Clicker Question

You seal a water bottle outside of a room and then put the water bottle into a special room. You leave the room and the pressure of that room is changed. Suddenly, you hear a large POP and the bottle exploded. How does the pressure in that room relate to the pressure outside of the room?

A) Pressure is higher in the special room

B) Pressure is lower in the special room

C) Pressure is the same in the special room

The students should recognize that the pressure being larger in the bottle than outside of it results in the bottle exploding. The scenario is to have students think about how pressure behaves and how if there is a large enough difference in pressure, something must happen.

Clickers Response

Clickers work extremely well in class when incorporated properly. The ability for something so simple to increase attendance, increase grade scores, increase student retention, and allow for an instructor to have a better understanding of where the class is at should always be implemented. However, I do have one concern with clickers.

I hate multiple choice questions. My experience has been that they are not testing whether the correct answer is known, rather that the incorrect ones can be identified. In my opinion, that is one limitation to the clickers. I posted for Jeff about using an iPad or something of the sorts as a clicker replacement. If a program could be written that recognizes certain key feature to problems, I think that would be even more useful. Have something that would identify a picture being drawn and certain equations being used. This would allow for the instructor to see what approaches students are applying to problems and where they begin tailing off in the wrong direction. This would require the students to show their work on the whatever it is  that is responding and then discussing. Maybe certain peoples' work could be projected also so that the method they chose can be analyzed.

This is almost like a hybrid of using clickers and what Dr. Christensen did when I watched his class. He would have the students working on problems and would constantly take someone's work and post it for all to see. This would contain that with the file but also evaluate what steps students did and what answer they obtain in the end.

Technology in the Classroom

The main thing I learned through this presentation is that even in my ideal teaching classroom, I was still so short of all the uses of technology that I could use. A discussion board and online information is not the extent, rather it seems like the bare minimum. I'm really not sure what else to say other than that it will take a lot of investigating to really determine what is the best way to implement technology, what technology to implement, and how it will guide the students to the objectives for the course.

Technology

I was just curious if there was anything outside of clicker questions that could be used to assess what students are thinking on problems. I remember Dr. Boyer, I believe, use in Journal club an online assessment sort of thing where people would answer and it would post on a website. I like something like that, but maybe even more advanced.

Ideally, I'm imagining a class where everyone has an iPad (both Shannon and Erika's dream) and there is some sort of a program where people would do work on their iPad. There would be different sections for writing down certain things, like constants or final answer, I'm not sure. But the program would recognize the writing and determine how the student did based on how the professor (assuming an expert) solved it. There could then be some sort of an analysis of the class results and what happened with the work. I guess what I'm asking, is if there is anything like this or how difficult it would be to attain this.

Incorporating Active Learning

The one active learning technique that I want to implement in my teaching is group problem solving. Similar to what Dr. Mumson did, I like the idea of have small groups (3-5) but give them difficult problems relevant to the topic. One concept I like to push on students is that chemistry is not some magical topic that must just be known but has a logical basis. This logical basis can be clearly identified by experimentation. I would have students design experiments to determine methods to understand what is being taught in class.

The best example of this is the designing experiments with the ideal gas law. PV=nRT is commonly used in introductory chemistry courses and the relationships are fairly logical. A topic would be to design experiments to find the different relationships between the variables. An example of the expected outcome would be to find the relationship between V and n. While they may not find the exact relationship constant, recognizing that blowing into a balloon is the same as increasing the number of mols (n). The result would be an increase in the volume of the balloon. This shows the direct relationship between V and n using an experience that the students have already had.

Different scenarios would be presented with new material taught, resulting in the students having to take previous knowledge or even lab experience into account to determine new experiments. I do not like the idea of teaching students to simply have an understanding of the topic, rather I think it should be to prepare future chemists.

How students should utilize assessments.

The role of assessment for the students is to make sure that what they are getting from class or studying is what is expected of them. If the assessment is difficult to the point where minimal progress is made and it is extremely difficult, then the student needs to assess their own place (meta cognition) within the class expectations.

Students should use assessment to either encourage themselves that they are on the expected path or to correct their learning so that they are on the path laid out by the instructor. I apologize for saying path but I cannot think of a better term for what a professor should be doing with the laying out of knowledge.

Response to in Class Activity

The in class project helped me to see how difficult it can be to utilize FA in a course. And in addition to providing opportunities of FA, but using that in such a manner that the education experience is that much better for the students.

I would say that the most salient features of FA is flexibility. An instructor must be willing to adapt what is being taught in response to the FA, while still advancing far enough in the teaching that the students do not lack in material covered.

Student Interview Reflection

I was happy with how my mock interview went. My interviewee did a fantastic job of answering questions and had some great suggestions. One idea that I will definitely employ is to have a very general equation of an equilibrium reaction so that students can know what I am talking about. I will likely have the student draw the equation to see how they draw it. I missed a fundamental question on what the equilibrium constant is that will be useful to use. It is important to make sure that I have the student define all the concepts that I will then ask them questions on later to ensure that there is an understanding of the definition but a lack of the conceptual understanding.

The other trick I want to use is to have them write down anything they want to and keep track of that as they do it. I need to make sure to expand on the questions to delve into what the students understand.

Student Interview: Chemical Equilibrium

Chemical equilibrium is a concept introduced in the first semester of chemistry. However, students usually just look at equilibrium as a number to a solution and do not actually understand what is occurring at the molecular level. These questions will hopefully probe these usually overlooked concepts.

1.       What does it mean for a system to be at equilibrium?

2.       What are the compounds doing if a system is at equilibrium?

3.       What factors influence the equilibrium?

4.       Does temperature change the equilibrium? Why or why not?

5.       What is the relationship between equilibrium and how fast the reaction occurs?

6.       Assume we have 15 A molecules and A is in equilibrium with B. The equilibrium constant is 1.5. How many B molecules do we have?

7.       What would happen if we then added 6 B molecules?

Teaching Philo and learning revisited

Through the reading of other teaching philosophies I noticed a few things. One of which was to be precise with what is being said. I noticed in my own that I left some general statements in there and it weakness strength of the statements. Being as precise and thorough as possible, while not being ridiculously long, should be the goal of the writing. One section that I want to add is the learning goals for the students and describing what I want them to get out of it. Rather than just the context of the class, but the skills and learning/analyzing techniques I want them to learn.

There are a few additions and adjustments to the learning definition. I stated an external stimulus is necessary, but that ma not be true. Sometimes learning could come from an internal stimulus, such as understanding something else. Another important idea is the idea of adaptation of knowledge. Adjusting what was already understand or evolving it as it is understood in more detail is important.

What is learning?

Learning is developing an understanding of an idea or concept. I think the best way to clarify this is to say what learning is not. Learning is not memorizing definitions, names, dates etc. Learning is not so much answer the what, when, where question but rather the how and why questions. An important part of learning is being able to explain what you now know, and having the explanation not be loaded with textbook definitions. Something that is known should be able to be communicated to people at different levels rather than simply repeating the words in which the information was presented.

Another way of looking at this is that you do not learn your grocery list. You write it down or memorize it. There is little critical thinking in making the list. Similarly, memorizing definitions is no different than memorizing the grocery list. A key part of the learning is critical thinking or applying the newly acquired knowledge in a different scenario. Learning is being able to relate concepts to one another and find the connections rather than just accepting every bit of information as its own, discrete unit of data.

Teaching Philosophy

The teaching position would likely consist of teaching introductory chemistry courses and analytical chemistry and physical chemistry (thermodynamics and quantum chemistry). These courses have a good deal to do with doing math and properly using equations and math skills.

Teaching Philosophy

Trent Anderson

January 11, 2012

            Tutoring for college chemistry, physics, and math has taught me that students do not enjoy a recipe method. Despite their requests for problems to be linear, students want to understand “why.” This question of “why” is difficult for students to obtain if all problems share a common core method. Students would commonly say “I don’t know how to do this,” which I would correct to “You don’t understand yet.” An instructor’s responsibility is to provide an atmosphere and the guidance necessary for students to be able to solve problems relevant to the teaching. Ideally, the students would have a firm enough understanding of the concepts taught that there would be little difficulty knowing how to apply it in a real world situation, i.e. the lab setting.

            I have a three step approach to develop the student’s understanding such that it does make sense. The first step is to inform the students. The basic, textbook definition is given to the students in a traditional PowerPoint or chalkboard lecture. The students are then told to analyze the information given and try to understand why it is how it is. Many times this is done by relating it to previous material or using the experience that students have previously. The students are given different scenarios in which the concept is used and I would guide them through some of the scenarios, slowing weaning them off of needing my assistance. The third step is to then give more difficult scenarios and the students are required to determine a) if the new information is applicable or not and b) what information would be necessary to solve the scenario.

            The three step approach is quite useful when dealing with the ideal gas law. Charles, Boyles, Gay-Lussac’s laws are introduce and then combined to form the ideal gas law. The ideal gas constant is presented as the combination of all of the constants in the previous three equations. Students are then given balloons and put into groups and told to replicate the results of relationships used to develop the ideal gas law. The gas law is then explained on the molecular level, ideally through student led discussion. This is then followed by some example problems, leading to situations in which the ideal gas law breaks down (high pressure, low temperature). The students then go into groups and try to determine what is necessary to correct the equation.

            Another important goal is for students to learn how to communicate scientific knowledge. As students understand more concepts of chemistry they will be put into groups to solve a real life problem dealing with chemistry. Groups are determined based on the educational background of the students in addition to a learning style test they take. One example of this would be having the students develop a method to remove harmful ions from drinking water. Their task would be to design something that would purify contaminated water to a drinkable level. This requires understanding of the solubility properties of the ions in addition to developing a method that would also work.

            Assessments would be done using primarily essay or working problems. Multiple choice and fill in the blank will not be allowed because it does not accurately demonstrate the students’ communication of science skills. The problems will be similar to what would be covered in class, but require connecting concepts that were not previously demonstrated in class. One example would be asking students to design an experiment to determine the properties of an unknown solution or to design a method to separate the ions in a known solution. And most importantly, critique the method that they chose.

            The best way to rate how my class is going is based on students contacting me outside of lecture. I encourage students to come to me with all sorts of questions. If the questions are about some of the assigned problems then I am happy that the students desire to understand the material. However, when a student asks problems that are beyond the lecture material then I know that they have truly embraced what I want them do obtain from lecture.

Not Intentionally Racist

I have quite a bit of background when it comes to lab assisting, however most of my experience is with primarily white, well off students. I never even thought to take into account the different ethnicity of the students. I had always taken into account the reason for white people taking science courses for the great fame and, primarily, fortune that comes with it. Yet never once did I consider an alternative reason for the few non-white students taking it.

I had prided myself on getting to know names and the superficial reasons as to why someone was taking the course, but never did I think as to the real reason for the course. I think back to the students I was a TA for last semester and how I poorly approached the reasoning as to taking the course, thus making it difficult for myself to present science in a manner that is interesting.