Blog 12: Third Interview Questions

1. How can a chemistry teacher best assess the scientific understanding of their class?

2. How can you judge if a student is understanding the topic at hand? 

3. Why do you believe tests are implemented and valued so highly in most chemistry classes?

4. Why are experiments so important in the chemistry classroom? 

5. What should be a teacher's main goal while teaching a class?

6. From your experience, do chemistry students learn more with independent or group work?

7. How do you assess the individual needs of the students in the class?

8. How can you make sure that a chemistry experiment in an enjoyable learning tool?

9. At what point in learning chemistry, did chemistry become more than just a class to you but a profession? 

10. How can you as a teacher encourage your students to carry on in their pursuit of learning chemistry?

11. Do you have any suggested articles or books about the subject?

Blog 11: Mentorship 10 Hour Check

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?

Vineyard Church in San Dimas 

2.   Who is your contact?

Paul Hubbard 

3.   How many total hours have you done (total hours should be reflected in your mentorship log located on the right hand side of your blog like your WB)?   

13.5 hours 

4.   Summarize the 10 hours of service you did.

I sit back and mainly observe the class during lectures. During experiments I am with the students, asking questions to aid their learning and answering any that I can. 

5.   Email your house teacher the name of your contact and their phone number.    

Chemistry Fact of the Day - Two

5 Phases:

Dancing Cornstarch Experiment:

Mix corn flour with water (enough to dissolve it [make it into a liquid]) and pour it into a large speaker connected to the computer (or any other device). Using a pure Sin wave (120 Hertz), a small hole will appear creating a moving "monster" [well a solid under the percussion of the music]. When you cut the sound, the corn starch falls to its original position when first poured into the speaker. 

Solid- Has a definite shape and volume.

Liquid- Particles are ready to flow.
Definite volume.

Gas- An air-like substance that will expand to

any space available to it. No definite shape

or volume.

Plasma- Electrically conductive. Usually formed

by heating or ionizing gasses.

Examples: lightning, stars, neon signs,

and florescent light bulbs.

Bose-Einstein Condensate- Form from matter

 that has been cooled near to absolute zero.

 Extremely fragile. (Any exposure to the outside 

world can be enough to break it down to the 

original atom.)

Chemistry Fact of the Day: One

Gallium's melting point is 29.8º C (85.6º F) which is so low that it will melt on the palm of your hand. 

Mirrors, after having their glass or porcelain frame shaped, is painted with gallium to have a beautiful finish.

Senior Project Update:

(1) What are you currently doing in your independent component? 


I have come up with my survey questions:
1. In your opinion, what is the most effective way to teach a chemistry class?
2. What is your favorite lesson and why?
3. What is your least favorite lesson and why?
4. What is your goal as a teacher? What is the main thing you want your children to take away from your class?

I will be calling schools within the next two weeks, but can I combine my science fair survey in this too? Sorry.
(2) What is a recent piece of research (article, interview, or audio-visual) that have you reviewed you would say was significant in helping you understand where to go next in your senior project?  The piece of research should be something you reviewed in November.  Please explain what you learned and where are you going next because of this piece of research.

My Interview 2 was very informative and after all his lectures (my mentorship) I take down notes which help me formulate my senior project activities and demonstrations. The most interesting article is 17, "Developing a New Teaching Approach for the Chemical Bonding Concept Aligned with Current Scientific and Pedagogical Knowledge".


(3) Provide evidence from your independent component or the piece of research as something you recently did.  For example, a photo of something you working on for your independent component or your notes from the video you watched. 


I organized my entire binder, dividing it into the appropriate sections because my articles were quite lengthy. 
I have been reading through this website to just get basic facts about chemistry. More to refresh my memory. I also created this list. 

Blog 5b: Science Fair Proposal

1. What is your topic?

Teaching Chemistry 

2. What is the driving problem behind your experiment and the quote by an expert to support that problem? (Expert citation must be MLA format.)

“Some of the reasons identified for this failure are laboratory inadequacy, teachers’ attitude, examination malpractice, time constraint for conduction of practice’s, non-coverage of syllabus, class size, non-professionalism and environment.” - Lawrence Edomwonyi-otu and Abraham Avaa (Edomwonyi-otu, Lawrence, and Abraham Avaa. "The Challenge of Effective Teaching of Chemistry: A Case Study - Leonardo El J Pract Technol." The Challenge of Effective Teaching of Chemistry: A Case Study - Leonardo El J Pract Technol. N.p., 25 June 2011. Web. 14 Sept. 2012.)

3. What is your hypothesis? (Must be in If-Then form.)

If a school spends more than $500 on their chemistry department, defined as how much money each teacher gets to spend on their classroom, then their student's STAR testing scores will be Proficient or Advanced. 

4. Write a paragraph summary of how you will perform the experiment.  Include the tools you plan on using.

After collecting a list of schools contact information (using a phone book/internet), I will call each one and simply ask what percentage of their budget goes to the science department, from there, I will ask to speak to each of the chemistry teachers and ask how much they are given to spend in their classrooms and how much they actually spend. From there I will ask how many of their students scored Below proficient and proficient or advanced on their STAR testing by asking the school. (Can I check that online somewhere?) I will then try to find a correlation between the two using Pearson's Correlation. 

5. Select one of the following Project Categories for your experiment:
Animal Biology & Physiology
Behavioral/Social Science
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Chemistry
Earth/Space Science
Pharmacology
Physics
Plant Biology & Physiology
Ecology & Environmental Management
Engineering Research & Applications
Mathematics & Computer Science

Blog 9: Working EQ and Possible Answers

(1) What was the working EQ you used during your presentation?

What is the best way to effectively teach chemistry?

(2) Did you decide to revise your working EQ after your presentation? If so, write your revised EQ here. 

I am not going to revise my EQ at this time.

(3) What are possible answers to your current working EQ? 

1.  Make it relevant for the students. 
After researching for what seems like days, it has led me to this answer. If students think the subject matters, it gives them the motivation to want to do well in the class. They will then do better academically, and in the long run, they will have a better chance of retaining the facts. I know this will be my best answer, but my other answers shall be.
2. Give them independence.
Students have to learn chemistry on their on. They have to experience it, not just see it or hear it. 
And lastly,
3. Work in groups.
This lets students help themselves find the right answers together. Its like iPoly so I think I can manage that one.