You have seen this while grading a free response question. The student started off so strong. The were carefully labeling their units, correctly converting, and then something happens. Sometimes it’s a slow creep of error. A little one here and a little one there and the next thing you know their final answer is about how Tecumseh fought in the War of 1812. Where did that come from? They get going so wrong, they switch classes before the end of the problem. I have found a little drill that helps to minimize the crazy answers. It doesn’t always make them right, but at least it keeps Tecumseh in the history department.
All too often, and particularly when students feel the pressure of a time crunch, they will dive into a problem at the start and just see where their brain takes them. This isn’t a strategy.
I got to see an evidence of this at a girls’ basketball game the other night. Our JV was playing their varsity. And it was a bloodbath. Our JV girls won by 40 or 50 points. The “varsity” team on the other side looked confused and disoriented. I happen to be friends with the AD from the other school and got to talking to him about the team. He told me that he had to hire the coach just a couple of days before season. She has never played basketball. She just worked at the school, so it made for less paperwork. During the game she had to call the ref over to explain a call to the girls on the bench. Because she didn’t know what the hand signals meant. That poor coach. She is just sending her girls out there to see what happens. And as we all could tell it wasn’t anything good. Don’t let your students feel like this headed into a free response question.
The 10-second Strategy Session
Ten seconds isn’t a very long time. But it is amazing how training your students to pause after reading a question and then formulate a strategy will improve their performance. Let’s use an example from grade-level chemistry.
What is the theoretical yield in grams of the insoluble product if 32.5 g of aqueous ammonium carbonate is reacted with 42.9 g of aqueous iron (II) nitrate?
Within the first ten seconds of reading that question, I want them to identify the major steps that they will need to take. They are NOT solving the major steps they are simply identifying what skills they will be putting into action and in what order. My hope for that question is that the steps might look something like this.
What is the theoretical yield in grams of the insoluble product if 32.5 g of aqueous ammonium carbonate is reacted with 42.9 g of aqueous iron (II) nitrate?
Things I need to do:
Write a balanced equation.
Label the states of the products.
Convert each reactant into grams of the insoluble product.
Choose the value that is smaller. That will be my answer.
Students who have been well-trained can easily formulate that plan in ten seconds. And the benefit of having that plan is it gives them a logical flow to their decisions as they solve the question. For instance, I have watched kids dive right into a question like that without a balanced equation. They get to the part where they need to apply the mole ratio. And they don’t have one. Then they remember that they will need an equation, so they scribble one sideways on the edge of their test, forgetting the states of the products. Then they return to their dimensional analysis, but their concentration is broken. The likelihood of making an error is increased dramatically. And then they still don’t know what product they are going to. In fact, they might just ignore the term insoluble all together and go to whatever their heart desires.
Just yesterday, I was grading some AP chemistry tests. I noticed that one student was actually writing strategic notes to himself. He had written the equation. Circled a variable. And wrote “Solve for this”. How simple is that. He knew what his plan was. He needed to solve for the circled variable. I saw other notes throughout his work. Things like “Check units”, “Temp in K” etc. He was coaching himself. And honestly, he coached himself to a score that was right near his glass ceiling. And that is what we want. Here are a few focus points and drills you can use to help your students think strategically.
Keys to Training Your Students
1. Practice
Only a fraction of your kids will start formulating precise plans. Most of them will wing it. They must have practice. It only takes a few minutes of your day but can pay off in red ink at the end of the unit. I like to put a question on the screen and only show it for ten seconds. Then the students work with their partner to come up with a plan. Then I show them my plan and they score themselves on how complete their strategy was. You can do those three times in the span of six to eight minutes.
2. Point Out Traps
As teachers, we never ask trick questions. But there are questions with unexpected answers. (By the way, that is a great line to use with kids who like to complain about “trick” questions.) You have been teaching for so long, you know where the pitfalls are. You know where the common errors are. Let me give a simple AP question as an example.
What is ΔG° of a reaction that has ΔH°= -25.4 kJ/mol and ΔS°=53.9 J/molK at 25° C.
If you teach ΔG=ΔH-TΔS then you know right where I am going. Since enthalpy and entropy are not in the same unit, students frequently forget to change to a common unit of energy. Did you catch the other trap? Probably. The temperature must be converted to Kelvin before the multiplication occurs. Your students need to be able to identify these traps before they even put pencil to paper so that they don’t step in them.
I play a silly game with the kids in class to help solidify these traps. The game is called, “Koch is a psychic.” As they are working on a problem like the one above, I will quickly calculate the wrong answer and very dramatically write on sticky note, “The students who missed this question will have … as their answer.” And I will write in the answer if they fell into the trap. I will fold it up, give it to a student and then instruct them not to read the psychic prediction until I tell them. We finish working through the question and I write the correct answer on the board. Some kids got it, and others missed it. Then I have the kid read the prediction. The students are amazed! I am almost always psychic!
“Mr. Koch, how did you know that I would write that down?”
Bam. I got them right where I want them. Wondering about the pitfalls of what they have done. They won’t step into that pitfall again.
3. Give ten extra seconds for graphs and tables
We practice telling the story of a graph. The story of a graph is often more important than the data on the graph. If a student can clearly identify the trends or the theme of a graph, they will be more efficient at gleaning the precise data from it.
A simple drill that we do in this area is the Blind Partner Drill. Every kid is paired up. One kid closes their eyes and the other is going to have 10 seconds to figure out the story of a graph. Then the kid who was looking describes the story to the blind student. Then I show they question without showing the graph. The blind student reads and answers the question based on the data they received from the student who viewed the graph. Kids will really quickly discover whether or not they are extracting the big ideas and themes from the graph.
Even if my chemistry students aren’t familiar with the term Acetyl-CoA, they can still tell the story of this graph. They quickly recognize that there are three different conditions. Condition three changes concentration rapidly then flattens out at a high value. Condition 1 changes concentration slowly but reaches the same high plateau. And condition 2 increases slowly and flattens out at a lower concentration. There it is. A ten second story.
4. Give limited time to execute strategies.
The more time given to solve a problem, the more likely a kid will wander off their path. If they are forced to be efficient in executing their strategy, they will stick more closely to the script. We have all seen when a kid wanders around the answer. The right thoughts are in there but get convoluted in excess work. A time crunch will improve their focus on getting directly to the answer.
I encourage you to take just a few minutes a week to help students develop a strategic mindset while approaching chemistry problems. They will feel equipped, encouraged, and ready to attack hard problems. And you can save some red ink for another day.
Are you looking for a quick way to have your students practice writing ionic formulas? Do you want it to be fast? Do you want it to take little effort and setup? Check out CHeMgO! It is the classroom bingo game that grows with your students. You choose the level of challenge and they get lots of competitive reps. Check out this video to hear how it works.
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