My Love/Hate relationship with SBG
This is my second year using standards based grading as part of my classes. Standards based grading (SBG) can an incredibly useful framework. However a mastery approach to SBG can … Continue reading
First Stop Pennsylvania – Chem Standards Road Trip
Moving out from my school the first set of standards I will encounter are those in Pennsylvania. In writing their standards, Pennsylvania has sought to demonstrate cross cutting content by … Continue reading
The Chemistry Standards Road Trip
The Next Generation Science Standards have been an ongoing discussion in my department meetings. For chemistry teachers, these standards seem really incomplete. While biology is seemingly kept whole, much of … Continue reading
The Red-headed Stepchild of Science
Chemistry is perhaps the most abstract course students will have to take in their lives. In biology, students can see cells and dissect frogs, and just have to compare the … Continue reading
Why the print-plus model of textbooks is a deadend.
While digital textbook resources have been around for years, the expansion of tablets and mobile devices in the market place have made them more practical. However, we still live in … Continue reading
Cronkite on the Future in 1967
While meandering the internet this morning, I stumbled upon this article showing Walter Cronkite in 1967 telling us what a kitchen would look like in 2001. He talks about how … Continue reading
A failure to launch, MOOC Edition
So I was in the Fundamentals of Online Education Coursera Class. It was sad to see it fail as their technology planning didn’t scale. But it does beg the question, … Continue reading
Is our current introduction of the mole counterintuitive?
So once again, I stare into the blank eyes of a student who is wondering how can the mole tell us mass and number. For a minute lets take the … Continue reading
The year might be linear but Chemistry isn’t.
I took a break from grading this afternoon to work on my next blog post. Here’s a remapping of my chemistry course based on relationships instead of the time line. … Continue reading
The Tragedy of an Analog Book in the Digital Realm
I was lucky enough to start working on a digital textbook prototype last summer with some grant money. While based in using iBook author from Apple, I have found ways … Continue reading
