5 Ways to Grow Your Students by Making Them Get Creative
You have this student in your class. She is perfect. She rarely misses questions on tests. Everything is by the book. Well, I gave...
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Brennan Koch
Feb 17, 20236 min read
3 Words That Can Connect You To Your Students
I made a girl cry in chemistry yesterday. Actually, the world made her cry, I just happened to be the final straw. But in that...
Brennan Koch
Feb 11, 20234 min read
Use confidence to build confidence in chemistry.
Chemistry is hard. That is why we love it. If it was easy, it would be called “English”. Kidding, I’m kidding. Save the hate mail. But...
Brennan Koch
Feb 4, 20236 min read
This 10-second strategy drill improves your students' performance.
You have seen this while grading a free response question. The student started off so strong. The were carefully labeling their units,...
Brennan Koch
Jan 27, 20235 min read
6 Tips to make naming compounds less confounding.
I remember grading the naming test a few years ago. The student started out decently. But the longer she went, the more convoluted the...
Brennan Koch
Jan 20, 20236 min read
Turn your worksheets into games to make your classroom come alive.
Can you picture the eye-roll that inevitably comes when you start across the room with a stack of worksheets? I hate it. Don't the kids...
Brennan Koch
Jan 13, 20234 min read
What to do when your lab fails.
We've all been there. You've spent hours preparing, thinking through, mixing chemicals, laying out labware, explaining to students. All...
Brennan Koch
Jan 8, 20235 min read
Help students spend less time on multiple choice questions. With smiley faces.
We have all seen it. The kid that twists everything up in their mind. The one we root for. They circled the right answer. Erased it,...
Brennan Koch
Dec 20, 20223 min read
How to teach periodic trends without being boring.
Some topics are a little dry. No matter how important they are or how intrigued you are, the students just don't connect. I will share...
Brennan Koch
Dec 5, 20222 min read
Help students stop making idiodic stoichiometry mistakes with one step.
It only sounds judgmental because it is. Idiot mistakes. You know the ones. They are given real world stoichiometry problems and they...
Brennan Koch
Dec 2, 20224 min read
Teach students The Mole in one period with no notes.
I love this time of year; the start of stoichiometry. It feels like I'm at the cusp of teaching them "real chemistry." But it can also...
Brennan Koch
Jun 6, 20226 min read
7 Keys to Help Teachers Recharge This Summer
It's HERE! You have survived another school year and made it to this mythical time called summer. But please, don't blink. Or it will...
Brennan Koch
May 25, 20222 min read
3 Quick Ways Students Can Use Phones to Collect Real Lab Data
Love them or hate them, smart phones are here to stay. Students start twitching when they go minutes without checking their messages. I...
Brennan Koch
Mar 6, 20223 min read
Try This Fun Lab to Introduce Thermochemistry!
This might be the perfect lab. Kids love to light things on fire. Kids love junk food. I know, let's light junk food on fire! I have...
Brennan Koch
Feb 22, 20222 min read
One Simple Step to Reduce Work Load and Improve Student Success
I call this blog post no-duh-content. But it took me too many years to make a concerted effort to improve my teaching in this area. I...
Brennan Koch
Jan 12, 20226 min read
5 Tricks to reduce prep time
You don't have time. For anything. Seriously. You have spent so much time preparing for all the duties of a teacher that it sucks away...
Brennan Koch
Dec 30, 20214 min read
Two Tricks to Help Students Visualize Stoichiometry
Cue the ominous music. Stoichiometry is coming! Every year, chemistry teachers of all shapes and sizes await the coming of...
Brennan Koch
Dec 2, 20212 min read
A Christmas Lab Your Students Will Actually Like
I'd like to share a fun little lab that I do with my students before finals week. It doesn't require too much prep work and the kids...
Brennan Koch
Aug 16, 20214 min read
First day of science: Your demo sucks.
The demo that you do on the first day of class DOES NOT matter! OK, that might be a little hyperbolic, but hear me out. I have been...
Brennan Koch
Jun 23, 20215 min read
Screens and the Death of Stories and Science
I received a thank you note in my mailbox at school this morning. It was short, simple and well written. He thanked me for telling...
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