Chemical Education Today
Especially for High School Teachers
by Laura E. Slocum
Can I Get Help? Where?
photo by Rick Mickelson, UW–Eau Claire
Over the last few months, more high school chemistry Secondary School Featured Articles teachers than ever before have asked me these questions and I was really surprised. However, as I inquired more deeply, I ◭ JCE Classroom Activity: #95. A Candle in the Wind by Robert J. Eierman, p 528A. began to realize that fewer of the “new” teachers (teachers in their first 1–5 years of instruction) than ever before are able to ◭ The Return of the Black Box by Malka Yayon and Zahava Scherz, p 541. attend regional and national conferences. As we all know, budgets almost everywhere are shrinking and it is more difficult for teachers, especially the new ones, to procure money for Multiple-Choice Exams registration, travel, and lodging. I know that there are local ACS sections, individual school I also found the two articles about multiple-choice districts, nearby teachers, etc. looking for ways tests, Sundermann’s (p 568) and Tellinghuisen and Suto honor and reach out to pre-college instruclikowski’s (p 572), provided insight as I begin to prepare tors, especially at the high school level. I find my final exams for this year. During the 10 years that I this very encouraging and want to recommend served on the First-Year High School Exam committee another avenue to help spread the word about for the ACS Examinations Institute there were many valuable resources for educators at all levels. ideas and suggestions debated, but one of the hottest The Division of Chemical Education was the placement of the “wrong” answers. Tellinghu(DivCHED) has an Outreach Office (1) that isen and Sulikowski state, “Our results demonstrate you can contact to request materials for an Jumping Flame trick that performance on multiple-choice exam questions event or presentation. Most of the materials can depend strongly on the placement of questions and are available FREE, and there is NO COST for answers, with the answer order probably being the more the shipping if the materials are requested at least three weeks in important factor in the present observations …”. While serving advance of the event. These materials can include sample issues on the committee, I learned how to accurately write valid quesof the Journal of Chemical of Education, temporary access to tions that tested the concept that I really wanted the question JCE Online materials, information about DivCHED and how to be testing. Serving on a test-writing committee was one of my to join the Division, ACS Examinations Institute information, strongest professional development activities. I encourage you to reduced cost gift subscriptions to the Journal, personalized gift consider volunteering for a committee, too. You can do this easAward Certificates and welcome packets, and more! ily by contacting the ACS Examinations Institute online (2). The Outreach Office can help presenters and event organizErica’s Take on the Issue ers provide informative and encouraging materials to attendees at no cost to themselves. I found that including these materials Mysteries abound in this April Amusements issue. A new with my presentation packet often opened conversational doors author offers another installment in the chemical adventures of where I could further encourage and support my fellow teachSherlock Holmes (p 507). However, two other articles, while ing colleagues in very real and tangible ways. I am so grateful to not in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, present their own the many people who helped me to grow professionally. One of mysteries. Yayon and Scherz (p 541) share their take on the black the biggest ways they helped me to grow was to encourage me box. Students develop a model for the mysterious contents of to open myself up to greater avenues of challenge and support a video cassette box. I like their addition of different tests for from DivCHED and the Journal. gathering data not normally collected in black-box experiments, such as magnetism and a simulated X-ray image. Eierman’s JCE Classroom Games Classroom Activity (p 528A) challenges students to investigate the secrets of a candle and how it operates. As spring comes to our classrooms, we often find our students getting a little more rowdy and ourselves a little less Literature Cited patient. How about trying a “break” in the middle of the week 1.
[email protected] (accessed Feb 2008). for everybody? Sevcik, et al. (p 514 and p 516) provide two 2. ACS DivCHED Examinations Institute; http://www4.uwm. card game approaches that teachers could use for “review” and edu/chemexams/index.html (accessed Feb 2008). give themselves and their students a break from the traditional classroom for that particular day. My students like a version Supporting JCE Online Material of Taboo that we have played for the past two years. It is very http://www.jce.divched.org/Journal/Issues/2008/Apr/abs477.html similar to Capps’s Chemistry Taboo (p 518). I actually prefer Full text (HTML and PDF) with links to cited URLs and JCE articles Capps’s version, and I am going to try it the week before spring Supplement break. His scoring is significantly easier than mine. Why keep Outreach Brochure inventing the wheel? We should become better at using materials Blogged at http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/chemeddl/ shared by others and giving credit where credit is due. © Division of Chemical Education • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 85 No. 4 April 2008 • Journal of Chemical Education
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