Chemical Education Today
Especially for High School Teachers by Diana S. Mason
Persistent Misconceptions
photo by Mark Muyskens
Keeping up with emerging technology can be exciting and intimidating. Teaching the way we’ve always taught someSecondary School Featured Articles times just doesn’t work for our students. Some of the newer 䊕 Interactive Demonstrations for Mole Ratios and Limiting teaching methods that have risen to the top and are considReagents by Crystal Wood and Bryan Breyfogle, ered to be the most effective include guided-inquiry laborap 741. tories, cooperative learning methods, and student-centered 䊕 JCE Classroom Activity: #81. pHantastic Fluorescence classroom activities. These are by Mark Muyskens, p 768A. fairly commonplace in today’s pedagogical vocabulary. Studentcentered activities are becoming increasingly important as our students enter a world that is digitally connected at all times—a mediaand will continue to change and we need to be ready. engaged world that by default inAs effective teachers we need to be getting ourselves fluences the classroom. We can familiar with what technologies and teaching rechose to ignore “progress” or we sources are available and worthwhile. A good excan embrace it, using emerging Narra solution with wood shaving ample that you can use to get started or simply technologies to good effect in our illuminated by UV LED. expand your repertoire of available search engines is classrooms. the Web-based JCE Index online—a user-friendly On page 741 Wood and Breyfogle explain how the insearch engine that allows you to access articles from current structional design of their classroom has led to improvements and past issues by entering either an author’s name, an arin some student-learning outcomes using the Classroom Perticle title, or a keyword. formance System (CPS). Probably the best features of this Linking students’ experiences to real-world analogies and type of engagement are that students are connected with the events can also improve learning. Many of the articles in this content being taught, there is virtually instantaneous feedissue of the Journal highlight fluorescence. Some neat JCE back, and (at least in this study) students reported overwhelmDigiDemos: Tested Demonstrations that illustrate fluorescence ingly a positive opinion about using CPS. This useful are on pages 758, 761, and 765. Muyskens’s demonstration technology is relatively new to the classroom, but technol(p 765) appears really cool and engaging. The accompanying ogy alone will not cure all our instructional ills. Wood and JCE Classroom Activity (p 768A–B) explains how to use Breyfogle found that for one question on their survey a greater shavings of narra wood to make a solution that will fluoresce fraction of their sample of students answered incorrectly afunder a UV black light. This activity is a great way to introter instruction than before. Only 4 of 29 students were actuduce students to the ability of natural substances to absorb ally able to determine the correct number of atoms given the light of one wavelength and emit light of another wavelength. number of moles in a balanced equation and the subscript Other examples of commercially available products that can of O2. be used to illustrate fluorescence include tonic water (p 758) The mere use of technology is not going to eliminate and sunscreens (p 769). Engaging students to learn chemispersistent misconceptions. As facilitators of instruction, we try by using technology and real-world substances brings toall need to pay attention to what can help us improve teachgether different types of instructional tools and may help ing and learning. As Wood and Breyfogle, and also Whitfield correct persistent misconceptions. (p 749) point out, the biggest first step is to challenge students to become dissatisfied with their currently held concepts. Summertime Plans Simple demonstrations, bridging analogies, and instructional applications are examples of best practices that have been used Have you made your plans for attending the 19th BCCE July 30–August 3, 2006? More information is available at to challenge students to address their deep-seated misconceptions. http://www.chem.purdue.edu/bcce (accessed Mar 2006). The Using the Web to find an answer to the query of the gathering is less than three months away. It is also time to start thinking about your trip to my home institution next moment is almost the first method that someone thinks about summer. Please, add ChemEd 07 at The University of North today. I’ve even found myself telling students, “Just Google it”—something that I would never have thought of just a few Texas to your calendar: see http://www.chem.unt.edu/chemed07 (accessed Mar 2006) for conference details. years ago. Classroom technology as we know it is changing
www.JCE.DivCHED.org
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Vol. 83 No. 5 May 2006
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Journal of Chemical Education
681
