And honestly? They are not completely wrong. For most of my teaching career, tests made up a large portion of my students’ grades. (At one school it was as high as 70%). A bad test grade could tank an average, and there was only so much homework or classwork could do to bring it back up. I wanted a chemsitry extra credit system that:

• rewarded effort and positive behavior
• gave students a little bit of control over their grades
• motivated students all year long
• did not require me to keep track of 150 different extra credit totals

That is how my Chem Coins were born.

What Are Chem Coins?

Chem Coins are small laminated paper squares that students can earn throughout the year. I print them, cut them out, laminate them, and then cut them again. They are simple, cheap, and surprisingly powerful. They have values of 1 point or 5 points. Get free printable Chem Coins, here!

Students save up their coins and can use them to add extra credit points to any test. There’s really just one rule. Students may add only up to 20 extra credit points to a given test.

This keeps the system helpful without letting a student turn a 42 into a 100 because they somehow managed to hoard a giant stack of Chem Coins. Twenty points in chemistry is not going to make or break a student’s grade by any means. Chemistry is HARD, remember?

How Students Earn Chem Coins

The best part of this chemistry extra credit system is that you can hand out Chem Coins for almost anything you value in your classroom.

Some of the ways my students earn Chem Coins include:

• asking a thoughtful question
• helping another student
• volunteering an answer
• winning a review game
• participating when the class is dragging
• cleaning up after a lab
• finding a mistake on the board
• being especially kind
• doing me a favor
• showing up on time when I am feeling particularly petty

Basically, if a student does something that makes my classroom a better place to be, they might earn a Chem Coin. Students very quickly become invested in the system. Even students who normally do not care much about points suddenly care very deeply about tiny laminated pieces of paper.

Why I Love This System

There are a lot of extra credit systems out there, but most of them require the teacher to keep track of everything. I knew that if I had to keep a running spreadsheet of every extra point every student earned, I would never keep up with it. And imagine the inquiries? “How many points do I have?” Heck to the no.

With Chem Coins, students are responsible for keeping track of their own points. If they want to save them for the unit test, they keep them. If they want to use them immediately, they can. If they lose them, they’re out of luck. I know that sounds harsh, but honestly, it is the only way I have found to make a system like this manageable. I do not replace lost Chem Coins. Students learn very quickly to keep them in a pencil pouch, folder, or special pocket in their binder. Heck, some even keep them in their wallets!

Yes, My Students Created a Black Market

I would love to tell you that students simply earn Chem Coins through hard work and responsibly save them until test day. But of course, that never goes according to plan. Students trade them, they bargain with the, they offer to do each other’s homework for them. One student was even renting out his headphones for chem coins!

There is absolutely a Chem Coin black market. And honestly? I mostly let it happen. As long as students are not stealing coins, I do not care if they trade a 5 Chem Coins for a bag of chips at lunch. The “buyer” just gave up 5 points for their chemistry score. Clearly there isn’t much else I can do for a kid that is literally giving away test points…

How I Use Chem Coins on Tests

When students take a test, they may turn in Chem Coins with their test to add points to their score.

For example:

• A student who earns a 72 could use 8 points worth of Chem Coins to raise the grade to an 80.
• A student who earns an 85 could use 5 points worth of Chem Coins to raise it to a 90.
• A student who earns a 58 could only use up to 20 points, bringing the grade to a 78.

I have found that this gives students hope without completely removing accountability. They still need to study. They still need to pass the test. But if they have one bad day, one rough unit, or one chemistry concept that just does not click, they know they have a way to soften the blow.

Tips If You Want to Try This

If you are thinking about creating your own version of Chem Coins, here are a few things I recommend:

• Use bright colors so they are hard to fake.
• Consider initialing the backside before laminating for authenticity purposes! Perhaps even drop the school year (2025-2026) so students can’t offload them to next year’s students for a fee.
• Laminate them so they last.
• Make different denominations.
• Decide on your maximum number of points ahead of time.
• Be very clear that lost coins are not replaced.
• Expect students to become strangely obsessed with them.

You may be surprised by how motivating a tiny square of laminated paper can be.

Final Thoughts

Chemistry is hard. Sometimes students need a little bit of grace. My Chem Coin system gives students a chance to recover from a bad test grade while still encouraging participation, kindness, effort, and responsibility all year long. And best of all? I do not have to keep track of a single spreadsheet. Don’t forget to get my printable Chem Coins for free, right here!

The post My Chemistry Extra Credit System: The “Chem Coins” My Students Will Do Anything For appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

These simple chemistry lab activities are low maintenance for you, require minimal chemicals, and still keep students engaged. Whether you’re wrapping up content, reviewing for a final, or just trying to make the last few weeks meaningful, these ideas are fun, hands on, and refreshingly doable. Trust me – I was doing most of them in an old art classroom with makeshift supplies.

And if you find yourself wishing you had more of these kinds of labs throughout the year, check out my Chemistry Lab Manual. It’s full of easy, low-prep labs (with a few classics sprinkled in) that span 15 units of study. You can use it now for end of year review and next school year to keep your sanity intact from day one.

How to Choose a Lab

There’s a few things to consider when building out your calendar and schedule for the last few days of science classes. Especially if you have a final exam to prepare for!

• It’s certainly best to focus on topics that your students struggle with. If your Acid Base unit was a breeze, you certainly don’t want to be spending time doing a titration!
• Consider the passage of time. If your Atomic Unit was 9 months ago, there are some potential gaps simply because it’s been a while. This is probably more true for things like average atomic mass, than it is for atomic structure. Atomic structure is part of nearly every chemistry lesson. Your students probably have a good handle on that. But isotopes may be a concept that’s been forgotten.
• What have you spiraled? Thinking again of isotopes – I review that in my Nuclear Unit. Which, I’m sure you know is the last unit I teach. (That’s because I teach “Chemistry is all about the electrons. Until you get to Nuclear.”) For my students and how I set up my curriculum, this isn’t something I’d spend time on.

If you’re in need of an end of year study guide for your students, look no further. Sign up and have one sent directly to you!

Atomic Candies

History and models of the atom is a very important concept to chemistry. It helps students to know that chemistry is based on indirect observations. Students come to learn that science is a body of knowledge that loads of people have contributed to and built upon over many, many years. But these atomic models aren’t revisited naturally in your content over the school year. After Bohr models and diagrams, the early stuff is easily forgotten. So if your students need a refresher I recommend the Atomic Candies lab at the end of your school year. All you’ll need is some sweet treats!

• A chocolate chip cookie
• A lollipop with a candy center
• A gum ball
• A layered jawbreak or Airheads Extreme (the idea is colorful layers)
• A marshmallow

Decide if you want 1 set of treats per student and how you want to distribute them. I usually sit at my kitchen table with ziplocks and create baggies the night before while watching something fun.

Your students are going to note prominent features of the atomic models and compare them to prominent features of the candies. Like the colored layers in a jawbreaker are kind of like the electron energy levels in a Bohr model! I have some “right” answers, but as long as students can justify their choice of which candy is paired to each model, I accept their answers. (And there’s another lesson in how scientists can back things up and give reasoning to their findings in different ways, and why we need the peer review process.) Get the lab here.

Average Atomic Mass of Candium

Like I mentioned, this is likely a topic your students haven’t seen or worked with for a while. And bringing candy into the classroom is always a win! In this activity, students work with a sample of “candium.” It’s really just three different size object of the same type. So three different sizes of M&Ms, three different sized pasta noodles, or something of the like. You can use coins, dried beans, pretzles… I like to grab movie theater candy boxes and get three different sized things. These function as three isotopes of the same element, “candium” “beanium” “pretzelium.” Your students do some simple math and boom! They’ve just re-learned average atomic mass. Plus, if you set this up “correctly” they can eat their chemical sample at the end of the lab. Get the lab here. Read more about how I set up this lab here.

Rutherford’s Gold Foil

Speaking of those forgotten atomic models, when I was teaching in New York, Rutherford’s experiment was always tested on the state final. So I found that this lab on the gold foil experiment was worth the time. It’s really fun to do. You use your Rutherford model made out of a hula hoop and a styrofoam ball suspended in the middle. Then your students throw alpha particles, (paper balls or ping pong balls) at the model and the class records the data. It’s a great lab to revisit during the year. It’s totally chemical free. Meaning the end of the year is a perfect time for this lab, when you’re running low on supplies. Get the lab here.

Periodic Table Guessing Game

Whether you want to use this lab for periodic table review, or save it for next year, you should click here to get it for free. Essentially, students work from a small pool of elements and have to ask their partner yes or no questions based on properties of elements to guess their partner’s element. It’s a great review of chemical and physical properties as well as periodic table trends. I like to use this lab as Periodic Table Unit review, but it works great at the end of the school year as well.

Removal of Sugar – Hydrate Lab

If your students need some work on their math skills before your final exam, this is a good lab for them at the end of the year. In this lab, you hand our bubble gum. Again, candy wins. Plus all you need in this lab is a balance, so it’s great when everybody starts packing things up at the end of the year. Your students will chew the gum to remove the sugar. They do percent error calculations comparing to the nutritional facts of the gum. It’s the same math your students would do if they dehydrated something like copper II sulfate pentahydrate. But you don’t have to break out all the equipment and chemicals. Get the lab here.

Sand & Salt

If separation of mixtures is needing some help, or perhaps lab procedures, this is a good one. You mix some samples of sand and salt (but make sure you know how much of each.) This lab will require the use of your lab equpiment. You’ll need to have the students dissolve the salt, filter out the sand, and then evaporate the water out, drying the salt. BUT this is a good lab for the end of the school year because it’s kind of laborous. It can help to bring back the review of lab equipment, procedures and safety. You can also stretch this lab out over a day or two if you simply need to chew up the clock. Get the lab here.

Freezing Point Depression Ice Cream

Want to have TONS OF FUN in the last days of your school year? Are you unafraid of messes? Do you have a good relationship with your custodial staff? If you answered “yes” take the time to make ice cream in your classroom. Yes, you need tons of supplies. Yes, it’s mentally and emotionally taxing, but you will have so much fun!

In this lab, ice is sprinkled with salt to dramatically drop the freezing point. A milk and sugar mixture is then slowly frozen and shaken in convert from milk to ice cream. It’s a simple lab in terms of the chemistry of it all. The materials, lab room and mess will certainly be a headache. Hey, if I get to “choose your hard” I’m picking the ice cream lab every time! It’s too fun to miss out on. Get the lab here.

Elephant’s Toothpaste

You can use this lab to review kinetics (catalysts), heat flow (endothermic and exothermic) or even how to run an experiment using multiple trials. In this lab yeast is used as a catalyst to remove oxygen from hydrogen peroxide. That oxygen will foam up dish detergent making a foam. The entire process releases a bunch of heat. It’s a really fun lab for the last days of school. Get the lab here.

Equilibrium Straws

This is the EASIEST lab there is. All you need is some graduated cylinders, water and straws. Water starts in one cylinder (reactants). Straws are used to swap water between two graduated cylinders (forward & reverse reactions) until equilibrium is reached. You can use this to review equilibrium, reversible reactions or even graphing. it’s one of my favorites because it’s just so easy. It really can’t be beat. Get the lab here.

Titration

If you have all your materials, or need to use up some expiring chemicals a titration is classic. This is on the list primarily for the review aspect. I’m not going to explain a titration to you, but here’s the benefits. Review of measurement and estimated digits, significant figures, titration calculations, acid base neutralization reactions, acid base indicators, lab safety and procedures… It’s especially good if you didn’t get to this during the school year, since it is a critical chemistry skill.

Polymerization Slime

Like the ice cream lab this one is a teacher headache that brings tons of smiles that make it worth it. In this lab, students are going to use glue and Borax solution to make slime. The glue is polymerized by the borax (a catalyst). This lab primarily is qualitative observations, which I know not every chemistry teacher loves. Honestly, it’s a way I have programmed into my curriculum for students to have fun. Plus they get to actually see an organic reaction. That’s not the easiest to do in a high school chemistry lab. (Especially in my old art classroom which was not a lab despite what admin tried to claim…) Get the lab here.

Half Life of a Skittle

This is something I would be doing at the end of the school year anyway, because Nuclear is always my last unit. BUT if you’re a rebel and teach Nuclear with or just after Atomic, this is a great end of year lab! Students have a sample of Skittles (or MMs or coins or anything double sided.) This represents atoms of a radioactive element. They shake them for the length of a half life (just a few seconds). Then they pour them out. The ones that are face up are stable and have decayed. The ones that are face down are still “radioactive” and go back to shaking.

If you do your Nuclear Unit at the end of the year, this is a good time for this lab just for the content, of course. But I have my students graph the decay of their “radioactive” sample. So it’s a good review of graphing if that’s a skill that needs some work! Get the lab here.

Grading End of Year Chemistry Lab Activities

At the end of the school year, attendance can get a little chaotic. Between AP tests, field trips, assemblies, cut days, and students missing class for who knows what, it can feel unfair to grade these labs the same way you would in the middle of the year.

Instead, I like to make these end of year chemistry labs a little more flexible. Depending on the situation, I may let the lab report:

• replace a quiz grade
• replace a low lab grade from earlier in the year
• count as extra credit
• count as a completion grade
• be optional for students who want a chance to improve their grade. (All students are going to DO the lab, but the report itself might be optional)

This takes some of the pressure off students while still encouraging them to participate. It also means that if half your class is gone for AP testing or a field trip, you do not have to stress about creating an entirely separate assignment for the students who are absent. The end of the year is crazy enough.

Personally, my favorite option is to let the lab replace a low lab grade from earlier in the year. Students are often much more motivated when they know they have a chance to improve an old score, and it feels more meaningful than simply handing out extra credit.

Fun or Practical? Choose Both!

You don’t have to choose between fun and practicality when it comes to end of year chemistry labs. These low-prep activities can help reinforce key concepts, help prepare for your final exam, and give students a chance to apply what they’ve learned. All without burning you out in the process! Because I know you’re running on fumes at this point. Having fun in the lab can be just what YOU NEED to make it through the last few weeks of the school year.

If you’re loving these kinds of low maintenance labs, you’ll definitely want to check out my Chemistry Lab Manual. It’s packed with simple, mostly chemical-free activities that are fun for students and easy on you. It covers 15 units of study, so while it’s perfect for wrapping up this year, it’ll also set you up for success all year long next school year. Grab it now, and you’ll be thanking yourself in August! Read more about the lab book here.

The post 12 Easy(ish) End of Year Lab Activities to Reduce the Chaos appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

But trying to review an entire year of chemistry in a few class periods rarely works well. Students feel rushed, the review becomes surface-level, and the most important concepts don’t get the attention they need. In order to be effective, final exam review should be strategic.

In this post, I’ll walk through a simple framework for deciding what to review and what to skip, so your review time actually helps students succeed. Because it really should be different year to year, and based on the students in your classroom. 

Why You Shouldn’t Review Everything

The biggest mistake teachers make with final exam review is trying to cover every unit from the entire year. But the reality is, not every topic needs review. There are three categories of content that usually don’t need much class time.

1. Concepts That Are Too Basic

Some early topics simply become foundational skills that students use all year long. Your students don’t need this review from you. If they need it, they should get this review on their own. Things that come to mind are, metric conversions, lab safety, atomic structure, and reading the periodic table. 

Even if you didn’t integrate spiral review, students have practiced these skills repeatedly throughout the year. That happens by default. Chemistry requires these skills to be practiced all year. Spending precious review time on them often isn’t the best use of class time.

2. Concepts Students Already Understand Well

Sometimes a unit just went really well. If your students mastered dimensional analysis, or they nailed the mole concept you should not be spending time reviewing this. If most students performed well on a test and demonstrated they actually understand content you don’t need to review it. This is especially true if it’s a skill that continued to pop up during the remainder of the course. Nomenclature comes to mind. Once it’s learned, students use it all year long. There’s no way they did well, and forgot it all by the end of the year. On the other hand, acids and bases might not be in this category. They may have understood the first time, but didn’t get a lot of continued practice, so a quick refresher would likely suffice. 

3. Content Students Can Easily Review Independently

There are also topics that students may not remember perfectly, but they’re straightforward enough to review on their own. This is one of the many reasons I love building interactive notebooks with guided notes. Things that come to mind here are vocabulary-heavy topics (phase of matter, physical and chemical changes), memorizing formulas, and basic concept recall. Ensure your students know how to study on their own. They should be able to handle these easier topics on their own.

Let Your Test Data Guide Your Review

Instead of guessing what students need, one of the best things you can do is look at your assessment data from the year. Go back through your unit tests and ask:

• Which units had the lowest class averages?
  
• Which concepts required the most reteaching?
  
• Where did students struggle the most?
  

Those are the topics most likely to show up as weak points again on the final exam. For many chemistry teachers, the biggest struggle areas tend to stoichiometry, gas laws, solutions, kinetics, and redox. These topics often require multi-step reasoning, and a deep understanding of multiple concepts in chemistry which makes them much harder for students to retain months later. The topics were tough for them the first time around, and they also will review many topics all at once. This is where structured review activities are most valuable!

A Simple Strategy: Review the “Big Thinking” Units

Another helpful rule of thumb is to focus your review on the units that required the most problem-solving and conceptual thinking.

For example, understanding potential energy diagrams requires students to:

• read chemical reactions
• understand Collision Theory
• differentiate between endothermic and exothermic
• understand heat of reaction/enthalpy
• calculate enthalpy
• convert between joules and kilojoules
• manipulate enthalpy (Hess’s Law)
• have an understanding of moles as a way to group atoms/molecules

and I’m sure I could come up with 5 more if I took the time. 

Finding those heavy hitters will help your students the most. Simpler topics like naming compounds or identifying phases of matter often come back quickly with minimal review. Make sure to invest your time wisely. 

Let Students Use Their Own Data

One of my favorite strategies for final exam preparation is giving students a way to analyze their own performance data (you know I love self assessment!) In my classroom, students use a test score tracker where they graph their scores from each unit test throughout the year.

When it’s time to prepare for the final exam, this becomes incredibly valuable. Students can look at their graph and immediately see patterns:

• Which units they did well on
  
• Which units they struggled with
  
• Where their performance improved over time
  

From there, students can decide which units they personally need to review. This gives them ownership over their studying and helps prevent the “study everything the night before” approach that rarely works. If you haven’t been using a test score tracker for the whole year, you can usually still get the data together. Just go into your gradebook and print progress reports. You should be able to filter TESTS for the FULL YEAR. Then print them out and distribute them to your students. That’s effectively the data table that will form the graph. 

Remember That Understanding Can Improve Later

Another important thing to keep in mind is that students sometimes learn concepts better later in the year. A student might struggle with atomic structure early in the year, but after learning about the periodic table and bonding, the ideas finally click. If you only look at the original test score, it might seem like atomic structure needs heavy review even though the student now understands it. This is why I allow my students to retake tests. But when they do, they must plot the retake on their test score tracker as well as the original score.

One way to check for this is to give students a short benchmark or practice final exam before your review days. This gives you new data showing what students currently understand. If you’d like something ready to go, I have a final exam / benchmark practice test available that teachers can use to quickly collect this type of data before beginning their review. There’s a companion document that connects each question to a unit of study, so when students get their tests back, they know EXACTLY which lessons and units need their attention. You could even graph this data on the test score tracker as well. 

Add Some Student Choice

Review is most effective when students feel like the work is relevant to their own needs. Instead of assigning the same review packet to every student, consider building in some choice. Students should choose two or three units to focus on based on their test score tracker.

You might set up:

• Review stations for different units
  
• Choice boards with different topic reviews
  
• Small group practice based on similar struggles
  

This allows students to spend more time practicing what they actually need. Read more about ways that you can review with your students without adding anything new. I really like to break out old stuff and do it again. There’s no need to create 16 different review activities for each unit of chemistry. 

Final Exam Review Should Be Targeted

The goal of review isn’t to reteach the entire course. It’s to help students reconnect with the most challenging ideas and give them the confidence to apply what they’ve learned. In total, you should be targeting review using assessment data, student reflection, and bringing back heavy hitters.  Make sure to use that limited review time wisely before your students showcase all they’ve learned! 

The post How to Choose What to Review for Final Exams in Chemistry appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

As long as you tell your students to think about individual particles during this collision theory lab activity, it can certainly get the point across.  All you’ll need are some glow sticks and some warm and cold water. Those glow sticks must come in at least two different sizes.  I like to get the pendants and then the bracelets.

If you recall, the postulates of Collision Theory are that the reacting particles must collide with proper energy and orientation (effective collision) in order to have a chemical reaction.  And there are a few ways we can increase the number of effective collisions:   

1. Make sure our components are actually going to react with each other. 
2. Increase the temperature.
3. Increase pressure (if we’re working with a gas system)
4. Increase concentration
5. Increase surface area
6. Add a catalyst

Of course, we can’t do all of these at once, nor can we do all of them with glow sticks.  But this is a great activity to get the kids thinking about particles coming in contact with each other in order to react. You can have your students do this on their own, or you can do this as a demo.  It works well either way, I’ve done both. 

Trials for getting the particles to react: 

The first thing I do is crack two glow sticks.  I shake one and not the other. It’s a great way to get the ball rolling that the particles must come in contact in order to react.  The kids can very easily figure this one out. 

Then I take these two glow sticks and set one in hot water and one in cold water. 

While letting this sit for a minute, we crack two other glow sticks.  These two glow sticks are of two different sizes.  This has the kids realize that concentration is a factor in reaction rate.  When there’s more stuff to react, more stuff reacts. 

Then we head back to the warm and cold beakers. We make note of which glow stick is brighter.  After our observations, we swap the two glow sticks. We give them another minute or so, and make observations. I have a really good time lapse of swapping the two glow sticks you can see in the gif below.

Pushing Students to Extend Their Thinking

After the kids learn about the factors that affect solubility, this is really not that difficult of a concept for my students to pick up on.  And in my opinion that makes it a good inquiry activity for teaching collision theory. Many of my students struggle with this stuff. It’s hard for them to come up with rationale as to WHY a phenomena is happening.  Partly I think this is because of the educational blip of 2020.  But I also think that the phenomena teaching model is fairly new in science. Well not new.  But more so, “freshly mainstream.” Some of us having been doing it for a while, but not all of our students have. 

Get a list of my Free Kinetics & Equilibrium Phenomena here. Read more about them in detail in this post.

After the kids have figured out how concentration, contacts and temperature affect reaction rate we synthesize as a class.  Then I make sure to ask them to hypothesize the other factors: surface area, pressure and use of a catalyst.  I’ll then teach a lesson on collision theory and let them know whether they were right or wrong.  I prefer to get it all out on the table, BUT you could hold off. 

I like to use the Elephant’s Toothpaste lab activity to have them learn about catalysts and measure heat flow. We do this lab with my thermodynamics unit, but you very well could do this in your kinetics unit.  Read more about the Elephant’s Toothpaste heat flow lab here.

The post Inquiry Activity for Teaching Collision Theory 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.

(This post is adapted from a podcast episode you can listen to here.)

Why I Changed my Mind About Test Retakes

Like many teachers, I used to think retakes meant:

• students wouldn’t study the first time
• grades would become meaningless
• I’d spend all my time making new/duplicate test

But the reality is that traditional testing often measures timing and circumstances more than learning. Students get sick. They have bad days. They misunderstand one concept and it tanks their whole grade. If our goal is mastery, shouldn’t we allow another opportunity to show it?

That question is what pushed me to try a new approach.

And when it really came down to it, I had learned that test retakes happen all the time in the “real world.” The SAT, your road test… heck maybe even your teacher certification exams are things that you can take again and again until you pass or improve your score.

My Simple Test Retake Policy.

My policy is really straightforward:

• Students can retake any test within the current grading period
• There is no time limit on when they take that test (doesn’t need to be within X number of days)
• The can retake as many times as they want
• the highest score repalces the previous score
• they must fill out a test reflection form (this is a small yet simple barrier to entry that keeps students from retaking over and over without actually studying)

That’s it. No complicated point system. No averaging. No weird hoops to just through. And surprisingly, my students didn’t abuse it.

What Actually Happened When I Allowed Retakes

Here’s what changed almost immediately:

1) Students Took More Ownership of Their Learning

Instead of asking, “Can I get extra credit?” students started asking, “Can I come for a retake?” They moved from chasing points to focusing on understanding. If you know me, you know I love to push responsibilty on to my students. When we’re about two weeks out from report cards, I print out each student’s gradebook page. I force them to look at their average and their test scores. If they are unhappy, it’s time to review that material and retake the test. I’m not going to be held responsible for a failing test score if this student had an opportunity to improve it, and chose not to.

2) Parent Phone Calls Were Easier

“Why is my child failing? What are you going to do about that?”

“Absolutely nothing, ma’am. Your child has had 8 weeks to schedule a test retake with me, before school, after school, during luch, or during study hall and chose not to. I’d suggest you have a conversation about the importance of seizing opportunities, and prioritizing their education.”

It also helps to have this policy written into your syllabus. If you add this in midyear, send out a teacher announcement via email, or have a signed “syllabus addendum” homework assignment to make parents aware.

3) Test Anxiety Dropped Dramatically

When students know one test won’t permanently define their grade, the pressure decreases. A lot. When anxiety drops, performance improves. Students walk in on test day feeling calmer and more confident. Read more about improving student confidence in chemistry in this blog post.

4) My Classroom Culture Became More Positive

The biggest change wasn’t their grades. It was the relationships I had with my students. They knew I was a teacher who wanted to see them succeed. Not somebody trying to catch them on a bad day. That trust changed EVERYTHING. (Even for the kids who NEVER came in for a retake. Just having that option made all the difference.)

5) Retakes Didn’t Create More Work than I Expected

This is the part that teachers worry about the most. Not every student even comes in for retakes. It’ll likely be a handful of your students that take you up on the offer. Many retake only once. (Who wants to take a chemistry test after school when they could be doing something else…?) Most students actually improve both their scores and knowledge, which helps them out later in the school year for midterms and finals.

The teacher workload is manageable. Especially when you compare to the benefits. You can literally administer the same test if you like. You can give your student a different version of the same test. You can change from a 30 question multiple choice test to a 5 free response questions. This is the RETAKE afterall. You don’t have to follow the same rules. Heck, you could even make it a lab report if that aligned with the original content of the test!

Does Allowing Retakes Lower Rigor?

Sure doesn’t. In fact, it may even increase rigor. Students are required to keep working until they understand the material. And keep up with the current material at the same time. That persistence builds deeper learning? Read more about balancing rigor and grace.

What about Students that RELY on the Retake?

When I tell the kids that I have this retake policy in the beginning of the school year, I make sure to let them know that it doesn’t mean that they should do nothing while we’re learning and rely on the retake in two months. Because if they don’t know it now, they’re probably not going to know it in two months. And during that two months of time, we are going to be accumulating more and more content that they need to know and understand. That kind of scares them into learning it the first time around, because they don’t want to have to rely on the retake. 

A Minset Shift that Matters

I want the students to be able to show me that they learned whenever they learn. I don’t really care if it happens “late.” And I know that there are some people out there who were going to say, but what about the kids who learned it the first time around?

What about them? Lucky them that they learned at the first time around that all of the pieces lined up so that they were able to learn it the first time. I don’t think that we should be penalizing kids because they learn a little bit slower or a little bit later than other kids. At it’s core, this test retake policy tells your students this one powerful message: Learning matters more than the timing.

And when students believer that improvement is possible, they try. It’s not a DOA situation for their chemistry score if those first few weeks give them a run for their money.

If You’re Considering a Retake Policy

If you feel like you can’t offer unlimited retakes and you just want to be able to offer one, there’s other options, or ways to ease into it.

• Have your students come to a required tutoring session prior to the retake. Maybe that’s coming to your classroom during lunch or afterschool for some extra help.
• Have your students complete a reflection sheet that highlights the things they do and do not understand.
• Require them to correct the original test first. Maybe that is the “proof” they’re ready for a retake so you don’t have to do an extra work creating a new test that won’t change anything.
• This post really isn’t about test corrections and getting points back, but you could do that instead. But I don’t think it has nearly the same impact.
• Offer an alternative assignment that would demonstrate that they learned the same information but showcased in a different way. This could be a written paper, a lab report, or a packet of worksheets on the topics on the test. My quick practice worksheets would be a great alternative!
• Shrink your retake window. If a student wants to retake a test, it has to happen within two weeks, or 30 days. Maybe don’t start out with the entire marking period.
• Allow only one retake. See how it goes. Then upgrade to unlimited retakes. (All the cool teachers are doing it! – I’m kidding. That’s peer pressure, because I can’t go back to no retakes.)

Holding Students Accountable and Giving Grades Truly Based on Learning

I think that when kids are given the option, there are a lot of kids who will work really hard to get a better grade. And there are a lot of kids would just will take whatever grade they have and then that’s it. Even if they fell asleep during the test claiming, “I’m just going to retake it in two weeks!”

When it’s the end of the marking period and the kid isn’t proud of their grade, you have the ability to say that it’s on them because they didn’t utilize the retake window. You have the opportunity to say to a student that they were the ones who forfeited this chance, they didn’t take advantage of it. 

And then, more or less, you are in the clear for giving a kid a grade that they actually deserve. All of those typical excuses go out the window as soon as you start offering retakes.

The post My Retake Policy Completely Changed my Classroom appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

Here are the simple ways I build test prep directly into my normal lessons, so review days actually become synthesis days, and not panic planning days.

1. Rework Classwork

At the end of each guided notes lesson, I give students a short set of independent practice questions. This usually takes about 8–10 minutes and students work directly in their notebooks.  Students work on their own, and try applying the newly learned content immediately. When they’re done working, I share the answers. 

This does several things at once. Students can IMMEDIATELY check their understanding. You KNOW how much I love self assessment. Your students can correct their mistakes while the lesson is still fresh, before moving on to the graded assignment for the day. And lastly, your students are leaving with plenty of example questions with the correct answers/solutions EVERY DAY. 

By the time we get to unit review, these questions are perfect for going back and reworking. It’s especially great for at home studying. Since your students have this material, that means your review time can be spent connecting concepts, fixing misconceptions, and strengthening weaknesses, instead of attempting to cram in everything the day before the test. 

2. Reuse your task cards, card sorts and games on purpose

If you already use task cards, card sorts, or games (really anything worth laminating) during your lessons, you are sitting on built-in test prep. I’m in love with my laminator because I plan on using these activities again and again. I use these things, once during the lesson when the concept is first taught, and again during unit review. And sometimes again

When you do this consistently, students aren’t busy worrying about the structure of the activity. Instead, they’re focused on the chemistry. This is really powerful because it’s way more low-stress the second time around. Your students know the type of thinking that is required. And so they just take all their time and energy and make connections between topics instead of figuring out what to do. Plus, by reusing what you have, you aren’t creating any new materials, just for review. 

3. Use lab rewrites as review (for the right labs)

If you are a believer in test makeups, lab rewrites, and learning at your own pace, this tactic is for you! During unit review, I allow for lab rewrites. But only for a few specific labs. Students are only allowed to work on lab rewrites for labs where the content directly matches the content of the test. This lets the lab do the work to reinforce concepts that the students need to understand for their test. But at the same time, they’re actually getting work done and improving their grade in chemistry. Plus a lot of the time, your students are working together. Win-win-win if you ask me!

4. Build review into your classwork before it becomes “review”

One of the easiest ways to turn normal lessons into test prep is to stop thinking of classwork as isolated. When I write classwork worksheets and assignments, I like to include one or two questions that connect back to a previous topic. But even if you didn’t, you can ask students to compare today’s concept with something they learned earlier in the unit or the school year.

Students don’t even realize that this is review. By the time review day arrives, students have already been practicing connections for weeks. This is the beauty of spiral review. You can check out this post about spiral review strategies that I use in my classroom. If you use my Guided Notes Curriculum, the structure lends itself to very simple spiral review, but I’ve already done that all for you! 

5. Chemistry is all about the electrons

The easiest way for your students to review, or spiral as they go through the content, is to ALWAYS bring it back to the basics. In my classroom, I say it probably 1000 times a school year, (that’s 18 times a day): “Chemistry is all about the electrons.”

Electrons is the common thread among all chemistry concepts. Except for Nuclear that is – that’s why I teach it at the end of the year, and not alongside Atomic When you constantly bring chemistry back to the basics, EVERYTHING you say becomes review. Chemistry isn’t a course about chemicals. It’s a course about electrons! 

6. Keep a small library of activities to keep focus

Before I jump into whole-class review, I ask students to quickly reflect on which topics still feel confusing and the types of questions they struggle with. After baking self assessment into my course, this becomes much easier for them throughout the course. They’ve gotten practice with self assessment largely through my “Show What You Know” questions at the end of every lesson. Plus I have a small library of activity types that I draw from: Mystery, Pixel Art, Card Sort, Logic Puzzle, Quick Practice… This familiarity makes them very aware of what’s easy and what’s difficult for them. Their reflections become very accurate. 

7. Use Learning Targets

Plus (and please don’t accuse me of being an administrator for this) I love learning targets! I don’t spend time talking about them at the start of the day – I see that as a waste of time. But I do have an “I can…” statement written on my board and at the top of the notes. Plus that statement is on my unit outline/study guide. Students have a checklist of the things they should know and be able to do by the time the test rolls around. I really make it a point over and over again that students need to use this list to help them determine if they’re prepared for a test.

If you need help with learning targets, check out my Final Exam Study Guide. While you can use it for your final exam, since it’s broken down by unit, it’s easy for you to use the file for each unit of study in chemistry as the year progresses. 

Why this makes review days actually work

When you build test prep into normal instruction, review days become synthesis days. Students are able to assess their learning throughout the unit and then on review day, should be able to focus review on particular concepts within your unit. They can spend time rewriting lab reports, reworking their Show What You Know Questions, redoing your card sorts and other activities. Notice the “re?” That means there’s plenty of review happening, without you having to make anything new. You’ve already spent the time helping your students strengthen their understanding of chemistry, slow and steady throughout the unit. It’s up to your students to determine what they individually need to relearn.

The real shift

Instead of asking: “What review should I plan at the end of the unit?” Ask yourself, “How can today’s work quietly support the test later?” That single shift turns everyday chemistry lessons into ongoing test preparation, without adding extra materials, extra grading, or extra planning time. And that’s exactly how review days stop feeling frantic and start feeling useful. So keep those review days in your schedule, just put the responsibility on your students to figure out what they individually need from it. It is RE VIEW, after all. 

The post Simple Chemistry Test Review Without Adding Anything New appeared first on Kelsey Reavy.

But I’m here to tell you, confidently, that chemistry is the MOST fun science. And if someone wants to argue, I’ll happily prove them wrong. If you’re teaching chemistry, or have a little anxiety about teaching chemistry, this blog post is for you.

Why Chemistry is So Hard and “Boring” 

Chemistry relies on indirect observation. Which is where I feel most teachers drop the ball, and make chemistry exceptionally difficult for their students. Chemistry is abstract. You’re teaching about atoms and molecules which can’t be seen, and talking about their behavior. Then you’re asking students who may not even be interested in chemistry to use their imaginations to picture what is happening, or to predict behavior during reactions. And there’s a few layers to this. If students can’t imagine or learn to use indirect observation then they can’t possibly be successful in class. Now it’s hard. And when it’s hard, and your students aren’t primed to accept a challenge, your class becomes a snooze fest. 

This is why I think that the Rutherford experiment is so important to teach in high school chemistry classes. How did he know what the nucleus of an atom looked like without ever seeing it? He looked at behavior of the particles after manipulating them. It’s why I spend SO MUCH TIME working with the Rutherford experiment and even made a lab activity for my students to grapple with it. Check out more about that experiment here. In short, students throw ping pong balls at a hula hoop model of the atom to simulate the Rutherford experiment. It’s a blast!

Chemistry Shines When Students DO Chemistry

Chemistry is at its best when students aren’t just listening, they’re actively working with ideas. And this doesn’t have to be strictly labs! There’s plenty of things that you can do to make chemistry more tangible to showcase the fun. Unlike some sciences where learning can lean heavily on reading or math, chemistry thrives on problem solving, pattern recognition, predicting outcomes and explaining why something happens without having the direct observation to rely on.

And that means the real magic happens during practice time.This is where chemistry separates itself from the pack. When students actually use what they’ve learned, chemistry becomes engaging, satisfying, and even fun. Treat chemistry like a big puzzle to be solved by making connections, and BOOM! there’s nothing more gratifying. 

The Secret to More Fun? More Practice Time

Here’s the catch: you don’t get great practice time if your lessons take the entire class period. This is exactly why I’m such a big believer in short, focused lessons paired with guided notes. When students aren’t frantically copying everything off the board, you suddenly gain something incredibly valuable. Time. Time for practice problems, partner work, small-group activities, labs, games, and discussions. Plus, your students are distracted by writing things down. They actually listen to you and learn more.

My guided notes curriculum is designed to keep lessons efficient and intentional so that the best part of chemistry (actually doing it) can take center stage. Read this post on ways to increase practice time if you need some help in this department. 

This Is Where the Fun Stuff Lives

Once you’ve protected that practice time, chemistry opens up endless possibilities. This is when you get to pull out

• Mystery activities where students analyze clues and data to solve a problem
• Hands-on labs that connect abstract concepts to real observations
• Logic puzzles and challenges that make students think deeply without even realizing they’re “studying”
• Collaborative problem solving that builds confidence and engagement

Chemistry becomes less about memorizing formulas and more about thinking like a chemist, which students actually enjoy when they’re given the chance. If you need some ways to turn a boring worksheet into something fun, check out this blog post for my tips. It’s really not as hard as you may think! 

Built-In Excuses to Celebrate (Chemistry Wins Again)

Chemistry also wins in the “built-in fun days” category. If you go hardcore, you can celebrate all of National Chemistry Week. If you want to keep it a bit more low-key, you can celebrate Mole Day on October 23. These things are already built into the culture of chemistry. The American Chemical Society gives each year a new theme. (I can’t say they are the best at picking interesting topics, but they try!) 

National Chemistry Week is the perfect excuse for themed activities, stations, demos, and creative lessons. Mole Day practically begs for games, jokes, and low-pressure practice. These moments matter. They remind students (and teachers) that chemistry isn’t just another class. It’s a subject worth celebrating! Have some fun with it! 

Chemistry Gets Better the Longer You Teach It

One of my favorite things about teaching chemistry is that it improves with experience. The more you teach it, the more you can anticipate student misconceptions, refine your explanations (especially using analogies), streamline your lessons and build a bank of go to activities. My first year was a lot of ugly worksheets I made in Microsoft Word. By year 3 I was building fun escape rooms, task cards activities, and edible lab activities. Once your lessons are dialed in and efficient, chemistry becomes a playground for creativity and engagement. And there’s so much fun to be had! 

If you need help refining your explanations, observe a chemistry teacher in your building and see how they do it. If you don’t have the time, or another teacher to observe, check out my Youtube Channel. I’ve taught every lesson in my curriculum and then some for you and your students.

Final Verdict: Chemistry Wins

Chemistry isn’t boring. It isn’t just math. And it isn’t “too hard” to be fun. When chemistry is taught with intention (short lessons, and plenty of practice time), it is the MOST interactive, flexible and engaging science there is!

So yes, I’ll stand by it. Chemistry is the MOST fun science!

The post Chemistry is the MOST fun Science (and You’ll Lose that Argument Quickly) 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.