The Teaching Company – High School Level – Chemistry [Video Trainning]:
>> Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Chemistry teachers will tell you that there is an experience they have all had many times. Someone will ask them, “What do you do for a living?” and when they reply, “I’m a chemistry teacher,” the all-too-common response is: “That was my worst subject!” Why is that? Is high school chemistry just so intrinsically difficult that only students with great intellectual gifts are capable of succeeding without heroic efforts? The Easiest Class in School Students often claim it is the math that is difficult. But high school chemistry normally only demands that students be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers and do some simple algebra. Calculators take care of the first four, and most students can handle the latter. It’s not the math that some students find difficult. It’s the requirement to engage in what might be called “quantitative reasoning”—the ability to take the numbers presented in what are often called “word” or “story” This difficulty is far and away what “turns off” many students to chemistry, and it is addressing this difficulty that is the focus of these chemistry lectures. The Hardest Parts Have Simple Answers As Professor Cardulla puts it, “My goal in these lectures is not to quickly cover every topic that is typically included in most high school chemistry courses. Most students don’t need a lot of help learning element symbols or memorizing definitions. With reasonable effort they can learn the basic structure of atoms and how the Periodic Table works. That isn’t the stumbling block. It’s quantitative reasoning—solving those story problems. It’s the He justifies this statement by showing how “chemical” reasoning is nothing more than an extension of the kind of quantitative reasoning that most of us use every day. Once this base is firmly established, this simple, natural reasoning is then applied to most of the important problem-solving situations that face high school chemistry students, from density, to the mole, to molarity, stoichiometry, and equilibrium. Genuine Understanding that Lasts Professor Cardulla refuses to have students learn mathematical “gimmicks” that allow them to obtain correct answers to simple problems without any real understanding, only to have them fall apart later when problems are encountered that demand understanding. Instead, he establishes a firm foundation—a foundation based on a real and deep understanding of basic concepts and how one can apply the kind of simple, natural quantitative reasoning we all use every day to what are truly simple chemistry problems once this basic understanding is established. It is this basis of true understanding that makes chemistry “the easiest class in school.” Professor Cardulla has published articles and given numerous presentations about this simple, logical approach, and the achievements of his students bear testimony to its effectiveness. He has received citations from institutions such as MIT and the University of Chicago for being named “most influential teacher” by attending students. He has received several Throughout this tutorial, Professor Cardulla uses, in equal measure, the blackboard, a flipchart on an to Download follow the links below:
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