Educators demonstrate a broad knowledge base and an understanding of areas they teach.
Understanding Chemistry in Chemistry 11
Chemistry is a subject that allows us to understand the world at the level of atomic and molecular interactions. Like watching the explosive combustion of trinitrotoluene shrapnel rock from the side of a mountain, there are components of chemistry that are macroscopic (observable with an unaided senses), but to effectively describe these macroscopic processes, the conceptualization requires abstraction. For instance, everyone who has attended high school has likely been asked to draw a Bohr model of the atom at some point in one of their science classes–the key word is model, meaning it is an abstracted representation of something real to fit a purpose. Likewise, the mole is a mathematical model that approximates something as inconceivably small as the atom into a measurable form. Understanding chemistry requires developing breadth in areas like abstract conceptualization, modeling, and visualization, and for each concept in chemistry, there are often several to thousands of representative models created and used to help describe chemical phenomena. It is for this precise reason that having a broad knowledge base and understanding of chemistry is particularly important for educators who teach it.
During my EDUC 391 practicum at College Heights Secondary School, I was privileged to teach in a Chemistry 11 class. During my practicum duration, we covered topics and concepts like atomic theory and history, the periodic table, periodic trends, inter and intramolecular bonding, and more, and it was particularly important to me that I was able to competently explore these chemistry concepts and handle student questions and inquiries that “were beyond the text.” Before starting, I understood the benefit of polishing standard 6 in chemistry, not simply because I wanted to avoid embarrassment (who doesn’t…), but because I knew that chemistry is a subject best learned through multiple facets of understanding.
The first factor that advantaged standard 6 was my undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (Figure 1). Throughout this degree, I worked in several labs, on multiple research projects, and have gone through publication process; as such, I am more familiar and experienced in the process of being a scientist beyond being a student. These experiences provoked several important conversations with students during my practicum and allowed me to provide real world examples to areas like rules that seemed arbitrary. For example, during the first student lab of my practicum, one of the students publicly asked me if they could use pencil for recording their data. My immediate response was to exclaim, “no, absolutely not,” however, their primary teacher (my coaching teacher) was in the room and mentioned to me that they were often permitted to use pencil when conducting laboratory experiments so their data organization management would be easier. I ended up allowing them the option to use pencil because of the focus of that particular lab made it sensical for them to, but not until we first discussed why I found it preposterous that pencil was suggested. The pencil sparked an important conversation about scientific integrity in the process of contributing to a scientific body of knowledge. When I asked the class why they think I said no so abruptly, one student answered with “because then someone could erase or change the data.” They were exactly correct, something as seemingly trivial as a rule about writing utensils actually stemmed from the fact that every messily scribbled note, every number, every mistake, and every mark made in a laboratory notebook, is the official record of everything that happens in a lab and is subject to scrutiny and audit by any authority wishing to challenge the validity of such scientific exploration and publication.
I was able to further demonstrate Standard 6 through learning/note packages that I created for each unit. Unlike “normal” notes, these packages included multiple components for recording and exploring the concepts being learned. For example, in the images below there are multiple learning tools being employed. In Figure 2, there is a more traditional component where students copy down notes about ionic solids, but below it is an image I created that asks students to demonstrate their understanding of why ionic solids are brittle by placing (+) and (-) charge symbols within the circles. This has them take written “facts” and apply them conceptually while also provides them with a visual representation which they had to complete themselves. In Figure 3, there are several tools being employed. At the top, there are fill-in-the-blank notes that has students write the most pertinent words, followed by examples which are given to them and described in detail by me. Below, however, is a prompt which asks students to develop and apply their understanding by representing molecules with Lewis Dot Structures–a model of atoms and molecules which I purposefully did not provide clear instructions for creating (although I did write out an example and this is not the first course these models are introduced). During this exercise, students in groups of three work on the questions at vertical whiteboards located circumferentially around the classroom. The reason no instructional algorithm was provided is because by searching for Lewis Dot structure writing rules on the internet or in textbooks, you’d likely find 50 different sets for the same thing; therefore, I asked them to create their own written algorithms for solving these structures because they are logically based and therefore have a logical solution. Students were quite variable in their understanding of how to form Lewis Dot representations meaning some had no idea what they were doing while others were rather quick. For those who were having more initial difficulty, the students who really got it provided excellent peer learning support. Additionally, for student’s who were having no trouble were given the option/opportunity to attempt the “More Challenging:” problems below which translates to an “Extending” area for assessment. One group of excelling students actually solved the Lewis Structure for benzene which has three double bonds and forms a cyclical structure–listening to them work through their logic to form a solve was as exciting for me as it was for them! This exercise allowed me to circulate the room providing help and feedback, but more importantly, it gave me clear and immediate feedback on how students were learning during the lesson and therefore impacted focus and pacing.
The exemplar above demonstrates how Standard 6 was satisfied because it required multiple techniques/models for understanding. To prepare for each lesson, I had read three high school chemistry textbooks, went through a large percentage of the Chemistry Library available on Khan Academy, read all of my CT’s resources, used my skills in research to pull examples from scientific literature, reflected on my personal knowledge and experience and used them to create problems that ranged from developing to extending, and constantly gave students strange and humorous analogies to aid their understanding (in fact they signed and gifted me a card upon at the end of practicum that reference the endless number of analogies I gave provided).