There is already so much to memorize in chemistry. Element names and symbols. Periodic trends. Solubility rules. Strong acids and bases. The endless vocabulary that comes with learning an entirely new subject. I don’t think students need to add a giant chart of polyatomic ions to that list.

There Are Too Many Polyatomic Ions to Memorize

There are thousands of polyatomic ions. Obviously, we’re not teaching students thousands of them, but even the standard classroom list can get pretty long. And yes, there are some polyatomic ions that show up all the time in high school chemistry: nitrate, sulfate, carbonate, hydroxide, phosphate, ammonium, and a handful of others. I want to focus on those, and those alone.

They’ll Memorize the Important Ones Anyway

Here’s the thing: because they show up all the time, students tend to memorize them anyway. They just do it accidentally.

A student who has named calcium nitrate, written the formula for aluminum sulfate, balanced a reaction involving sodium hydroxide, and then encountered nitrate again during an acids and bases unit probably doesn’t need a separate memorization assignment to learn that nitrate is NO₃⁻. They’ve seen it 47 times. At some point, it sticks.

And I’d rather that memorization happen naturally through repeated use than make students spend an evening drilling a list before they even understand why these ions matter.

Give Them a Polyatomic Ion Chart

When we’re working on ionic bonding and nomenclature, I let students use a polyatomic ion reference chart. In fact, I have my students glue a chart down in the back of their interactive notebooks. Their job isn’t to memorize the chart. Their job is to recognize when they need it and know how to use it.

One little saying I used constantly when teaching nomenclature was: “When there are three capital letters, look for a poly.” If students saw something like NaNO₃ or CaCO₃, those three capital letters were a clue that they should stop trying to treat every element separately and check their polyatomic ion chart. As long as we weren’t talking about organic chemistry, that little rule worked surprisingly well. (Remember, they are polyatomic IONS so they shouldn’t even show up in organic molecules!)

It’s not a perfect scientific law, obviously. It’s a classroom shortcut. But it helped students recognize the structure of the compounds they were naming instead of relying entirely on memorization.

Practice Builds the Memory

By the time students make it through bonding and nomenclature, chemical reactions, and acids and bases, they’ve encountered the most common polyatomic ions over and over again. Nitrate starts looking like nitrate. Sulfate starts looking like sulfate. Hydroxide becomes nearly impossible to forget. And that’s exactly the kind of memorization I want! Memorization that comes from familiarity and use.

I’d rather spend my limited classroom time teaching students how to identify polyatomic ions, use a reference table correctly, and apply nomenclature rules than testing whether they can reproduce a list from memory. Chemistry already asks students to remember plenty. Polyatomic ions don’t need to be one more thing.

The post Should Students Memorize Polyatomic Ions? appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

In my chemistry scope and sequence, National Chemistry Week usually falls somewhere around the periodic table. Moles don’t show up until much later in the year. So while there are approximately one million adorable mole-themed activities out there, I need National Chemistry Week activities that my students can actually DO in October.

You can decorate the room. Make your normal practice a little more fun. Give your students an excuse to move around. Throw in a ridiculous chemistry demo. Basically, let chemistry feel a little special for a week without losing five instructional days in the process. Here are some of my favorite ways to do it!

Decorate Your Room for National Chemistry Week

This is probably the easiest one. Decorate!

You don’t have to go crazy here. Print some chemistry memes. Hang up chemistry jokes. Throw a periodic table tablecloth over something. Put some ridiculous chemistry puns on the board. No matter how you decorate, your students will love it. Hang this National Chemistry Week Banner I created (get it for free!)

You can also get your students involved! Give each student an element and have them make a little poster about it. Hang them around the room for the week and suddenly your National Chemistry Week decorations doubled as a periodic table activity. And if you’re around the periodic table in your curriculum right now too, check out my ideas for helping chemistry students learn their element names and symbols. This is a great week to sneak in some extra element practice without making it feel like extra work.

Lean into the Chemistry Theme

You know that ridiculous chemistry shirt your second cousin bought you for Christmas because you’re “the chemistry person” in the family? This is its moment. Wear the chemistry shirt. Drink your coffee out of the periodic table mug. Put chemistry jokes on the board.

This is the time to break out your nerdy attire. National Chemistry Week is supposed to be FUN. In fact, I wrote an entire post about why I think chemistry is the MOST fun science, and National Chemistry Week is a pretty good time to prove it.

We all know that scientists are some of the smartest people around (insert hair flip).  All of that time in the lab gives scientists insights into patience and human nature that nobody else is lucky enough to receive.  The lessons that can be taught from just a sentence or two of their wisdom can really change a kid’s perspective. The quotes you choose can be super deep, or somewhat superficial.  You can target specific quotes for your students knowing their individual strengths and struggles. I like to have my students interpret these quotes, or put them in their own words for my Do Now assignment.  The bell ringers don’t have to be all chemistry all the time. Our job is to teach them, which will sometimes include teaching life lessons. 

Turn your worksheets into activities

Worksheets are boring – we all know it.  Turn everything you can into a game for the week and see how excited your students are for chemistry class!  This will work for whatever you are teaching in chemistry – you don’t have to adjust your content at all!

• Cut a worksheet into pieces and paste on the wall as a gallery walk.
• Print one copy of a worksheet per row or table, and have them pass the paper down the row in a race.  First team to finish the paper wins a prize (it can be as simple as a sticker or a high five, or maybe a HW pass if you’re feeling generous)
• Get your students up and moving with a Chem Quest, where they follow a question and answer trail around your classroom.
• Create a card sort (I have a few in my store if you want to check them out): Have students physically sort cards into groups. Read more about how I use card sorts in this post.
  • Physical or Chemical Property
  • Ionic or Covalent
  • Atom or Ion (get that one for free by clicking here)
  • Saturated or Unsaturated
  • Acid or Base
• Use the Magic Answer Checker and paired games to turn any worksheet you already have into a self assessment game!

Make Your Normal Chemistry Content Feel Like an Event

This is also a great week to pull out something a little more interactive. Pixel arts, escape rooms, review games, and Chemistry Mysteries can all take the content you’re already teaching and make it feel like something different.

And if you’re around the same place in the school year that I usually am, a Periodic Table Trends Chemistry Mystery is basically perfect for National Chemistry Week. Students are still practicing ionization energy, electronegativity, atomic radius, nuclear charge, and shielding. They’re just using their answers to uncover clues and solve a mystery instead of completing another worksheet. I have a whole collection of Chemistry Mysteries covering different topics, so you can pick one that actually matches wherever you happen to be in your curriculum.

That’s really the goal here. You don’t need to teach something completely random just because it’s National Chemistry Week. Take what you’re already teaching and make it a little more memorable.

Allow Yourself to Go Off-Schedule

Okay, all of that being said, you can also just do something fun. Slime may have absolutely nothing to do with the periodic table lesson you taught yesterday. But that’s fine because IT’S NATIONAL CHEMISTRY WEEK! (Imagine me waving my arms in excitement like Kermit the Frog when you read that.)

Make slime. Tie-dye something. Make elephant toothpaste. Pull out one of those chemistry demonstrations you love but can never quite justify fitting into the curriculum.

You can certainly connect these activities back to chemistry concepts today, or at some point in the future (my vote). You can take today and just make it fun for the sake of fun. There are plenty of days during the school year when we’re worried about standards, pacing, testing, and getting through the curriculum. National Chemistry Week can be one of the days when chemistry gets to be cool just because chemistry is cool.

National Chemistry Week Doesn’t Have to Throw a Wrench in Your Plans

You don’t need five elaborate National Chemistry Week lesson plans. And you certainly don’t need to suddenly teach the mole in October because the calendar says October 23rd is Mole Day. Hang up some decorations. Wear the ridiculous chemistry shirt. Turn the worksheet you were already planning to give into a gallery walk. Let your students solve a Chemistry Mystery. Do your favorite demo.

The point is just to let chemistry feel a little special for a week. Especially by October, when the back-to-school sparkle has worn off for you AND your students, a little change of pace can go a long way.

The post 5 Fun and Easy National Chemistry Week Activities appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

Grading

Grading in my chemistry class usually is something like this. 50-70% of the overall grade comes from tests and quizzes (yeesh!), 20% to labs, and whatever is leftover goes to homework, classwork, vocabulary assignments and everything else.  I’ve never been in charge of my grading scale. It’s always been determined by the school and I’m directed to adhere to it. That’s not a huge issue for me. 

The big thing is that my students’ grades VERY HEAVILY rely on their test/quiz scores. My course is 16 units, now with the addition of light. So they’ll get 16 unit tests, 16 vocabulary quizzes, and maybe 1 or 2 quizzes throughout the year. (I’m really not a quiz giver. I think they take too much time, and they annoy me.) This boils down to 4 assessments on average per marking period. So each test is over 10% of their report card grade. And that can really make or break a student’s grade. 

Don’t Let Students be Crushed by Chemistry

Over the years, I’ve developed a few ways to balance rigor and support in chemistry that give students second chances, keep them motivated, and still hold them accountable.

Unlimited Test Retakes

This is really my way of getting out of test corrections. I hate them. I hate the idea of giving back half credit on a TEST when students take the work home and can get anybody to help them with their test. It really just never sat right with me, especially when at least half of the report card grade was based on tests. I mean, when I was a student, turning a 93 into a 96.5 just didn’t seem like it was worth the time or effort. They’re both As so what’s really the difference? Repeat that over a few kids and now you’ve lost the plot. 

Now a test retake allows the student to sit ALONE with a test, in the same environment and give it another go. Maybe they just needed two more days to REALLY understand the content. Maybe they missed a few lessons because they were sick. Or the worst situation, they couldn’t keep up because they just got dumped! There’s tons of reasons why a student bombs a test when they really shouldn’t. 

After accumulating a few different versions of my tests, this was easy to do. During lunch or after school, students could stay with me and take a second test. I actually allowed UNLIMITED test retakes. And in my experience, there aren’t many kids who WANT to take chemistry tests, so it rarely happens once let alone twice. It made it SUPER easy for me to talk to parents about their kids’ failing grades. “Johnny didn’t take me up on the opportunity to retake ANY of the tests this quarter…” 

My rules are: 

• unlimited test retakes within a marking period, once the marking period ends, all tests are closed
• you must submit a “test retake” form for each retake
• tests are done by appointment and at MY convenience
• tests must be done in my classroom under my watch

Pretty straightforward and easy to follow. Especially because every school I’ve worked at required I stay late at least once a week to give my students extra time with me if needed. 

Scoring Test Retakes

Since all students have this opportunity, I see no reason to average the scores together. I simply replace the old score with the new one. In the case that the new score is lower than the old one, the student needs to wait some amount of time, usually a week or so, to study some more, or maybe come to some extra help sessions after school before taking the test again. I know a lot of teachers like the idea of averaging.

I see as retaking a “real life” test. SAT, Driver’s License, etc. These tests just replace the score. Plus if students have a rough day, have the flu and missed a bunch of school, or some other temporary wrench in their life, I’d want them to have a fresh slate. It’s no difference to me if they needed any extra 5 days to learn the content and perform well.

Extra Credit

In my classes I give out, “Chemistry Coins.” They’re just little pieces of paper I’ve laminated and give out to students for anything I want to reinforce. That can be great questions asked, helping me with some tasks, arriving to class on time – really anything I’m looking to get my students to do more of. I have them at 1 and 5 point values. You can get them for free right here. 

If you don’t plan on laminating them, I suggest you sign them when you give them out to your students. This way you know that YOU gave this chem coin to a particular student. 

My students are allowed to use their Chem Coins on their tests, up to 20 points per assessment. They are not allowed to be used on quizzes. This to me, is a great way to get my students to participate in chemistry class. I give everyone a point for Valentine’s Day and Christmas. It’s usually pretty easy to get Chem Coins in my class. And adding 3 or 4 points to a test is really just a question or two. It doesn’t dramatically change their scores in the class, and it helps to keep behavior in line and keep students motivated. 

Now one year there was a strong black market of Chem Coins, so that’s something to be aware of. I had one student in particular renting out his headphones for Chem Coins. But I wasn’t going to let him ruin it for all of us!

Lifelines on Tests

I use this strategy especially on the Stoichiometry test since it’s so tough. I will at random decide that my students are allowed to do one of the following things during a test. 

• talk to a neighbor
• use their notes
• ask me a question out loud which I will answer for the the whole class

Really this is something that I will let my class work towards. If they have excellent behavior and everyone is turning in assignments, I’ll give them a “lifeline.” I’ll announce, “for the next 5  minutes, you may use your notebook, and only your notebook, to help you.” This helps me to create a good culture in my classroom, and gives my students a little confidence boost through a tough test. 

Group Quizzes

I know I said I don’t like quizzes. Usually when a class is consistently on my nerves, I’ll change a classwork assignment to a quiz grade. Sometimes it’ll be a real quiz. Other times, the timing of the calendar would have forced me to give a test coming back from a long break, so I’ll break the unit up and do a quiz before the break and a test a few days after returning. Either way, students don’t love the circumstance.

In these cases, SOMETIMES, I’ll let them work together for the quiz. The rules change depending on a few factors, but here’s the jist.

• Students work silently with a partner
• Students can work aloud with a partner
• Students can work in any way they choose, but it can only be their brainpower. If they want to come together as a whole class and use the board, that‘s up to them. I stay out of it. 
• Sometimes I’ll do the above, but sit there as a “student” and work with them. 

Making Chemistry Feel Possible

At the end of the day, my goal isn’t to make chemistry easy. It’s to make it possible. I want my students to feel like they have a fair shot, even when the material is tough. These strategies, retakes, Chem Coins, lifelines, and the occasional group quiz, are just a few ways to balance rigor and support in chemistry. They keep expectations high and give students a little breathing room while being authentically challenged in chemistry. Chemistry may always be hard, but with the right supports, my students learn that hard doesn’t mean impossible.

The post Balancing Rigor and Grace in the Chemistry Classroom appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

Sometimes, turning an activity into a teacher demonstration and having students complete a mini lab report based on their observations is the better instructional choice. You can still ask students to make predictions, record data, analyze results, and draw conclusions without putting a set of chemicals and equipment at every lab station.

So how do you decide? Here are the biggest things I consider when choosing between a full student lab and a teacher demonstration.

How Much Time Do You Have?

Student labs take time. And I’m not just talking about the actual procedure. You have to distribute materials, explain the setup, get everyone into groups, answer the same question at six different lab tables, clean everything up, and inevitably deal with the group that is somehow still on Step 3 when everyone else is washing their glassware.

Rinse and repeat for the rest of your classes for the day. 

A 10-minute procedure can easily consume most of a class period. If students need the hands-on experience, that time is absolutely worth it. But sometimes the goal of the activity is simply for students to observe a chemical phenomenon and interpret what happened.

In that case, a teacher demo can be much more efficient. You might be able to complete the experiment in 10 minutes, then give students another 10-15 minutes to finish a mini lab report. They still practice making observations, analyzing evidence, and connecting what they saw to chemistry concepts, but you haven’t sacrificed an entire class period.

How Much Material Will the Lab Use?

This is a BIG one in chemistry! Especially if you’re working in a non-lab room. 

A demonstration performed once at the front of the room might require 10 mL of a solution. Turn that same procedure into a lab for eight groups and suddenly you’re preparing 80 mL, plus extra because someone will spill something, contaminate a dropper, or enthusiastically pour four times as much as they were supposed to. Again, rinse and repeat for the rest of your classes for the day.

For inexpensive materials, that might not matter. For expensive chemicals, specialized equipment, or materials that are annoying to prepare, it absolutely does matter. Before turning an experiment into a student lab, ask yourself whether students actually gain something important from physically performing the procedure with their own hands. 

If the learning comes primarily from what happens, rather than from doing the technique, a demonstration may make more sense.

How Safe Is the Procedure?

Obviously, safety should always be a consideration in the chemistry classroom. There are plenty of experiments that can be performed safely by a trained chemistry teacher but become significantly riskier when 30 teenagers are performing them simultaneously.

Consider things like:

• Open flames or high temperatures
• Concentrated acids or bases
• Toxic or irritating chemicals
• Side reactions that may occur in a waste beaker
• Reactions that produce fumes
• Pressurized systems
• Procedures requiring especially careful handling
• Reactions that can become dangerous if students use the wrong quantity

This doesn’t mean students should never work with anything more dangerous than baking soda. Part of learning chemistry is learning to work safely in a laboratory. But the risk needs to be justified by the educational benefit.

If students need practice using a Bunsen burner, then using the burner themselves matters. If the burner is simply being used to heat something so students can observe the resulting reaction, they may not need to be the ones holding it. Or maybe a swap to a hot plate is better! There are times when the correct answer for safety is a lab procedure modification, and times where it’s best for the teacher to do the demo.

There are times where even I don’t like the materials a lab requires for safety reason. (I’m thinking about the classic: Group 1 Reactivity Trend.) YouTube videos are also an amazing alternative to traditional labs or even demos when the materials call for it.

Is the Lab Teaching a Skill or Demonstrating a Concept?

This may be the most important question. Some labs are valuable because students need to learn how to do something: light a burner, tare a balance, filter a mixture, create a standard, run multiple trials, read a burette… the list goes on. Those should usually be student labs. 

Other labs are valuable because students need to see something happen. Maybe you’re demonstrating conservation of mass, showing an especially dramatic reaction, comparing reaction rates, or giving students evidence they will use to identify an unknown. In those cases, physically pouring the chemicals themselves may add very little to the learning objective. That’s a great opportunity for a demonstration.

How Complicated Is the Setup and Cleanup?

Sometimes a lab isn’t difficult for students at all. It’s difficult for you. If a student lab requires you to prepare eight identical setups, label dozens of containers, portion chemicals, organize specialized equipment, and then clean everything afterward, consider whether that preparation is worth the instructional payoff.

One teacher demonstration might give students almost the exact same academic experience with a fraction of the prep. And teacher time counts, too. You don’t earn bonus points for spending your entire planning period filling 32 tiny cups with 2 grams of the same chemical when one demonstration would accomplish your objective just as effectively.

Now at some point, taking on a TA, might save you the time and give you an opportunity to turn demos into labs. I’ve never had that privilege, but it’s something to consider! 

Making Teacher Demos More Than a Show

The biggest danger with teacher demonstrations is allowing students to become passive observers. Don’t just say, “Watch this!” Give them something to do with what they’re watching.

I like the idea of having students complete a mini lab report. Depending on the experiment, students might record:

Purpose or Question: What are we trying to determine, observe or learn?

Prediction: What do you think will happen?

Observations/Data: What did you actually see?

Analysis: What does the evidence tell us?

Conclusion: How does this demonstration connect to the chemistry concept we’re studying?

You can even have students create a data table before the demonstration or require them to sketch the setup. Now the demonstration isn’t just entertainment. Students are still practicing scientific thinking without every student physically conducting the experiment. You get to be your student’s lab partner!

You Need Both

Student labs and teacher demonstrations don’t have to compete with each other. Students absolutely need hands-on laboratory experience in chemistry. They need to learn how to measure, manipulate equipment, follow procedures, troubleshoot mistakes, work safely, and collect their own data.

But hands-on doesn’t automatically mean better. Sometimes the best use of a class period is letting students perform the experiment themselves. Other times, the safest, fastest, cheapest, and most effective option is to perform the experiment once and let students focus on analyzing what happened.

The real question you need to ask yourself is: “what do my students actually need to get out of this experience?” Once you know the answer to that, deciding between a student lab and a teacher demo becomes a whole lot easier.

PS: If you need it, I have two free lists of demos that I like to use in my classroom. Here’s some for Intermolecular Forces, and a list for Kinetics & Equilibrium.

The post Student Lab or Teacher Demo? How to Decide Which Is Right for Your Chemistry Class appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

One of the biggest frustrations teachers experience is this: You teach a concept in October, your students do well on the test, and you move on. Then April rolls around… and it’s like they’ve never seen the concept before. (I’m talking about YOU, Significant Figures!)If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. This happens because students forget content that they don’t revisit regularly. When learning is concentrated in one unit and never practiced again, it’s easy for information to fade from memory. That’s why spiral review is one of the most powerful strategies you can build into your classroom.

What is spiral review?

Spiral review is taking intentional time to review old content by cycling it through your current content multiple times. It is usually the things that your students already understand but may need a refresher on.  You don’t want these things to become things that your students will need to be retaught.  Spiral review is typically student centered.  The biggest benefit of spiral reviews is that bringing up this material up again and again helps to force the content into long term memory.  You can get a free copy of my list of spiral review strategies here.  It’s a great thing to keep at your desk as you write your lesson plans.

Why Spiral Review Works

When students revisit information after time has passed, they have to actively retrieve that knowledge from their brain. Just the EFFORT of that strengthens memory. Those concepts have an easier time sticking around long term. You really want this happening every day in chemistry class considering its cumulative nature. Here’s the nuts and bolts:

• It helps with retention. Students are less likely to forget concepts taught early in the year
• It helps to build connections between chemistry topics. Ideas start to connect with ease.
• Reduces cramming. Both in your in-class year end review, as well as students working on their own. Talk about a confidence boost.
• Identify learning gaps sooner. You can catch misconceptions and misunderstandings before they snowball into something crazy.

It Doesn’t Have to Take the Place of Regular Review

I LOVE review activities. I think they are great, and certainly a useful way to spend class time. (There are many administrators that will tell you that spiral is an alternative to review days. “It saves time.” Phooey.) You can do one or the other, or you can do both. I think both is best. The problem with doing only traditional review days is that they often turn into teachers simply reteaching weeks, or even months of material ina cram session the day before the test. It’s stressful for everybody, and it’s not super effective.

If you are implementing spiral review in your chemistry class, students are revisting the old content a bit each day. PLUS they can get the massive content dump right before a test. But with that spiral added in, the review day is a lot more effective. That’s truly where learning gaps are filled and connections are made!

My Favorite Spiral Review Strategies: 

1. Incorporate old questions into new content.  This is usually happening on publisher made materials, but make sure to do it on things that you create for your students as well. 
2. Do Now or morning work is a great time to review some old content as you grapple with current content. I plan to piece together a year’s worth of chemistry bell ringers at some point for TPT! They will be spiral review focused!
3. Early finishers: any activities that your students do when they have extra time is a great opportunity to revisit old content. 
4. Sub Plans: absolutely leave review work with your substitute.  Then you don’t have to worry about the kids or the sub having any type of confusion with the content. 
5. Task cards: Old sets of task cards can be used again and again – reuse them! This is also a great way to use up the last 10 minutes of class when your lesson finishes a little quicker than you expected.
6. Unit Review or Station Review: any old activities, games, or stations that you use can be reused.  This works especially well with content that is built on past material. Chemistry example: Lewis structures and chemical bonding
7. Turn & Teach: I learned this method from Whole Brain Teaching and I love it.  Student A turns to Student B and teaches them what they know.  They take turns.  Give them a prompt that should be “review” in nature. 
8. Choice boards: A few of the activities can be old content, and some can be new. Choice boards are not my favorite. They feel like a lot of work. But if they work for you, integrate some old content!
9. Use of games: I love reusing an old review game, and so do my students! The more games the better. Here’s a blog post on ways to turn a boring worksheet into something more fun. “Games” doesn’t have to be a scary word for teachers.
10. Projects where the rubric focuses on both old and new skills as a way to test the new and keep the old fresh. I’m not really a “project teacher.” But if this is in your wheelhouse, then absolutely, go for it!

Again, don’t forget you can get a printable version of this list to keep at your teacher desk as you plan your lessons. 

A Better Way to Prepare for Final Exams

One of the biggest advantages of spiral review is what happens at the end of your school year. Instead of cramming in review sessions to your calendar, and your students scrambling to form study groups, there is a sense of calm. Your students have been practicing all year long. That means when final exam review starts, it feels very focused. That’s especially true if you give a practice final exam, or have been using my test score tracker all year long. Students can dial in on the few topics that are still a bit shaky for them instead of relearning all of chemistry in just 10 days.

By revisiting concepts throughout the year, your students learn more, retain more, connect concepts, and feel more prepared for exams. And most importantly, you can get away from the “teach, cram, test, forget” cycle and move toward deep understanding of chemistry.

The post Spiral Reviewing Content Throughout Your School Year appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

When students get stuck, when they miss questions, when concepts feel disconnected, I bring them back to electrons. Because once they understand what the electrons are doing, the rest of chemistry starts to make sense. This phrase is truly the key in connecting chemistry concepts. Let me show you what I mean.

When Students Are Confused, I Ask One Question

When a student gets something wrong, I rarely start by correcting the answer. Instead, I say “chemistry is all about the electrons.” And then if needed, I get a few probing questions or prompts going: 

• “You forgot about the electrons.”
• “Look at the valence electrons again.”
• “Where are the electrons going?”
• “Who wants the electrons more?”
• “Are the electrons shared equally?”

Because chemistry (the kind we teach in high school) is really the story of how atoms interact with each other. And atoms interact through their electrons. This consistent process of bringing it back to the electrons really ingrains for students that chemistry is really all about the electrons. It centers every test question, every concept, every lab. 

Electrons Connect Everything

One of the biggest struggles students have is that chemistry feels like random topics.

Atomic structure → periodic table → bonding → reactions → moles → thermochemistry → solutions → acids & bases → redox

To students, it can feel like ten separate classes that have nothing to do with each other. But electrons connect them all.

Here are just a few examples of how electrons work at connecting chemistry concepts:

• Light: Electrons changing energy levels
• Periodic trends: How tightly are electrons held?
• Ionic bonding: Electrons transferred
• Covalent bonding: Electrons shared
• Intermolecular forces: Electron distribution and polarity
• Chemical reactions: Electrons rearranged
• States of Matter: phase changes are related to IMFs
• Solutions: dissolving process
• Acids and Bases: becoming ions when dissolving
• Redox: Electrons transferred again

When students realize this, chemistry becomes less about memorizing rules and more about understanding behavior. And understanding sticks.

I will shout it until I’m blue in the face. Put it on your wall. Say it 180 school days. The number one scientific image in the world, that everybody knows is the periodic table. It’s LITERALLY organized by the number of total electrons, valence electrons, electron orbits, and you read patterns in it based on, you guessed it, ELECTRONS. If you want to learn more about using this rule to build a good foundation for your chemistry school year, you can take my PD, here.

Why I Don’t Teach Nuclear Chemistry with Atomic Structure

And the “hill I’m willing to die on” when it comes to teaching chemistry is that Nuclear should NOT be taught with Atomic Theory. And I know there’s a ton of people who do this differently, and respectfully I disagree. Because nuclear chemistry is the exception.

Nuclear processes are about protons, neutrons, nuclear stability and radioactive decay. When nuclear is placed right after atomic structure, students often merge the ideas incorrectly. They start trying to use electrons to justify nuclear decay. They use the nucleus to justify chemical bonding. And those misconceptions are hard to undo. Trust me! I combined them my first year and BOY did I regret it!

When nuclear is done separately and placed at the end of the year students already have a solid handle on the fact that chemistry is all about the electrons. In fact, when I start my nuclear unit, I say “chemistry is all about the electrons, until you get to nuclear.” And that contrast actually helps understanding. It is the exception to the rule.

Electrons Give Students Confidence

One unexpected benefit of this approach is confidence. Students stop feeling like chemistry is random. Instead, they have a tool: “If I don’t know the answer, I find out what the electrons are doing or want to do.” That shift moves them from memorization to reasoning. And reasoning is where real learning happens.

Learn More About Teaching Chemistry

I have a PD Training titled, Making Chemistry Connections that goes more into depth on connecting chemistry concepts in your classroom. You can find that training and others in my TPT store, or in my website store.

The post Connecting Chemistry Concepts: Chemistry Is All About the Electrons appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

But one of the biggest barriers in your classroom isn’t a lack of ability. (Your students didn’t make it to chemistry with good luck alone.) It’s a lack of confidence. And confidence isn’t something that magically appears on test day. It’s built over time through intentional support, targeted practice, and encouragement. Here’s some ways you can help your students feel confident in chemistry. 

Normalize the Struggle

Especially when their science scores were high last year, students often think learning chemistry should be simple. Very few adults realize that “science” isn’t really a subject – it’s made of other subjects. Being good at biology, doesn’t mean you’ll do just as well at chemistry with equal effort. 

It’s important to teach your students that struggling is part of the process. Chemistry concepts build on each other. And the problem solving skills used through chemistry take time to develop. I often say that learning chemistry is like learning a language. There’s tons of vocab! Plus there’s plenty of new skills to learn, and old skills to develop. When students understand the huge undertaking, they can sympathize a bit and won’t be so hard on themselves. Vocabulary is the first key to building student confidence in chemistry.

I also like to share my personal struggles with chemistry. Specifically organic chemistry. Thank goodness, the small amount of organic that I do teach in high school is very manageable. I let my students know that I dropped organic the first time I took it because I was expected to fail. And then the second time I took it, I got a D. Then I transferred schools and the new school required me to have a C- at minimum. So I had to take it a third time. When my students hear that, they start to feel a bit better about their struggles. 

Set Realistic Expectations

I let my students know, based on years of teaching chemistry and evaluating student data, what their expected grade can be. I’ve found that students who put it roughly the same amount of effort into chemistry as they did last year in biology can often see a full letter grade drop. And it’s not because they became any less intelligent. It’s that chemistry is harder. Plus if this student is going to start working, or take up a new sport or is taking other tough classes, it can drop a second letter grade. 

This doesn’t only upset my students, but their parents as well. It’s a challenge every year to communicate how different chemistry is from the “soft sciences,” Biology and Earth Science. When these expectations are set early, with both parents and students, it can make the year a bit smoother. Plus students don’t feel so bad when their scores come in lower than they did last year. An A in biology translates to a B in chemistry. It’s only a B because chemistry is harder!

Build a Growth Mindset Culture

Confidence grows when students learn they’re capable of improvement. Encourage them to view challenges as puzzles to be solved rather than obstacles to avoid. Celebrate effort and progress, not just perfect answers. I do this in a variety of ways. First, I read one growth mindset picture book each quarter of the school year. It’s really nice to take 15 minutes to sit down with my students and remind them what they’re capable of. I also like to have just a few activity types. The first logic puzzle they do might be a bit tough, but as they get the hang of them, they get easier. Keeping just a small collection of types of activities can help to build confidence as students realize what they are capable of. 

Use “I Can…” Statements and Self-Assessment

Before I really understood what a learning target should be used for and its true power, I thought it was just admin mumbo-jumbo. Turns out, this is a PERFECT confidence checklist for your students. By the end of the lesson, the idea is that they should either know something new or be able to do something new. A collection of these “I can” statements can make unit review and studying for tests a breeze. You give students a clear way to track their mastery, which in turn becomes a confidence boost. 

I have a free list of all the learning targets you could need for every lesson in chemistry. Sometimes even multiple targets for each lesson. I like to use this list for my final exam, but you can cut it down and use it for each unit of study and reprint the whole thing for final exam review. Get it here. This freebie can help make building student confidence in chemistry a quick win for you! Did I mention it’s editable?!

Encourage Peer Learning and Feedback

I also like to incorporate a lot of group work in my class, so that my students can put their heads together. Two heads are better than one. When they work together, they learn better! Working with classmates can also help to alleviate anxiety. So many students are worried about how far behind they are compared to their classmates. When they work together, they get a real feel for where they “stack up” compared to the other kids. Now I don’t think you should be encouraging students to compare themselves to others, but YOU KNOW it’s going to happen. When the other kids are just as confused as they are, it can lift that anxiety. 

Plus when they are working together and encouraging each other, and they are building their content knowledge. When they know more, they feel better. This is a two birds, one stone situation! 

There are plenty of ways to get your students working together in chemistry class and most of them are super low-maintenance (because otherwise I wouldn’t do them ha!) Check out my recommendations here. 

Teach Problem-Solving Strategies, Not Just Answers

Student confidence in chemistry comes from knowing how to think, not just what the answer is. Instead of only showing solutions, walk students through the reasoning:

• Identify givens and what the question is actually asking
• Find the RIGHT chemistry to support an answer (this pretty much ALWAYS starts with electrons)
• Justify each step with why it makes sense

Guided strategies like this help students understand how to approach new problems. Especially those that are chemistry questions hidden in real life applications. When they can do that on their own,their confidence skyrockets.

Make Success Visible

Small wins build big confidence. Give students frequent opportunities to succeed early and often:

• Start class with a warm-up that’s just within reach
• Use quick checks that give instant feedback
• Allow for test retakes so students can truly showcase their knowledge, even if they learned it a little late
• Showcase high test scores with a Wall of Fame

Evidence of progress, even in small doses like this, helps students to see their improvement and that can be incredibly motivating. 

Create a Supportive, Judgment Free Classroom

Sometimes students are hesitant to ask questions or admit confusion because they worry about looking “bad.” Cultivate a classroom where questions are celebrated, curiosity is rewarded, and mistakes are treated as learning moments. Reinforce that every chemist (including you) has been puzzled by a topic before. When students feel safe, their willingness to engage and take risks increases and so does their confidence. Read more here about how I get my students to ask questions in class. 

Confidence Isn’t a Gift. It’s Built

Like any skill, confidence in chemistry grows when students are supported, guided, and given chances to succeed with understanding. It’s a journey. Student confidence in chemistry is constantly waxing and waning based on the content in front of them.  (Many of my students feel great about Organic, which is part of the reason I teach it after the confidence crushing Redox.) Your role isn’t to eliminate challenges, but to help students learn how to face them. And in the end? That confidence doesn’t just help them in chemistry class. It helps them in life. And if YOU need some help with your confidence teaching chemistry, check out this post for my tips. 

The post Helping Students Gain Confidence in Chemistry (So They Can Actually Enjoy Learning It) appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

But “inquiry” is one of those admin-loved education terms. It gets thrown around with “differentiation,” “data,” and “homogeneous grouping.” But does admin even know that there are four main types of inquiry learning for science classes? My guess is no. So they should probably stop throwing around the term like it’s confetti. (No shade to confetti.) 

Each type of inquiry learning has its own place in your chemistry classroom:

1. Confirmation Inquiry

In confirmation inquiry, students already know the expected outcome before they begin. The goal is to confirm a known principle or relationship using a familiar procedure. It’s the perfect confidence builder (making it one of my favorites)! It helps students to connect what they already know in real life to chemistry. I love this in my Factors that Affect Solubility Lab. My students obviously know that stirring is going to help a soluble solid dissolve in water. But seeing it in action helps to make what I’ve taught them in class make a bit more sense.

Or in my Law of Conservation Lab, (available in my Full Year Chemistry Lab Book, as well as the Mini Lab Book) students learn the Law of Conservation in class and test it in the lab. They crack a glow stick, react vinegar and baking soda, and water with an Alka-Seltzer tablet. In every test they conserve matter, just as expected. 

Confirmation inquiry is great for introductory labs or something your students learned in years’ past but are reviewing. I like to think of it as a confidence builder. Activities like these help to reinforce new concepts before moving on to something more complex. 

2. Structured Inquiry

In structured inquiry, students don’t know the outcome yet, but you still give them the question and the procedure. Their job is to carry out the experiment, collect data, and make sense of the results. This is the type of inquiry most chemistry teachers already use, whether they realize it or not. Students explore an unknown result, but the process stays manageable and safe. Structured inquiry is more than likely what you’ve used for most of the labs you’ve done in your class.

As a young teacher I didn’t always feel confident that my students were going to write up a good procedure that was safe enough. I relied heavily on structured inquiry. An excellent example of this is my Elephant’s Toothpaste lab. The students are given an entire procedure, as well as pre and post lab questions. Students test for the heat flow of the reaction and write a really nice meaty conclusion paragraph. The questions help to guide their conclusion, and it comes out really great. Especially when you include the lab guide, How to Write a Chemistry Lab Report, that you can get for free, right here. It’s perfect for everyday labs and building up the basic lab skills your students need to head off to college. 

3. Guided Inquiry

In guided inquiry, students are given the question but have to design their own procedure to find the answer. This step is where curiosity really starts to shine. Students plan how to collect data, decide what variables to control, and determine how to analyze their results. As students are working, you can guide them with probing questions to get them to the right answer. Now I’ll be honest, I don’t use this one very often. For me, it’s a safety thing. When I have some simpler labs with basic materials, I’m much more willing to “cut student loose” and let them get to work solving a problem. This works really well for students in your honors classes, or where your students are academically strong and could use a challenge. Honestly, it even works well for your more loud and rambunctious classes. I find that kids like that often need “a project” to keep them from going crazy stuck in a desk. Plus the collaboration you’ll see as they work out the problem is stellar. 

These are seriously SO EASY to integrate into your repertoire. If you’re working with digital copies of the lab before running copies, just cut out the procedure. (Make sure to paste it back just in case you don’t want to do it as a guided inquiry lab next year.) If you have a pdf that you can’t edit, or a printed copy passed down from a veteran teacher (I LOVE hand-me-downs) just run copies with a bit of white paper taped over the procedure section. 

If you’re nervous about trying this, do it with a low maintenance lab that doesn’t include a ton of chemicals. You can read about 15 of those “almost” chemical free chemistry labs here to learn a bit more. Unless your students are very well versed in safety and you’re comfortable with the situation, I’d stick to something lightweight. No Bunsen burners or corrosives in my guided inquiry! 

4. Open Inquiry

Open inquiry is the ultimate level of student independence. Students develop the question, design the procedure, and analyze the results on their own, just like professional chemists do. It’s exciting and empowering, but it can also feel chaotic if students aren’t ready. Open inquiry works best once they’ve had lots of practice with the other three levels. I’ve done this once or twice. The easiest way to do it? A science fair project. That is unless you have the students answering a specific chemistry question. Then that’s a bit more like a split between guided and open inquiry. 

If you’re interested in a science fair project, you check out my Student Science Fair Planning Guide. It’s a great option if your students are a little confused on where to start. Otherwise, the open inquiry is great for capstone activities, enrichment projects, or your project based learning curricula. The time I taught project based chemistry the students needed a lot of guidance, and this wasn’t a good fit for them. 

It’s a lot easier to figure out which type of inquiry chemistry activities are best for your classroom once you’re in it. When you know your students and what they’re capable of, it’s a smaller best, for sure. And if you’re a little uneasy about getting started, I’d start simple and work your students up to open inquiry. 

How to Use Inquiry-Based Learning in Chemistry Without Losing Your Mind

The key is to scaffold! Start small and increase independence as students gain confidence.Inquiry doesn’t have to mean chaos. 

You might begin with a confirmation lab early in the year, transition to structured labs once students understand basic procedures, sprinkle in guided activities to push their critical thinking, and reserve open inquiry for your end of the year formative assessment. 

Your inquiry activities don’t even have to be lab activities. Anything that gets students asking questions works well. That can be something like a logic puzzle, or even one of my chemistry mysteries. These types of activities get students thinking the same way that they do in a lab. PROBLEM SOLVING! 

And that’s really what inquiry is right? Asking questions and solving problems. Inquiry-based learning in chemistry doesn’t require a total classroom overhaul. It just means shifting from “follow my directions” to “what do you think will happen if…?” You can work your way up from there.

The post The Four Types of Inquiry-Based Learning in Chemistry and How to Use Them in Your Classroom appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

And the first year I did it went just okay.  But after learning from those first year students. (And then learning more and more as the years passed) I now feel great about teaching stoichiometry.  In fact, it’s actually one of my favorite units to teach.  We often call it the “unit of food” because I bring in quite a bit of stuff for them. Outlined are the lessons that I teach, some activities that go with them and how I like to explain each concept. All lessons are taught with slides and guided notes.

Mole Concept

Of course the first step to help students understand stoichiometry is the mole concept. I’ve done this counting by weighing lab for quite some time, but last year was the first time I did it as an inquiry lab and I’ll never go back.  I have the students measure a bunch of things they can’t see. I collect same-size bundles of items and hide them in plastic bags. Items like crayons, binder clips or pennies. With a little bit of information, the kids need to determine the mass of just one of the items in the bundle or the number of items in the bundle. Sometimes both! 

Doing this as an inquiry lab was such a great experience.  My students really benefited from doing this before ever learning the mole concept.  You can learn more of the details in this Youtube video on how I set it up. 

After we do this lab, moving into the mole concept really isn’t so bad. When we do the inquiry lab first, this lesson is almost TOO EASY for the students (which I love to hear!) When I go to teach them the mole, really all they need is the size of the “bundle.”  Which we learn is a very large number because atoms are super small. 

I have the kids learn molar mass by filling in what we call a QMT chart.  That stands for Quantity – Mass – Total.  It’s a very detailed way for them to fill in the molar mass in a methodical way.  It helps quite a bit when we get to percent composition. We practice molar masses using this pixel art activity. 

Percent by Mass

To begin teaching percent by mass, I give my students an Oreo cookie and ask them to find the percent by mass of cream in the Oreo. This is really to point out the difference between percent by mass and percent by quantity. I find that only a few of my students struggle with this concept. Then we move on to finding the percent by mass of cream in a ‘Double Stuf’ Oreo. For years and years, the Double Stuf Oreo did not actually have double the amount of cream. This made my students quite infuriated. Some students even take it so far to send a strongly worded letter to Nabisco.

We run through a quick lesson, which really is a synthesis of the lab activity. And the students are able to quickly move on to the pixel art activity to practice. This lab is currently available exclusively in my Full Year Chemistry Lab Book.

Hydrates

When it comes to hydrates there is a much more detailed lesson. I teach the students what hydrates are, how to name them, and the lab procedure for dehydrating them. This lesson also has a pixel art activity for practice. The best part is the following day, where we do the bubblegum hydrate lab. When I first started I was not lucky enough to have a full chemistry lab. So for that reason, my hydrate lab was bubble gum instead. The bubblegum represents be hydrated salt, the sugar within it represents the water. The gum wrapper represents the crucible, and the  chewing takes the place of heating the hydrate. This lab always has a lot of error; like usually around 40% error. The reason is because a lot of saliva is added to the gum. The important thing here is going through the motions of the hydrate lab math.

Gram and Mole Conversions &  Mole Ratios

Now we’re really getting into stoichiometry. I make sure to teach these skills separately. I have found that the full process of stoichiometry is a lot easier when students begin learning the steps piecemeal. When we talk about gram and mole conversions, I like to relate it two boxes of donuts. A box of donuts usually contains a dozen, or 12 donuts. If you had three boxes, you’d have 36. But if one of those boxes was not filled completely, and you couldn’t look inside to count them, you could take a guess as to how many donuts are in the box using the weight. And we do that same thing for atoms and moles! Sometimes we don’t work with an entire mole of substance. That’s where those ratios come into play. You guessed it, this lesson is followed up by some pixel art practice.

 We also have a lab activity that gives the kids a lot of practical experience with converting grams and moles in a lab setting. It has them measure the number of moles in a “sip” of water, how much chalk or crayon is needed to write their name, and a few other conversions as well.

When I talk about mole ratios, I like to think of doubling or halving a recipe. If a chemical equation is just a recipe, what we’re looking to do is change the number of moles of one of the substances in that recipe. We’re really just changing the amount! Again we use a ratio to make that happen. When I’m feeling generous I bring in cookies for my students as a “visual aid” for their recipe doubling. Of course this has a pixel art activity as well.

Pixel Art Activities

I spoke about these pixel art activities throughout this entire post so here’s the details. Pixel art is an educational activity within a Google Sheets file. The sheet has 20 questions that are set up so that student responses are graded immediately. Students are able to know instantaneously if their work is done correctly or incorrectly. While they are working, every answer they get correct unveiled a piece of a secret image. This keeps them engaged, it keeps them focused and it keeps them from feeling insecure. When kids see the green check box, they know that they’re working in the right way. It really saves me from things like “Miss Reavy is this right ?” It also helps, because kids can empty the sheet and resubmit answers, to get even more practice. It is certainly my primary tool to help students understand stoichiometry.

I’ve bundled all of my stoichiometry pixel art activities right here, if you’re interested in using them in your classroom.

Stoichiometry

By the time we  get to stoichiometry, the kids are actually very well prepared for it. All of the prep work was put in place to help students understand stoichiometry. They know all of the skills, they’ve gotten loads of practice, and now it’s time to just put those skills to work. I give him a quick 4 steps for solving stoichiometry problems.

1.  determine and balance the chemical equation
2.  change the given to moles
3.  compare  what you know to what you want using the mole ratio and the balanced equation
4.  change those moles back to grams

And with that, stoichiometry is not that intimidating.  In fact getting to this point usually is pretty fun! You can get a free copy of this mole map I give to help students understand stoichiometry. We do come back to stoichiometry in the gas unit as well as the solution unit. I like to keep those separate, since this is SUCH a beast to understand. Plus it’s one of the ways I get to integrate spiral review and keep their stoichiometry skills sharp all year.

The post Help Students Understand Stoichiometry the First Time Around appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

If you’re looking for ways to get your students working together productively, here are some tried and true strategies.

Lab Activities

Labs are the most natural place for teamwork to shine. By working in pairs or small groups, students practice dividing responsibilities, communicating clearly, and checking each other’s work for accuracy. You can assign roles (like safety officer, materials manager, recorder, and presenter) to keep everyone engaged and accountable. I’m really not a fan of assigning roles. I’m more of a “let them figure it out” kind of teacher. But for that reason, I often let my students choose their own lab partners. 

Group Quizzes

Want to lower the stress of assessments while boosting collaboration? Try a group quiz. Students work together to solve problems, explain their reasoning, and come to a consensus on the best answer. It’s a great way to encourage peer teaching; when one student explains a concept to another, everyone’s understanding gets stronger.I have different rules for my group quizzes depending on how things are going in class. The rules vary from 5 minutes with a partner to a full quiz with the whole class. You can read more about that and other ways I balance rigor and grace in the chemistry classroom.

Quick Practice Worksheets

Every one of my lessons comes with a Quick Practice worksheet, designed for fast, targeted reinforcement. They’re just a few questions on the topic students would have JUST learned in your class. Which is why group work is perfect for these worksheets! Teaching helps students to LEARN the content. When they talk to each other, they are more likely to retain the information. Because the worksheets are short and focused, they make collaboration approachable without feeling overwhelming. Plus some of them have a bit of fun flair to them, like being logic puzzles or color by number worksheets. 

Unit Review Sessions

Before a test, bring your students together for a structured unit review. In my classroom, there’s lots of ways that we review. We either play finger lights, Jeopardy, Blooket, or some other game. I have a ton in my Google Drive (that I’ll eventually get to TPT – I promise!)

The easiest thing to do is to bring out all the activities you’ve done throughout the unit and do them again. That means break out those card sorts, task cards, pixel art activities, and secret puzzles out again. Nothing wrong with using your materials again! In fact, it’s one of the ways more seasoned teachers “get it all done.” Usually I’ll take EVERYTHING out and give students the choice to review what they want or need. They’ll team up with their friends usually, but I encourage them to pair up with students who need the same practice they do. When students review together, they catch gaps in their own understanding and build confidence heading into tests. 

Study Groups

Encourage your students to form study groups outside of class. You can support this by giving them tips on how to structure a study session. I like to encourage quizzing each other with flashcards, redoing classwork problems, or teaching one concept to the group. Short study sessions with peers can go a long way toward reinforcing content.

Collaborative Games and Puzzles

Team-based games (like my chemistry mystery activities or an escape room) add a layer of fun to collaboration. Students work together to solve linked questions or uncover clues, which makes learning feel like a challenge instead of a chore. These activities are perfect for days when you want to review content without another lecture, or when you’re not feeling 100% and you want your students to take the lead for the day. 

Final Thoughts

Getting students to work together in chemistry class isn’t just about getting through an activity. It’s about helping students see that learning science is a shared experience. By incorporating labs, group quizzes, Quick Practice worksheets, review sessions, study groups, and collaborative games, you’ll create a classroom culture where students feel supported by both you and each other.

When students learn to lean on their peers, they don’t just master the content. They build the confidence and collaboration skills they’ll carry long past your classroom. And that’s what it’s all about, right? Because if you’re really honest with yourself, you know your students won’t really be using this chemistry knowledge when they’re grown. But the skills of logic, discernment, and problem solving they learn in your class will carry on for years to come.

The post Getting Students to Work Together in Chemistry Class appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

But here’s the good news: content confidence can be built. You don’t need to know all of chemistry the minute you walk into your first class. You can easily build it as you go. With the right approach and some supportive resources, you’ll feel more confident teaching chemistry than you ever thought possible.

Here are a few strategies to help you build your chemistry content confidence.

Start With the Big Picture

But don’t try to read an entire textbook, or year long curriculum. It’s too much all at once. The way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. The very first thing to do is to zoom out and focus on the big picture. Chemistry is all about the electrons. At its core, chemistry is about how matter is built, how it changes, and how we can describe and measure those changes.

If you’re just starting out, you should read my Chemistry Curriculum Outline. I give you a few Big Picture ideas to start out with, to get your feet wet. Plus I organize all of chemistry into units (in the proper order).  With that, I give you the rationale as to why the units are organized in their particular order. It’s a great way to see how the bigger pieces fit together without entirely diving in. Once you understand that structure, the details (like quantum numbers or redox half-reactions) feel less intimidating.

If you really need to see more about how chemistry concepts connect to each other beyond that free outline, I’ll recommend my “Making Chemistry Connections” Professional Development session. It walks through ways to connect real life to chemistry and then chemistry concepts to each other.

Make Sure You’re Comfortable in the Lab

Being that I’ve been a chemistry teacher and was a college chemistry student, I never really had this issue. I even took a really good lab safety class in college, where we used the emergency shower, eye wash, and fire extinguishers to get practice with them. But that’s not the case with every chemistry teacher.

When my school renovated and the science department was entirely rebuilt, each lab room was built near identically. Aside from only on two or so rooms having fume hood, they were built, largely to be interchangeable. If there was a year we had a ton of bio students, we didn’t have to stick them in the “physics” lab.

Once, we had a student pull the triangle for the emergency shower and run out of the classroom. The shower, of course was right in front of the door, so the teacher inside the classroom was trapped inside if he wanted to stay dry. He yelled across the hall to me, “how do I turn this thing off?” (You just push it back up.) You know what you’re good at and you’re good at what you know. And if you’re new to chemistry, the emergency shower could be that for you. For me, it’d be how to keep a room full of students safe when they’re handling scalpels.

If you want some help with chemistry specifics, I’d recommend my Managing a Chemistry Lab professional development. In it, I cover nearly everything you’d need between safety, contracts, organization, and resource management. 

Rely on Good Resources Instead of Reinventing the Wheel

Confidence comes from being prepared, and preparation is a lot easier when you have strong resources in your corner. As a new chemistry teacher, don’t feel pressured to create every worksheet, note sheet, or lab from scratch. That’s not a badge of honor. It’s a recipe for burnout. And I know that because I was there. My first year, (even knowing chemistry) I was basically LIVING at school.

You should look for resources that are clear, consistent, and classroom tested, so you know you’re not starting from ground zero. For example, I created a guided notes curriculum that helps to keep students organized and ensure that they don’t miss key content during instruction. They write just a few notes and spend most of the time listening to me teach. 

Starting with a great set of notes or lesson materials helps you to focus on teaching the content, rather than scrambling to piece things together. You can also see if your school will purchase something for you. I was able to get slides from our textbook company the year that I taught AP Chem. Then I was able to create my own worksheets, but it saved me SO MUCH TIME to not have to start from scratch. 

Take Advantage of New Chemistry Teacher Support Online

You don’t have to figure it all out on your own. There are online communities, professional development opportunities, and plenty of free resources online designed for chemistry teachers to share their ideas. 

In terms of professional development, I have a few sessions you can check out. They’re taught by me (an experienced chemistry teacher) and focus on things specifically for your chemistry classroom: Differentiation, Informal Assessment, and more. 

I also have a YouTube channel where I’ve taught the entire high school chemistry curriculum lesson by lesson. If you’re unsure about a concept or nervous about how to introduce it, you can “observe” a full lesson from me before teaching it yourself. It’s like having a mentor teacher in your back pocket. Plus you can use this as a tool to help your students study. 

Learn Alongside Your Students With Labs

Labs can feel intimidating when you’re new to chemistry, but they can also be your best friend. Choose reliable, low-prep labs to make your teacher life simple. Short and sweet investigations, like calculating average atomic mass, or testing reaction rate, can boost your own confidence while giving students hands-on experience. My lab collection is full of easy, simple, low maintenance labs that make lab day as low stress as it can be. 

Most of my labs in particular, don’t need a lot of teacher knowledge on the results. You just need to know enough to keep your students safe. And because the chemicals used in my labs are really low maintenance, you don’t need a lot of knowledge to do them. For the most part, students are going to do simple lab activities, and writing very detailed conclusions which synthesize their results.

For example, my lab on the factors that affect solubility, students mix sugar and water. You don’t even have to know how the results will turn out to do this lab with your students. Just keep them safe from eating the experiment, working with glass, and hot water.  It’s perfectly fine to say, “Let’s see what happens together.” When you model curiosity and careful observation, you’re building a classroom culture that values scientific thinking.

Anticipate the Tough Spots

This is probably going to be the toughest part for you as a New to Chemistry Teacher. The more you teach chemistry, the easier it will be to find out what students find most difficult. There are some things that are just tough regardless, like stoichiometry, redox (the whole unit honestly) and VSEPR Theory. Think of the things that were tough for you back when you were learning chemistry. 

In each of my guided notes lessons I write a few common misconceptions that students have with the given content. As you teach chemistry, I recommend keeping a daily diary. (I know that’s a lot of work – you can just use your teacher planner or a composition book.) Take note of the things that students found difficult, or things that they flat out got wrong. It’ll help you next year as you reteach chemistry. BUT if you make a habit of looking at it now, you can find some ways to reteach things your students didn’t learn very well on the first go around. 

This is another thing that having another chemistry teacher around is good for. We are really good at picking out the things that students get wrong – because it’s the same stuff every year. Teaching alone? (Many of us are!) Try watching how other teachers introduce these concepts, or work through practice problems on YouTube. It’s a good way to get an explanation or a model from another teacher. Or observe another teacher in your school during your prep or lunch time.

Give Yourself Grace and Celebrate Small Wins

Finally, remember: chemistry content confidence doesn’t come all at once. It’s built over time, through time spent teaching in your classroom. The first time you successfully guide a class through balancing equations, or the first time your lab goes off without a hitch, you’ll feel that confidence growing. Give yourself permission not to know everything, and celebrate the progress you are making. Your students don’t need a walking Merck Index. They need a teacher who is prepared, positive, and willing to learn alongside them.

Your students will notice your effort, and they’ll benefit from your enthusiasm. One day soon, you’ll look back and realize, you are the confident chemistry teacher you once hoped to become.

The post Building Chemistry Content Confidence for New Teachers appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

Turn and Teach

I won’t go too crazy talking about Turn and Teach because I have an entire blog post on why I love it so much. The gist is that you teach for 5 or so minutes. And pairs of students, A & B take turns teaching the other what you just taught them. One talks, the other listens, you circulate the room and search for really great communication or misconceptions. Then you hop back into teaching. It’s one of my favorites because students have mentioned how well it works at helping them to understand tough topics. It quickly became my favorite tool for enhancing lecture when I actually took the time to do it. 

Here’s three much quicker (and easier) ways to make your chemistry lectures more interactive. 

Self Assessment

This is probably the easiest of all the strategies and potentially the most helpful. As I’m teaching I’m reading the faces of my students. I’m trying to gauge how well this is going. Sleepy faces usually means I need to act a bit more silly and do a bit more storytelling. But if those faces are confused, I might do a turn and teach to give them a chance to chat with a neighbor. But typically, I’ll drop in a 3-2-1 assessment. 

Students just hold up their fingers to give you an idea of how they’re feeling about the content they’re learning. I give this prompt with one request. Here’s a few examples:  

• How are you feeling about this chemistry right now?
• How’d you do on that practice question?
• How did you score on your quiz? 

Usually 3 fingers are held up for being an expert, or feeling ready to move on. 

Two fingers is for needing more practice, or having 50-70% of the right answers for a couple of questions

One finger is reserved for “lost puppies” who need the content reexplained, or need to sit with a partner for some time to grapple with the work. 

Keeping it Low Stakes

This takes less than ten seconds, but it gives you an instant read on how your class is doing. If most of your students are holding up three fingers, you know you can keep moving. If you have a good mix of twos, you can give another practice question or two before moving on. And if you have quite a bit of ones, you can back track a bit, or have 1s and 3s pair up for group work. 

For the most part, students participate in this because it’s a very low-stakes check in. They don’t have to risk raising their hand to admit they’re lost or have a question.

Whiteboard Checks

Mini whiteboards are an absolute game-changer during chemistry lecture. They give you a way to ask quick calculation or recall questions and see everyone’s answers at once.

I bring this out a lot during my Bonding Unit and Stoichiometry. It works great for diagrams and calculations. “Draw the Lewis structure for carbon dioxide.” Everyone draws their answer on their whiteboard and holds it up.

The magic here is that you can instantly scan for understanding. You’ll spot who nailed it, who’s close, and who might have drawn something completely off. That’s feedback you simply don’t get if you only call on one or two volunteers to come to the big board for everyone to see. Depending on your seating arrangement, most students won’t see each other’s answers, so again, pretty low stakes and typically you’ll get a lot of engagement. 

Question Blast

When I’m in front of a chemistry classroom, you may as well call me the “Queen of Questions.” (This is why I REALLY STRESS everything in chemistry is about the electrons. Because my Question Blast almost always starts with “Where are electrons?” and “What’s the charge of an electron?”) 

In order to help students see connections between concepts (read: Atomic Structure → the rest of chemistry) I ask a LONG string of questions. Let’s say the topic is dissolving ionic compounds, specifically NaCl. 

1. Where are electrons? 
2. What’s the charge of an electron? 
3. What type of bond does NaCl have? 
4. Which is gaining electrons? 
5. Which is losing electrons? 
6. What’s the Lewis structure for water look like? 
7. Is it a polar or nonpolar molecule?
8. What area is positive on a water molecule? 
9. What area is negative on a water molecule?
10. How would Na⁺ and Cl^– behave near the positive area of a water molecule? 
11. How would Na⁺ and Cl^– behave near the negative area of a water molecule? 

Okay, so I’ll tell you: water is able to break apart Na from Cl. It’s called dissociation. 

Using the Questions Blast

See my Question Blast? Right there is ELEVEN questions you can ask your students to help understand what you’re teaching. You can do this for the teaching, or for a recap of the content. You can call on individual students like this, “James, where are electrons?” “Anne, what’s the charge of an electron?” Or you can instead call them out to the whole class. The idea is to kind of sort of make these “rapid fire” questions, hence the term “Question Blast.”

What I love about a Question Blast is how inclusive they are. Unlike think-pair-share, Question Blasts let multiple students contribute in seconds without a huge time investment. It’s a fast way to boost participation and get students actively thinking, even in the middle of lecture. You can even target tougher questions to specific students to check for understanding. Plus it makes for incredible spiral review, since you’ll be tracking back to Atomic, Periodic Table, Bonding and IMFs all year long. 

Bringing It All Together

Self Assessment, Whiteboards and Question Blasts, are all short, simple strategies you can weave into your chemistry lectures without derailing the flow. They take less than a minute each, but they break up passive listening and get students processing information on the spot.

If you’re already using guided notes, these techniques are the perfect complement. They keep your students active without sacrificing structure. I mean, is there anything worse than a jigsaw activity?  The bottom line? Chemistry lecture doesn’t have to be boring. With just a few small tweaks, you can turn your classroom into a place where students are listening, participating, and actually excited to learn chemistry.

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