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Teaching Tips for AP Chemistry
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| | The following suggestions are taken from the Teacher's Guide -- AP Chemistry.
- Work through problems on the chalkboard. A highly effective strategy for working through problems is to have volunteer students put some of the more difficult problems on the chalkboard; if four or five students are at the chalkboard at one time, then a large number of problems can be quickly gone through and checked. An additional advantage to this strategy is that it allows you to make comments on the presentation of each student's work, an important area in which students need training.
- Encourage students to form study groups. Perhaps one of the most effective teaching strategies is to encourage students to form study groups. Study groups allow study and preparation to become a social activity and enable students to learn by both helping and being helped by others. Experience has shown that those students who have a network of social and study contacts within the class are much more successful than those students who try to "go it alone."
- Provide regularly scheduled laboratory time. It is recommended that students have regularly scheduled time for laboratory work and that it be assigned at least once every week. In order to make the best use of lab time, you may want to give students a pre-lab assignment that will familiarize them with required theory and techniques so that they will be ready to begin the lab as soon as the class period starts.
- Teach lab safety. Lab safety is an important part of all good chemistry courses and should be taught as such. Spend some time on lab safety at the beginning of the course: establish rules, demonstrate correct methods of handling chemicals and equipment, and go over the procedures students should follow should an accident occur.
- Observe hazardous waste regulations. There are laws regarding the correct disposal of chemicals, and many laws concerning the disposal of heavy metals are particularly rigid. Before selecting a lab, consider toxicity and disposal and decide whether an alternative lab without toxic chemicals can illustrate a concept just as well.
- Use technology. Although it is sometimes time-consuming to become familiar with the technology, students generally embrace it enthusiastically. Take care, however, to keep the course's focus on chemical principles and not on the use of technology. Technological advances that produce lab simulations should not be used as a replacement for lab work itself.
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