Adrian Dingle’s Chemistry Pages - The Blog

AP summer assignments reveal a fundamental flaw

I continue to hear about an increasing number of students that are being asked to complete summer assignments in advance of the school year in order to “prepare” for their AP classes in the fall. It appears that one of two things is driving this. Either there is a lack of competence, confidence or organization amongst the teachers that are delivering the AP classes meaning they feel they need more time than is allocated to them during the school year, or school administrations are simply failing to allocate sufficient time for the AP class to be taught. Either way, asking students to use what is supposed to be vacation time to do school work bothers me on several levels.

Firstly where does it all end? Do we start teaching after school, during lunch periods, Saturday mornings? Why not have the kids come and live at the school or perhaps in a tent at the bottom of the teachers garden? They’d probably do better with all that extra study! Secondly it can set a dangerous precendent. I hear plenty of teachers say, “Well, I love teaching the students and I don’t mind giving up my free time to do it”. Fair enough, that’s their decision, but it can force other teachers into similar situations where this persistent use of personal time becomes the expected norm. In this situation teachers that don’t want to give up their free time can be taken advantage of. It’s potentially the top of a very slippery slope. How many other professionals give up as much, unpaid free time as it is, let alone more and more?

I feel there is a real problem with asking the students to do school work during vacation time. It is NOT serving them and it is revealing a broken system of learning. If there is insufficient time in the school year to teach the AP course, then don’t offer it. By agreeing to work all these “extra” hours teachers it can be argued that teachers are undermining the profession and potentially damaging their students.

Radio program about isomers

Here’s a link to a very nice radio program from the BBC on isomers. Worth a listen, but be quick, I doubt that the link will be around for long.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/pip/07juu/?focuswin

2006 AP Scores for my classes

First off congratulations to everyone. Under any circumstances these are a very nice set of scores. Taking a deeper look we see that the average score of 4.79 is pretty much in line with what we have seen over the previous four years. The averages in ‘05, ‘04, ‘03 and ‘02 were 4.73, 4.59, 4.83 and 4.69 respectively. This means that over the last five years my classes have scored 120 five’s, 35 four’s, 2 three’s and 1 two, with an average score of 4.73 - not bad over a sustained five year period that includes a pretty diverse group of 158 students. It’s worth noting that the overwhelming majority of these students are sophomores who have had NO prior chemistry course. That makes this group a VERY select bunch indeed, and highlights the extent of their achievements.

Full data can be seen here; http://www.adriandingleschemistrypages.com/apresultsthrough2006.pdf

New Equation writing: Does balancing and removal of choice signal a real change?

Having now got official word and examples from the test committee (thank you!!!!!), I am delighted to be able to move on to more positive thinking about the new question #4. I am curious about the new requirement to balance. The way I see it is this; I think that this may eliminate (or at least make very difficult) several equations from the (traditional) list. For example I think students will find it VERY difficult to do meaningful balancing of many complex redox reactions. Consider complex redox reactions that involve hydrogen peroxide, disproportionation, non-metal halides in water and it even puts organic combustion reactions in a slightly different light (previously a guaranteed 2 out of 3 points, now not so quick). Even things that are very common like the use of dichromate (VI) and manganate (VII) in redox chemistry that are relatively easy to balance will take on a whole new light for some kids. I think what I am trying to say is that the balancing of many of the traditional equations in question #4 will be beyond many students. It so happens that the 2006 set do not really reflect this concern as most of them are equations that do not fit into this “difficult to balance” category. I think this may be a window into the future - I guess we’ll see! In addition, with the removal of choice I feel we are bound to see a trimming of the traditional list to a more manageable set of “traditionally asked” equations.

New AP exam format for ‘07 - FINALLY, some detail on equation writing from the CB!

We’ve all known for sometime that there are going to be a few changes to the 2007 AP exam. Some of these changes are subtle and minor, but the change to the equation writing section is profound and needed clarification. The College Board decided to release the announcement of change, but then did not simultaneously give specimen material in order to help teachers prepare. For several weeks there has been some animated discussion in various internet discussion groups, with teachers expressing their deep concern at the apparent disconnect between the groups involved. This all culminated in some pointed questions being asked at the AP National Conference in Orlando this past week. I have heard from several delegates who informed me that, according to the test development committee, the specimen material was prepared weeks (if not months) ago and for some reason it had not been released. Well, after pressure from many concerned teachers at the conference, yesterday it FINALLY appeared. You can view it here (you need to register at AP central to be able to read the article); http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/members/article/1,3046,151-165-0-52321,00.html.

This is LONG overdue and has highlighted an apparent schism between the interested parties. It’s incomprehensible to me as to why an announcement of the new equation writing format would not SIMULTANEOUSLY be accompanied by the specimen material. The very second that the words “new format” were uttered, teachers were saying, “please give us examples”. I would have thought that it would have been very easy to predict that scenario and the ambiguity and confusion that naturally arose would have been easy to avoid. It’s the kind of ambiguity I am trying to avoid with my students all the time!

Anyway, we’re all now satisfied at “Official” widespread word and thanks to Eleanor Siebert for her insight and for getting this finally published and in the formal public domain.

A book update

I’ve got around 4000 of the 8000 words done, and the rest should be finished by the middle of August. Once they are written, then it’s over to the editor and publisher for the final processing. I have no idea how long that will take, but I would not be surprised if it were anything but a slow process. Things seem to take a long time in the publishing world. Anyway, I’m still excited at the prospect so I can be a little more patient.

Researching & Writing a book

I am in the process of researching and writing a book. The book is not going to be an academic tome, but rather a layman’s guide to the elements. It is aimed at high school kids with an interest in chemistry (but not as a textbook) and at other people that would like to know a little more about some of the more common elements. We are hoping to bring some character to each element with colorful illustrations and descriptions.

This is my first attempt at this sort of thing, and as I expected it is pretty hard work. The research is very time consuming and the writing is tricky in as much as each word needs careful scrutiny. Having spent so much time on each sentence it can be discouraging to have my original prose butchered by the editor! I almost feel like one of my student’s that gets their work graded by me with red ink all over it after they have spent such a long time working on their problems! It can be a bit discouraging in say the least. I guess it’s a big learning curve.

The plan is to have it published in the UK and the US. I’ll update progress on the blog from time to time.

Welcome to The Blog @ Adrian Dingle’s Chemistry Pages

Welcome to “The Blog” here at Adrian Dingle’s Chemistry Pages. In this blog I am going to be sounding off about all things related to my professional activities, that is, all things related to teaching AP and College Prep High School Chemistry in the USA.

Hopefully it will be entertaining, informative and something that you will want to read and contribute to - if not, that doesn’t matter too much as I’ll be using The Blog to record my deepest, inner thoughts about teaching High School Chemistry, and most of the time just to rant!

If you would like to join in and comment then you’ll need to register (simply giving an email address) and then you’ll be able to comment. I will be moderating as I see fit.

Anyway, this is all very exciting for me, get ready for a stream of consciousness.