Teaching Strategies

Topic Strategy Title Description
Estimate the Answer

Use the units to check that they’ve actually done the right calculation.  The other thing is when they’ve got the mole concept and they’re applying it, try to get students to do an estimation of the answer.  So are they estimating something that’s very large? For example, if they need to know...

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Revisit to Reinforce

This concept is something that needs to be reinforced. It’s not that you taught it in this unit for three weeks, we are over it. It’s something that keeps coming back, and you can possibly reintroduce it, with not much change to your teaching. Not every single time, but every now and then remind...

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Always Balance Equations

If you teach a course that then goes on to other things like equilibrium, electrochemistry, intermolecular forces etc, make sure that all your equations are balanced. Because it can get very lazy, especially when you’re doing organic chemistry, you don’t bother balancing anything. Coming back to...

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Tailor Your Teaching to the Group

First identify students' perceptions using a pre-test, then you know how to tailor your teaching. Don’t assume that every group is the same.

Visible Limiting Reagents #2

In some practical demonstrations it is very simple to see which reagent is limiting, for example if one of the reactants is liquid and you add just a tiny little bit of salt to it. Just from looking at it, which one do you think will be the limiting reagent here? We have 20ml of A, and we’re...

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