lab in this school so all of the students just do bookwork for their science and there are no indications of hand-on experiments being done.  Student X generally does not interact as much with the other students as they do with each other and tends to sit off to the side.  He noted that he was frustrated that he is in a class with students who are not at his level. 

       The English classroom had an interesting wall poster of Barack Obama that the students had made.  The students leave this third period class half way through for lunch. The actual food comes from another school, transported in a heated truck.  During lunch I talked with Student X about his impression of the school.  He thought that there should be more subjects; more organization and also that students should be put together based on their level of ability.  He expressed his opinion that the curriculum was not challenging enough.  He also suggested that the “Get Real” session (why does that name sound familiar?) wasn’t really helping students to resolve their issues.  Most of the time the principal does the talking and the students don’t talk or if they do they sound very defensive or aggressive.  He felt that the teachers and staff especially needed to be more in touch with the younger students, who are the greatest source of problems here.  We talked about the idea of bring in counselors and having smaller groups where the students could feel safer to share out.  When I asked him about East High, he said that “East High is a failure environment” and “you can’t succeed at East”.  He worried about his chances for graduating from East High and was putting in a transfer request to go to another school. 

          In the Social Studies class the students also discussed Obama.  This was the only class in which the students weren’t asked to complete some sort of specific worksheet assignment.  Instead the teacher had the following question on the whiteboard “What are the biggest problems that Barack Obama will face as president of the USA?” Discussion was difficult because of the disruptions from side conversation and cell phones going off, but the teacher seemed accustomed to this and continued.  Despite the distractions, all of the students, including Student X did participate in this class discussion at some level and they made good points.  The first thing that they worried about was Obama’s safety.  They also mentioned the economy, education and health care. 

         This final period was cut short for the “Get Real” session with the principal.  The entire school headed to the cafeteria and sat in the chairs arranged into a large circle.  Principal Watts noted that the group looked small. Only about 35 students were there, about one third of those enrolled.  The teachers responded that there were a lot of “runners” after lunch; meaning students who just left the building.  The principal discussed a new program, the Youth Fit Life Program that would provide counseling and health wellness.  One student asked if it was mandatory.  When the principal responded that it was the student asked “Why do we need to do it if it doesn’t mean anything, if it doesn’t count for grades?”  Apparently this student’s impression of the program was that they needed to do the work in order to get through and that was the only reason that they were coming.  This “Get Real” session did have the feel of the principal lecturing to the students.  The comments that the students made tended to be disrespectful and the response from teachers and principals was defensive: “This is better than jail”; “We’re not trying to hold things against you.  We’re trying to help you move forward.”  After the session, school ended and I thanked student X for letting me spend time with him.

         According to the Minority Reporter (Nov. 20, 2008), students in the I’M READY program “continue their instruction while receiving counseling and social support to help them transition back to their home schools.”   Based on my observation and talking with student X, I would say that the program in theory has the potential to help students, but it is not actually reaching them as it is currently set up.  The important missing element is relationship building.   This is something that principal and the superintendent talk about, but are not able to fully achieve.   Student X was very open about his opinions and I had the feeling as I talked with him that he wanted to work to his potential but felt dragged down by his environment, both here at the ISS program, because of the lack of challenging material and at East High, because of the difficult environment.  The teachers have a difficult situation to contend with because of the lack of organization and fact that there weren’t stricter rules, such as the no cell phone, no iPod rule in place.  Also I find it amazing that the students can be in this program for up to 30 days and not receive work assignments from their home teachers and then be expected to walk back into a classroom and know what the teacher is talking about.  How does that help the students’ transition back to school?  In Student’s case, he is taking chemistry at East High, if the curriculum is similar to that of Victor he will have missed out on learning about bonding and molecular equations and be expected to come back knowing how to balance equations.  That doesn’t seem to be realistic.  

          I am glad that I had the opportunity to experience this since I will be teaching in the RCSD in January.  Now I’ll have had first hand experience with this program and be better able to support students and the teachers by providing work and an outline of what the student needs to cover while he/she is out.  The extreme situation of this program, with high-risk students, also illustrates the importance of student and teacher/administration relationship building.   A starting point for relationship building is to listen to the students and to provide an environment in which they feel both psychologically and physically safe.  The teachers also need to feel safe and this is obviously one of the priorities that is already being addressed at this program.  

I worked with my CT to modify one of her lessons on the Periodic Table.   In my CT’s current lesson the students have a packet that they use to take notes from the Power Point presentation (see pages 1 and 2), which is followed by an activity, in this case, the students are divided into eight and use laptops and/or books to research Groups 1, 2 and 13-18 of the Periodic Table.  Each of these groups creates a poster with the required information.  Once the posters are completed the students walk around and collect information off of the other groups posters to complete pages 3-6 in their packet.   The goal of this lesson is for students to be able to compare and contrast properties of elements within a group or a period. 

My CT noted that she had hoped that during the poster activity, the students might have provided examples of common uses for the elements and to connect what they were learning in class to their experience outside of class.  However, this generally didn’t happen.  She thought that maybe she should have asked for this specifically, instead of asking students to write down “important characteristics/facts” for each group. 

My general impression of the class, from working with them on an activity similar to this, is that they are searching for the right answer rather then trying to understand the concepts.  I think they’re motivated to get their note packets right.  I noticed this whenever I try to talk about concepts and the response I sense is, cut to the chase, “what should I write down?”.  I know they don’t understand everything they are writing down, but they do seem to do OK on tests and quizzes so they must be getting something out of it. 

So how do I try to get them out of that mindset?  I’m not sure – I think it will cause them some pain in the beginning, so I should try to make it fun.   Also I need to think about what they need for their notes so that they can have some security that they have their notes in tact and know exactly what they will be tested on.

The main modifications that I suggested to this lesson plan were to add an engaging short presentation on the history of the periodic table and the fact that is a model and there are many other possible ways to organize the elements.  Also I modified the note packet so that the students would not be focused on copying and could spend more time discussing information.  The other major modification that I made was the to give the students a homework assignment before working on the group activity.   I talked with my CT about these ideas and she generally thought they would work, especially the initial presentation and the homework assignment.  She asked me to give her a copy when I was done. 

Modified Lesson Plan

As students arrive, ask each student to choose an element from those taped to the front wall (this is their homework assignment)  - Tell them that we’ll talk about the details later in class.

On the screen I’ll have a few questions for them to get started: 

-       List the top five most abundant elements in the Universe.

-       How many groups are there in the Periodic Table? 

-       Why are there blank spaces in the Periodic Table?

-       Why do Uun, Uuu and Uub and Uuq have such similar names?

-       Choose an element from those taped to the board to research for homework.

Spend about five minutes getting responses from students

Then I’ll go into a PP (no notes – just listen and learn for ten minutes) about the history and possibilities for organizing the elements.  If you are interested in getting the Keynote slides let me know. 

For the notes I suggested trying something a little different with this class rather then having blanks I will have a note packet with the basic information that they need already filled in and have them highlight certain words.  As we highlight them I would ask questions to assess understanding.  The idea is to focus on understanding instead of copying.  The activity would be done on the following day using the homework assignment. 

Homework assignment:

Name _____________________________                      Element: ______________________________

This homework project is designed as an introduction to the Periodic Table of Elements. It will enable you the student to identify and discover similarities and differences among the elements by using interactive Periodic Tables.

Each of you will choose an element to research. Use available books and the Internet (if you don’t have access to the internet at home please come see me) to research your element and answer the specific questions below.  Use the information you have gathered to create a small poster representing your element on the paper provided.  During the following class period you will organize your elements into groups and create an overall group poster. 

Suggested Websites:

·       Web Elements: www.webelements.com

·       Los Alamos National Lab: http://periodic.lanl.gov/default.htm

·       Chemical Elements: www.chemicalelements.com

·       Elements:  http://dmoz.org/Science/Chemistry/Elements/

The Essentials:

Symbol: _______________          Atomic Weight: _______________                        Group Number: _______________

Atomic Number: _________         Group Name: __________________           Period: ______________________

Physical Properties:

Physical state at standard temp and pressure (STP): ____________________                         Color: _______________                

Boiling Point:  _______________             Melting Point:  _______________             Density:  _______________

History:

Discovered by: ___________________     Year: ______    Origin of Name: ______________________________________

Interesting Facts:  List four interesting facts about your element (i.e. Is it useful in medicine, industry, or science? Is it used somehow in your everyday life?). 

    1. ______________________________________________________________________

    2. ______________________________________________________________________

    3. ______________________________________________________________________

    4. ______________________________________________________________________

Create a mini-poster of your element in the square provided – some other paper of the same size).  Include the following information:

• Element symbol
• Element Name
• Atomic number
• Electron configuration
• Oxidation states (i.e. charges)

Create a mini-poster design for your element, using drawings, printed pictures/photos, words, color, and/or objects (glued on) to illustrate the interesting characteristics of your element.