An experiment with how I teach limiting reagent

I know that I haven’t posted in a long time. My fall has been a lot busier than I was ready for, so I’m a bit behind. But, last week something really cool happened.

If you’ve read my blog at all, you know that I am a bit of a traditionalist (not saying that’s a good thing, just the reality). For my DP Chemistry classes, I tend to use a lot of lecture and practice. I’ve found that for my DP classes where I have a prescribed set of content, it’s the most efficient way of getting through a large amount of material. But as I’ve admitted, I want to become a better teacher and callenge myself to be more creative in how I teach. I want my students to get more out of class than a good grade on their IB exams. I still have a long way to go on this journey.

But I think I made a small baby-step last Friday.

Instead of teaching the topic of limiting reagent in the way I’ve taught it the previous 17 years, I tried something completely new. I gave my students a few small and simple examples. The first example uses sandwiches. It’s a common analogy that’s used for limiting reagent. If I have 20 slices of bread, 14 slices of cheese, and 36 slices of turkey how many sandwiches can I make? (Assuminng sandwiches in this case are 2 slices of break, 3 slices of turkey and 1 slice of cheese.) This allowed me to get across the basic concept of limiting reagent, as I know all of my students can relate to sandwiches.

Then I gave them a chemistry example using moles. If 2 moles of nitrogen react with 5 moles of hydrogen, how many moles of ammonia will be produced? (In the process, determine the limiting reagent and how much of the excess reagent will be left over.)

We talked through the example, with students sharing their ideas for how to solve it.

Then…instead of simply continuing the lecture and showing them the ‘real’ example with grams, I asked them to take the real example and develop their own method of solving the problem. I gave the process to the students. Then I wandered around and asking leading questions. I was amazed at a few of the methods that students developed. One student used gram ratios instead of mole ratios. He did this while taking the balanced equation into consideration, so it was valid. I NEVER would have thought of using gram ratios. I was incredibly excited that this student figured this out. And I know this student was also incredibly excited to have thought through his own method. I don’t think he’ll forget it.

And as a fall-back, I recorded a lecture with my traditional method of teaching. This will allow students that weren’t able to develop their own method, or who didn’t have as much confidence in their method, to look at my method and see if it makes sense. So the beauty of using the flipped class model here was that I flipped the class from me telling them how to solve a problem to challenging them to develop their own method.

Today, I taught my Standard Level class the same lesson. I was a bit worried since I had a shorter class. But almost all of the students left with a decent understanding of their method. One student worked through frustration, almost ready to give up. She kept working at it, and finally got it!

I’m still not perfect, but it was fun to try something new and feel as though it was successful. I’m giving them a quiz on Friday. I can’t wait to see the results.

A few weeks in with the Flipped Chemistry Class

Time is really hard to find right now, so I haven’t been blogging as much as I had hoped. But I wanted to post a few thoughts, because I use the blog as a way to reflect on my teaching and think a bit more clearly (or not so clearly) about how things are working out.

Tomorrow my Standard Level students have a test. I’m really curious how their performance will be. The first unit is about atomic structure and I delivered most of the content using videos as homework. I also threw in an in-class demonstration about the difference between a continuous spectrum and a line spectrum and how the hydrogen spectrum provides evidence for energy levels for the electrons in an atom. The in-class discussion/demonstration was pretty good, although in previous years I would have done it as part of a lecture. I ended up with a day to review in class on Monday, which included some practice questions we discussed as a class and some typical homework-type questions they worked on individually/in groups. I walked around and helped students that needed/asked for the help. This is the area that I still struggle with…helping kids that don’t ask for my help. I have always believed that students should advocate for themselves if they don’t understand something. However, I am thinking even more that I need to check in with my students every day (one of the advantages of the flipped model, in my opinion) regardless of whether they are asking me for help or not.

For my Higher Level class, I really pushed my own boundaries and tried something new. I used the videos to deliver the Standard Level content, but to introduce them to the Higher Level content (ionization energies as evidence for electron energy levels and sub-levels, along with orbitals and electron configuration) I did something I’ve never done before. I gave my students the first ionization energies of the first 36 elements. (See the graph below if you’re interested in the science.) I graphed the data on laptop to show them, while they each graphed the data on their own computers. This gave them some experience with Excel and also allowed us to see the data on the projector while they got a close-up look on their own. I then asked them to look for patterns and how the graph below related to the organization of the periodic table. The studetns had already been introduced to simple electron arrangements (e.g. Na: 2, 8, 1) and I wanted them to take their understanding to a deeper level.

Graph of the Ionization Energies of the First 36 Elements

 

With a lot of discussion, I think a number of the students really started to see the patterns, although I don’t think it was until the next day when we started doing full electron configurations that they really saw the connection between the periodic table and the organization of electrons.

The next graph we looked at was the first 10 successive ionization energies for magnesium. (See below.) With this graph, I asked students to relate the position of magnesium on the periodic table to the position of the first large jump in ionization energies. Then we made the graph for aluminum and noticed the large jump happens after the third electron. With silicon, the large jump happens after the fourth electron, and so on. (See the data table below the graph. I highlighted where the first large jump happened.) I definitely feel that some of the students really started to make sense of the patterns. And that was my goal…to allow students to make their own connections – even if they struggled mightily at first – rather than me simply attempting to pour knowledge into their brains.

First 10 Successive Ionization Energies for Magnesium

 

Data Table of the Ionization Energies for the 3rd Period

 

 

I didn’t make any attempt to create ‘proper’ graphs with titles, accurately labeled axes, etc. I focused only on the patterns. I told one of my coworkers it was the most fun I’d ever had teaching this topic. And I’ve been teaching it (the same old way…) for many years. It felt really good to try something new. I don’t think the flipped class model is the only way to utilize discussion and force the kids to make their own connections, but I’ve tried to use the flipped model as a springboard to better teaching. I don’t want it to be the same, only different. I’m not there yet, but after this lesson I think I’m making progress.

Until next time.
Lowell

Initial reflections on my move to the flipped IB Chemistry class

It’s now August 27th, and I’m sitting here reflecting on my first week attempting to flip my chemistry classes. I had a lot of plans for summer work that didn’t get done. (Sinus surgery, travel, excuses, new work responsibilities to prepare for, etc.) The reality is that I felt a little behind the proverbial 8-ball as the year started. And that feeling hasn’t necessarily changed. But I’ve moved forward with the flipped model in two of my four classes, and plan to use the flipped model in a third class at times. My senior IB Chemistry class chose to stick with the model I used last year (mostly lecture-based), but my two junior IB Chemistry classes seem to be excited about the flip. I’ve already started producing videos on atomic structure and using classtime for discussions, etc.

The first benefit I see so far is that students like being able to pause and rewind my videos. The first drawback I can see is that mistakes I make while recording a video are ‘permanent’ and not as easily fixable. When lecturing in front of a class, if I mistakenly tell my students that chlorine is element number 35, inevitably somebody will look at a periodic table, raise her/his hand and say, “Mr. Thomsin, isn’t bromine element number 35?” After slapping my forhead and saying, “Doh!” I can of course correct my error and make sure everybody got that. Then I can give another example just to make sure. But in my video, if I accidently say that chlorine is element 35 (not sure why I thought that…but I wasn’t smart enough to have a periodic table in front of me) I can’t fix it. So I now will record a new version of that video to avoid the mistake. And I’m sure I’ll make other mistakes as well.  Upon reflecting about this here, I wonder if a bit more ‘rehearsal’ would be called for before I record the video. When I give a lecture, I know that I can correct any problems I have on the spot and be OK with it, but with the video there is no second chance.

For my two IB Chemistry classes, I have made the distinct goal of not just changing my lecture-drill model to video-drill. I need to adapt my teaching to challenge my students to understand concepts better and not just be good at following problem-solving algorithms. So to that end, I’m working on more demonstrations that can start class discussions to follow-up on topics from the videos. And I’m interested in having the students complete more frequent mini-labs that don’t need to be assessed for the IB program but can help solidify concepts, or even allow students to identify patterns. For electron configuration, I’m planning on asking the students to recognize patters on ionization energies to see if they can develop a model for electron shells. Then I’ll follow that with the typical electron configuration lecture. I’ll try to blog about how that goes, as that’s more than just using video for lecture, but actually trying to change the way I teach. (What I’m saying here is that if the only thing I did was lecture on video instead of in front of the class, that’s not a significant change to my teaching. I want the flipped class to be more than that.)

So the process continues for me this weekend as I prepare a few more videos. I’m not as far ahead as I wanted to be, but I’ll work at it until I’m comfortable with the results.

Until next time.
Lowell

First look at the Results of the Flipped Class Pilot

My previous two posts (Dipping My Feet and Nuts and Bolts) dealt with my pilot this spring to introduce the flipped class model into my classroom. I won’t deal much with that topic here, except near the end where I’ll offer a bit more self-reflection on changes I still need to make for next year.

But basically, I’ve run a flipped class in ALL of my classes to end the spring term, even though I originally intended the pilot to only occur in one class. It seemed, in my mind, to be analogous to a drug trial where the new drug looks so promising that it’s unethical not to give everybody in the trial access to the medicine. OK, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. But I’ve received a number of positive – and a few negative – responses from students. I’m hoping to prompt the students with negative responses a bit more to find out why they are not happy with the model. It’s possible they have valid suggestions for me to consider. It’s also possible that it simply isn’t something they’re comfortable with yet. And it’s possible I have no idea why they don’t like it.

My IB Chemistry class recently took a test on our Equilibrium unit, which was entirely flipped, with no in-class lecture at all. This is in stark contrast to my previous six units which all relied quite heavily on lecture to deliver new content. I have a small class and I simply won’t call out individual students. But here’s what I’m willing to share:

The class average on the equilibrium unit test was 4.6% higher than the class average on the previous seven tests.

Now let’s put this into perspective. First of all, I did not use any statistics here other than averages. My stats prof would not be happy with me. I simply don’t have the time to really put the data through the ringer here. So I won’t be telling you that the increase in scores is statistically significant. But I can tell you that there was NOT a statistically significant decrease in scores. How’s that for a definitive statement?!? This is a small sample size without being tested in a rigorous manner. But at the least, the students scored about the same.

So where does this leave me? I’ve got two weeks of school left. Most of this is preparation for finals. I already wish I had been flipped for the entire year, as I want to be able to tell my students to go back to the video tutorials if they need help. Of course, during class, before school and after school I’m still willing to help them. But the tutorials would give them another method of getting help.

And as I mentioned in my previous posts, I still think I can get more proactive in my wanderings around the class during ‘work time’ and help the students that need it. And for one of my last videos, my graphics tablet gave me trouble. That was a bit frustrating, as I was working a calculation and had to resort to writing with the mouse. Slow and not pretty.

Overall, though. I’m excited about the possibilities.

Until next time.
Lowell

The Nuts and Bolts of my Flipped Unit on Equilibrium

Since I’ve now ‘dipped my feet into the flipped class‘ I thought I’d share some of the nuts-and-bolts of how I did it, with a little more detail than previously offered.

The class I’ll describe here is year 1 (11th Grade)  IB Chemistry, with both Standard Level and Higher Level students. This unit, on equilibrium, is the last unit of the school year before heading out on summer vacation. It’s also the first unit I’ve truly flipped. I didn’t give a single lecture during class time. These students had seen a handful of videos from me previously in situations where I was absent and wanted to deliver content, but they had never experienced the full flipped model.

First, here is the tracking sheet I created. Unfortunately, I created this a few days into my flipped unit, so it wasn’t as effective as I’d like. In my previous post, I mentioned that a significant improvement would be to create a tracking sheet for the students. So I figured there was no reason to wait until next year to create one.

Next, here is a screenshot of this unit within  my Moodle page. It gives you an idea of how I organize things for my students. The directory that contains the videos worked better than posting the videos individually.

Screen Capture of the Equilibrium Unit of my Moodle Page

The image below is from my calendar. I create a class calendar for each class using Microsoft Word and save it as a webpage. I then post this to the Moodle site and students (and parents!) can access the calendar. I don’t use a typical teacher planning book, so I don’t find this takes any additional time. Yet I see a tremendous benefit to students to follow what’s happening in the class, especially if they are absent. And parents seem to appreciate being able to access the calendar to see what’s going on.

Calendar of the Equilibrium Unit

For this unit, I asked them to watch the first video as homework after we took the test on the previous topic. Then in class, I gave them a simulation activity I developed/modified from others. The students worked in small groups to complete the simulation. Since this was a short class (60 minutes compared to a normal 80-minute block) the students didn’t finish. Friday was our next class together and 80% of my class was absent for sports tournaments, and I was absent for my own tournament. So I gave a reviewsheet on stoichiometry and the mole for the remainder of the students. I asked my Higher Level students to watch the first video for them and take notes. Then on Tuesday when I saw them again, we completed a lab on equilibrium. This is not a lab that I use for internal assessment for IB, so the handout is fairly straightforward for the students.

As I type this, it is Thursday and the students had a work day in class today. I gave the students the tracking sheet today and then simply gave them time to complete everything they need for the unit. I then went around and helped students that needed it. I also have a work day planned on Monday, followed by the unit test on Wednesday. I’ll be very curious about the results…and will put up a post after I finish marking their exams. I’m also going to ask the students to reflect a bit on the format of the flipped class just to get some feedback.

For the homework, I didn’t collect any of it. I simply posted answers on Moodle and expected students to ask me questions if the didn’t understand something from it. I think this is a bit more passive than the typical flipped class. It tends to fit my teaching style a bit better, though, where I expect students to take ownership of their learning and advocate for themselves when they need help. That said, I am definitely trying to push myself to be a bit more proactive in helping students. That’s one of my stated goals for using the flipped model. I wasn’t perfect for this class, though.

I definitely feel that the flipped class model is helpful for this mixed class, as the Higher Level students have more work to finish. They obviously have more homework as well, but they can work at a pace that suits them. And Diploma students often have a lot of deadlines between all of their classes. I think this model gives students some flexibility. If they are being hit with a paper for Economics and an exam in math, they can go a bit lighter on their chemistry homework for a day or two to compensate. Then they could compensate by putting in a bit of extra work in chemistry to prepare for the exams. I like that this model gives students some choices. One student chose to use some of my class time today to study for an economics exam. The student had the courtesy to ask if he could work on something else. I said yes, as I like students making decisions for themselves. I’m sure there are teachers that would not appreciate students working on another class during their time. And I respect that. It just fits my style better to give students as much flexibility as possible. If I were using a lecture model, the student wouldn’t have had that choice, as most of my class period would likely have been spent on delivering a PowerPoint.

This particular class has had some difficulty being focused and productive in the past when I’ve given them work time. In my opinion, giving them the tracking sheet helped keep them focused. They could check off work they completed and see that they still had work left to accomplish.

Things I’d still like to do better next year:

• More demonstrations to start classes. I think this would be a good way to give the students more background.
• I need to plan out the entire unit a bit better. This includes having the tracking sheet from the beginning.
• Be more clear with my students about due dates. I have a relatively small class, so I often become overly flexible on due dates. I think it would benefit this group to be more clear with due dates. This unit was a bit weird, though, given there was one day in the middle of it when almost all of us were gone. And based on giving students more flexibility, one thing I’m thinking about is simply having the students turn in all of their work at the end of the unit.
• I still think I can be more proactive in going around and helping students. I have a small class, and I think I can do better at visiting each student and checking on their work, making sure they are getting the help they need. And even in a larger class this model creates more time to visit with students. I need to take advantage of this.
• I think, for my DP classes, that I’ll include a list of relevant syllabus statements on the tracking sheets next year. I don’t want the tracking sheets to just be ‘work to be completed’ but also ‘concepts to be learned.’

I’m excited about the possibilities of this model, now that I’ve experienced it first-hand. I can see the benefit in putting in the planning time before the unit. So this summer I hope to put together the entire first unit for the classes I’m going to flip next year. Then my job will be to stay one unit ahead the entire year. I have most of my PowerPoints ready to go (although I tend to modify them every year in an effort to improve them), but I’ll need to create the videos and tracking sheets and make sure the workflow is logical.

Cheers.
Lowell

Dipping my feet into the flipped class model

Well, I finally did it! I flipped two classes. I’ve been contemplating this for a looooong time and finally put it all together. Well, maybe I didn’t put it ALL together, but I flipped my Pre-DP Chemistry class for a unit on stoichiometry and my Year 1 DP Chemistry class for a unit on equilibrium. So now I’d like to offer some random thoughts on what I did, how I did it and how I think it worked, along with some feedback about what I think I should have done better.

I’m not convinced that my ‘method’ of flipping will be for everybody. But if you’re exploring the option of flipping your class, I hope my thoughts provoke some reflection on your part about how to do things better in your own class. And I welcome comments, questions and suggestions. I am, by no means, highly accomplished at this.

• For better or worse, I’m still sort of an ‘old-school’ teacher. For a subject like chemistry, while teaching to the IB syllabus, I tend to rely (maybe too much?) on lecture as a means of delivering content. I don’t intend for this to be a debate/discussion about that. I’m more interested in the flipped class model and how it can work for my style of teaching. And I think it might lead me to more creative ways to get the students to learn/practice AFTER the lectures. That’s my hope. But more on that later.
• I am creating videos using BB Flashback Express 2 Recorder (Found here.) My school pushes Jing, but I found BB Flashback Express Recorder better, as it allows for longer recorder. (I actually used BB Flashback Express Recorder previously when I created videos for my IB Chemistry Higher Level students to give them some AHL content that I didn’t have time to deliver in class.) I am using the freeware version, so I can only save the videos as Flash videos. I have found this to work, as students can watch them on my Moodle page. (Maybe a bit more on Moodle later.) I’ve thought about upgrading to the paid version so I can save the files as .avi. That would allow my students to watch them on other devices. Not sure…but if the students push me in this direction, I’ll probably move that way.
• I find it takes about half the time (or even less!) to record a video as it does to give the same lecture. (This isn’t about preparation time…but actual delivery time.) My lecture style is very interactive. I don’t just monotone the content. I get students answering questions along the way. I pause for them to take notes. With the video, I ‘interact’ by asking them to pause the movie and work ahead of me, then check their answers. This doesn’t take any time. And I don’t have the conversation with my class that I normally do during a lecture. But I still talk in my style, crack my corny jokes and try to get students to think while they are listening.
• I find the preparation time for each lecture is a bit longer than for a standard lecture. If I make a mistake in a lecture, I can pause the PowerPoint and fix the mistake. I can’t do that in a video. I also tend to put a bit more thought into sequencing my delivery in such a way as to provoke thinking. In a classroom setting, I tend to be more spontaneous based on the discussion. So I tend to plan my delivery which takes more time.
• Initial student feedback from my Pre-DP class was positive. Students feel they benefit from being able to pause the video and catch up, or rewind to hear it again. I ended up having them watch the videos in class last week, as I was gone the first day I flipped the class. About half my class was gone also, so today I had them all watch the videos they needed. (Either the first one if they were gone, or the second one if they were here last week.) My expectation is that all of the students will catch up on both videos before I see them next Monday. (Due to a scheduling conflict with an awards assembly, I won’t be seeing the students again until Monday.) I found this model to be perfect for this scenario of students and teacher absences. All of the students were productive and engaged in learning. Wow.
• Initial student feedback from my DP Chemistry class is mixed at this point. Due to my absence last week, I’ve been a bit out of touch with this class. Today they’re doing a lab and the Higher Level students have a video to watch on a topic. Hypothetically, they should have already watched the first HL video. It’s a small class and I haven’t gotten a feel for their opinions yet.
• For the worksheets in my Pre-DP class, I actually posted answers. Not worked solutions, but just mathematical answers. So when students completed their questions, they could check their work. This is something new for me, but I think I like it. Students can get instant feedback on their work. (A note about grading in my classes. We use an ‘IB Diploma Program’ of grading. This means students are graded on exams and labs. Only. So I don’t grade them on effort in class and homework. So giving them answers to check their work makes sense within this model. And so far, I haven’t found students to just cruise by writing down the answers. They know they need to actually do the work, rather than just writing down the answers.)
• I do not think I will use the ‘mastery’ model that others are using. (See Brian Bennett for an example of the mastery model used with a flipped class.) I intend (at this point) to keep the students on a pretty set pace. I will have them complete labs at the same time and work towards a unit test for each topic. I will likely re-visit this idea next year.
• I found the Vodcasting Ning to be a very helpful resource.
• As for improvements, one thing I really need to improve is the sequencing of the unit. I am not very good at long range planning. So I think it will be really important for me to plan the entire unit next year when I flip the whole class. This includes having every video already recorded, along with the in-class work.
• As part of the improvement mentioned above, I think I need to give the students some sort of tracking sheet to organize their progress through the videos and the work. Some people use Google Forms for this. Others create handouts. I haven’t decided how to do this yet. One thought is to use Moodle somehow.

For some closing thoughts, I’m really pleased with the flipped class so far. I don’t have any data to support the notion that student learning will improve. That will come later, and it won’t be done in a very scientific manner. And I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts. As they arrive, I’ll add more to the blog and/or the comments below.

And as I said, I’d love for feedback/comments/suggestions.

Until next time.
Lowell

A Spontaneous Push (from a student) for Flipping the Class

Today in my physics class, students are collecting data for a self-chosen research question. It’s a very simple lab using only tennis balls and simple measuring equipment like meter sticks and stopwatches. The students had to develop a research question and method. Ultimately, they’ll graph their data using either Excel or Logger Pro.

A student asked me about how to calculate averages in Excel. It’s something they’ve seen before, but this student simply couldn’t remember it. Lightbulb moment! If I had a tutorial up on my Moodle site about how to manipulate data in Excel (averages, etc.) it’d be a great resource for students that need extra help with things like this.

I love it when students push me to become a better teacher, even if they don’t realize it.

Cheers.
Lowell