One of the most difficult decisions teacher make is what to include in thie course.
Structure of this tutorial series:
Tutorials 1-3 are written for the teacher: The High School Chemistry Course, Teaching Labs in Chemistry and Assessments in Chemistry.
Tutorials 4-24 cover content that is typically found in the high school course with the following aides for teachers:
- Introductory slide for teachers with background information
- Teaching tips and hints found in the notes section throughout the tutorials
- A slide at the end of each with common labs covering that content.
What college professors want in high school chemistry
A survey of 96 college professors resulted in 7 topics that were most commonly included in their “top 5 student must-haves before coming to high school chemistry: Basic skills (units, graphing, sig figs, etc.), Moles, Dimensional Analysis, Stoichiometry, Naming/Writing formulas, Atomic structure, and Balancing equations.
What high school teachers are teaching.
A survey of 571 high school teachers showed the following topics to be considered “appropriate” for the course by more than 96% of the teachers and were actually taught by a similar percentage: Basic lab skills, basic skills, dimensional analysis, classification of matter, writing/naming formulas, moles, types of reactions, balancing equations, stoichiometry, atomic structure electron configuration), periodic table & periodicity, types of bonds and properties, gas laws, and solutions & concentrations.
The following topics were considered appropriate by more than 90% of the 571 teachers but a significantly lower percentage of teachers were actually having time to cover them: Scientific process skills (lab design), History of atomic theory, Lewis dot structures, and Acid/base (pH, strong/weak, simple titrations)
The following topics are thought to be appropriate by a far fewer percentage of teachers: Equilibrium (qualitative), Thermodynamics, Kinetics (qualitative), Acid base (complex problems), Equilibrium (quantitative), and Kinetics (quantitative)
The average number of topics thought appropriate by teachers was 20.8, however the average number actually covered is 18.1 topics—the vast majority of teachers don’t have enough time to do all they’d like
Applying content to students’ lives
Application of content increases motivation and interest, which in turn increases performance. This can be accomplished with some newer textbooks, projects, articles, research, etc.
Applying content to students’ lives
It’s important to long-range plan to insure that all the topics you need to cover will fit. Possible things to include in your unit/daily lesson plans: Lesson goals & outcomes for the student, Correlation to district/state/national standards, Correlations to various learning styles (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc.), Time estimate for each activity, Materials needed for each activity, Outline for lecture/discussion/notes, Homework to assign
