The three basic rules of my classroom

Second part of How tiny is the atom will come next week. I just haven't finished grading a question I made them that was related to the subject (grading one of the many #joysofteaching....NOT!)

This week's post will be smaller, I had a crazy week but I wanted to share this with you :)
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People have different skills, I can't draw even if my life depended on it, while there's people that find math really really difficult. I can accept that, I can accept that not everyone os going to find chemistry easy but there's a difference with struggling and something really different saying I can't. (I shouldn't be saying "I can't draw even if my life depended on it" for example)

Taking a group in the middle of the semester meant they were kind of used to another teacher, his/her rules, way of working, etc. Everyone told me I had to be very firm or they'd eat me alive (That will be a subject for another post) and that I should state clear rules from the very beginning. So yeah I talked about discipline, late homework, how much value everything was going to have. etc.

But the first day of class I dedicated it to three basic rules:

1) It's OK to ask questions - Any question as long it has to do with the subject we are studying in class (The only time I broke this rule was to talk about diets and eating disorders but I have a classroom full of 15 year old girls if they were asking I couldn't say no ! It's a very very very important subject) I don't mind explaining the same thing over and over or if the ask what does this have to do with my life. If asking questions means they are interested and paying attention BRING IT ON !

2) THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS - Ok yes there are... and over the last months I have heard a few... but they are 15 year olds, they are not supposed to know chemistry, not supposed to know how this thing really works and I'm not supposed to think their questions are stupid becuase they are kids, they are learning, they are growing. If they don't ask stupid questions now they'll never do. That's why I treat all questions with the same importance, respect and that's why I do my best to answer all the questions the best way possible.

3) You can't make fun of your classmates - This is very dear to me... I've been bullied all my life so I know how it feels and at least in my watch is not going to happen. If I see you making fun of one of your classmates specially because of a question they asked then you are kind of death to me and you lose your chance of doind the monthly exam. Bullying is no joke.

My students are not beakers, not experiments, they are people and being used to spend 12 hours a day in the lab makes it difficult not to see them as experiments, but THEY HAVE FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS AND THEY CAN BE WONDERFUL.

The hardest realization I've had this months is that I'm part of their formative stage. I'm not only teaching them chemistry, whatever I say can affect the way they see themselves or the world. The responsability is quite big. so my biggest lesson so far STUDENTS ARE NOT BEAKERS, so if I them fixing it will not as easy as purchasing a new one.

An atom is the thousandth part of...Or what my students believe is the size of an atom (Part 1)

This week my syllabus got to a part I was dreading... Periodic Properties. Why? First of all because according to Mexican curriculum I shouldn't be teaching them and still somehow manage to make them get why there are covalent and ionic bonds, but at the same time like just don't tell them to much because they might learn something (seriously I'm going to dedicate a post to Mexican science curriculum and why they think 15 year olds are stupid) 

Point is.. I really felt electronegativity is basic to understand ionic and covalent bonding so teaching it for me is a must, but then well maybe atomic radii wouldn't hurt either. So here I am embarking on something  where I might be wrong (maybe it's not pedagogical incorrect to teach this to my students). 

So I began preparing my class about atomic radii and i realized something. I haven't discussed with my students anything about the size of an atom. We have covered, yes, everything is made of atoms and well yes they must be very tiny because nobody has ever seen them... but really how tiny is the atom? Like if I said the atomic radii of Mg is 150 pm... How do I expect them to imagine 150 pm ? Or to understand that's really really really really tiny. 

So I decided to make a series of questions and asses the ideas they were arriving with (this questions were hidden in a surprise test to make sure they remembered the key concepts we studied last semester). 

First question was "All atoms are the same size" True or False

And besides answering  true or false they had to answer: a) I'm sure of my answer b) I'm not sure c) I have no idea. Why? Because I wanted to asses the confidence they had for answering this kind of statements.

The results were the following:

• Of 47 students 13 (27.6%) said it was true and 34 (72.3%) false. So that means most of them get a sense that more electrons mean more size. I believe that's a reasonable. Then how to explain the minority? Well I believe we spend so much time telling them most of the size is in the nucleus that they start to think... "well if the electron has almost no mass it shouldn't affect size" though I don't know why they think protons don't affect that much either. 
• I teach two groups, first group only 4 girls said it was true so in the other group it was the double that thought all atoms were the same size. 
• First group: of the four persons that thought all atoms were the same size 3 said they were sure of their answer the other one not so sure. 
• Second group: 4 said they were sure all atoms were the same size 5 said they weren't sure.
• From the 34 that answered "false" we can forget 7 that said they didn't know the answer so they just guessed, that leaves 27 (16 from group one 11 from group 2) roughly half of them in both groups said they were sure of their answer

Second question was "How would you explain the size of an atom?" They were a little baffled by it but when they got tired of me not giving them any clues about how to address the question they started writing.

The most interesting answers from the first group were:

Student 1: I think an atom is the size of a marble divided in five

Student 2: Like when you are looking at the window and there's light coming from it and you can see the dust in the air. I believe that's kind of the size of an atom

Student 3: We could say an atom is a million time smaller than the tip of a pencil

Student 4: I think the size of an atom can be compared to the fourth part of a lemon

Student 5: The thousandth part of a rheum

Student 6: Anything divided in a million parts

Student 7: The hundredth part of a grain of sand

Student 8: The millionth part of a centimeter

Student 9: The thousandth part of dust

Student 10: The size of an atom is 1x10-18 mol of the size of a cat

Student 11: Fifteen times smaller than a cell

Student 12: Thousandth part of an ant

Student 13: It depends on what it is made of

Student 14: Too small to see it at plain sight

Second group most of the answers were:

- Depends on how many protons, electrons and neutrons it has

- Depends on the kind of element or material

- They are just so small you can't see them

- The smallest thing that can exist

Not a single one of them made an analogy

I'm just so surprised at how different both groups reacted to the question. First group was so imaginative even if their answers were wrong, on the other hand the other group is like they understood the question in a completely different way (I have a feeling that there's a research topic in here)

And even though second group seemed to get better at least what it takes to have atoms of different sizes truth is first group had more girls with the correct answer. Still all this analysis gives us enough information to know what ideas they are bringing and now we can work from them in order to get to a better idea of how small is the atom.

Next post will deal with teaching how small is the atom, and how to help them grasp big numbers and small numbers and a version of "Avogadro goes to court" for middle school students.

Greatest misconception of the week: Mol is a measure of the size of an atom (more on that later)

Comment if you have any thoughts about this post and thanks for reading :)

Losing touch with the subject you are teaching

I often wonder about the teacher's that have been doing it for their whole careers, how do they keep in touch?. Yes, they are excellent teachers, yes they studied their majors and ever since they have taken probably a couple of courses in pedagogy but what about the science they are teaching how do they keep in touch?

I begun to question this after one of my courses this semester. The subject was called "Structure of Matter" and it was kind of hybrid between studying yes structure of matter but also an introduction to theoretical calculations and all that stuff. The twist here was a great deal of the semester was about the concept of bonds and bonding, and how we are supposed to create a broader definition for bonding (I thought those kind of discussions only existed for things like the definition of life) 

That was like an eye opener for me. Of course I knew science is not a finished thing, everyday hundreds of chemistry articles are published with new findings, but those things we see as changes in academia are not so perceptible for the people outside. In the end the great definitions the ones we have to teach middle schoolers have not changed in a while so why bother? But what would happen if definitions like the ones we have for bonds were to change ? How would we explain it to science teachers around the world about it? And how easy would be for them to truly understand those changes if the haven't been in touch with the field in a while?

If we were to change the definition of bond for example to the way Vader proposed it (I know there a lot of people that disagree or agree with it) would it be worth it to inform science teachers about it ? Or it would be preferable to keep the centurial definitions alive and teach the new ones only to chem undergrads even if it carries a lot of misconceptions with it?

I finally decided that instead of pursuing a PhD in Chemistry I will be doing one in science education in order to focus in chemistry education towards kids and middle schoolers. But one of the things that scares me is losing touch with the field, forgetting this side of me, the organic researcher. 

I'm not changing because I don't love organic chemistry.  I do love it ! I enjoy it so it hurts me a little bit to take this decision. And the idea of losing touch with the feel really scares me.

Will it be my responsibility as educator to keep in touch with the field ? Or researchers will need to find a way to keep in touch with me?

I do believe things like twitter or keep reading the blogs I read will be part of the answer.

I would love to read your thoughts about it. Thank you for reading !!!
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I wrote this post throughout the week I just wanted to make an additional comment regarding the discussion we had on twitter (@Chemjobber @sciencegeist @JessTheChemist @TheCollapsedPsi) that started with @deborahblum 's blog post http://t.co/2neu7gghht  about the chemical spill in West Virginia. I plan to do a post about teaching values in the science classroom (and I think this situation gives a good start for having that kind of discussion) but I think it's very important that we realize saying "we don't know the effects this chemical will have on the environment" won't help #chemophobia. And how to have this kind of discussion about #chemophobia in the classroom?

I usually try for every subject I teach to relate to something in their everyday lives so they see chemistry is useful for anything but should we mention chemophobia or as  @sciencegeist said is better to not label it and teaching chemistry adequately will be enough? 

Why are you here?

Three months ago a friend called me with a job offer. He worked in a school, and suddenly in the middle of the semester this little middle school was in the need of a Chemistry teacher. He knew I had zero experience but still he said he had a feeling I would be good at it, so I went to the interview.

During the interview the headmistress was not only surprised by my age but by the fact that I looked so young (common joke in the teacher's lounge is that I could pass as a student) It was the month of October and her first question was:

- When did you gradaute?

- May

- May? Like in last May? Like 5 months ago May?

- Yes

- And your teaching experience is..?

- Zero

- So why are you here?

Why was I there? That was a fair question, I was recently graduated, with zero experience and I was doing a master in organic chemistry that relied heavily on research. My background was way off. I only knew a few things. I knew I hated chemophobia, I hated the way news talk about science and I hate when someone says "ugh chemistry it's horrible" or "it's only for super smart people. 

So why was I there? Because science specially chemistry is beautiful, because we need scientific literacy among non scientific people and because I felt I could do something about it. So my answer was: Because my lack of experience is my best asset, I'll bring fresh ideas to the table for everytime I step into that classroom. My age is an advantage because I'll get my students, and my masters only shows I love chemistry and I'm prepared to show them they can love it too.

Yes I know what you are thinking what amount of change could I do in a little middle school? I know it's only a small start but if this 50 girls I'm teaching become literate in science they'll be 50 more scientifically literate persons in the world. It's a start isn't it?

So that's why I'm here writing this blog, to tell my adventures in teacherland as I show them the world of chemistry. It's a brave new world for me where I'll rant, or question or ask, and I hope someone reads this to know their opinion. My goal is to achieve a balance between the hard scientist I've been and the humanist inside me that decides to focus on education.

Wish me luck,

PVR