We are teachers. We like to know that we know stuff. Kids think that we know stuff. If you wear your lab coat out of the room, everyone who sees you thinks you know stuff. But the hard truth is that there is just too much stuff to know!
Students also love to know stuff. And they ask such cool and strange questions. One of the challenging balancing acts in teaching chemistry is knowing when to engage on a rabbit hole and when not to. Here are a few ideas on ways that I engage with those off the wall questions.
Start a Sticky Note of Wonder (SNoW)
On my desk are all sorts of sticky notes with reminders of things I need to do. But I also keep a Sticky Note of Wonder. This is the location that I put down cool questions that kids ask but I don’t know the answer to. It’s something to wonder about. I will tell a student that I love their question, I don’t know the answer, but it’s going on the sticky note so that I can follow up with them later. This allows me to value their thoughts without having to immediately derail the class and go down the rabbit hole. What I do with items that make it onto the SNoW will vary a lot. But the student feels like they have been heard. They understand that their question is important. They see that I am curious too. All of those are positives in the chemistry classroom.
Student Teaches Teacher
Some questions on the SNoW are perfect for the student who asked to research. I will tell them after they ask the question, “I don’t know the answer, but the question is going on the SNoW. Tonight, you research it and come teach me about it tomorrow.” You would be surprised how often a kid will follow through. But then you have to reward them. In front of the class, I will take a minute to thank them for their work. I will remind the class of the question. Then I will relay the answer from the student. The kid has done the heavy lifting and they are rewarding everyone, including you, with a little more knowledge.
Post an Article
There are rabbit hole questions that I want to know the answer to! These, I will check off the SNoW as time permits. During my lunch hour, I will pick on a google it. I try to find primary sources on the topic. I often will screen shot the abstract and post it in the class. If you tag the student that asked the question, or the class that seemed intrigued, they can then check out the article. Many won’t, but the few that do will grow like crazy!
I had a question like this in AP chemistry this week. A student asked why the Henderson-Hasselbalch Equation didn’t give them the same answer as an ICE box calculation. Embarrassingly, I didn’t know right off the bat. So, after he left, I took the question from the SNoW, found the answer, and tagged the entire class in a post. He gets feedback, I feel less stupid, and the class can deepen their understanding. (The reason is that the H-H equation offers an estimate of pH value of a buffer that does not take into consideration the small changes in concentration due to having a small Ka. The question the student was working on happened to have a larger Ka which was making the estimate less accurate.)
Create a Question
Some kid questions are better than your questions. They are on-topic and don’t have clear or simple answers. These are great to deepen the content in the class. Please don’t ask the internet THE question, “Is there a writeup for this?”. Instead write the question on the board the next day, split the class and have a five minute debate. The left side of the class is going to argue for why they think X. The right side is going to argue for why they think Y. And the back row is going to do some internet research to see if they can find what others have said. Don’t let it drag on. Don’t make them turn anything in. But if the question is worthy, let it reward their curiosity and put the ownership for answers and thought back on them.
Use Your Down Time
There are minutes in the class, where the students are engaged and quiet. Use that time to quickly search up answers to simple questions. Here is an example from last week. “Mr. Koch, would I die if I ate this much copper (II) sulfate?” They held out their weighing dish with almost five grams on it. First, my answer is obviously, “Don’t test that, today. But I will find out.” When the kids went on a bathroom break in the middle of lab, I quickly googled the LD50. It is 300 mg/kg. Quick math on the calculator estimating their weight and I have an answer. If they ate four of those dishes (21 g), they would have a 50% chance of surviving. When the kid came back from break I reported to them their chances. They thought for a minute… “I guess I won’t then.” Good answer. But in reality, I want students to wonder those type of questions. And if I can quickly reward them with an answer that doesn’t derail the class I sure will do that for them.
Pro-Tip!
Schedule in student breaks into labs. Include it in your lab map. (If you want to read an article on lab maps go here.) You must make it to this spot before asking to go to the bathroom. Yesterday, it was during the time their crucible was cooling before it could go on the scale. They go to the bathroom and when they get back it’s time to weigh. This cuts down on distracting absence during key parts of the experiment.
Add it to the Test
On occasion, there are perfect kid questions that end up on the SNoW and then make their way to the test. It happened with chemistry and biology for me lately. A kid asked, “Why does cyanide kill you?” I didn’t know. It went to the SNoW. When I researched it, the answer was more complex than my chem class could handle. Cyanide binds to a coenzyme that stops the electron transport chain. But I could then ask on a test a question like this:
Cyanide disrupts the flow of electrons through the electron transport chain. Electrons can flow into a molecule but not leave. Which periodic trend was most likely affected? A. Radius B. Zeff C. Ionization Energy D. Electron Affinity.
The students are then thinking about real world scenarios. They are engaging with questions asked in class. And they are rewarded with a deeper understanding, even if that understanding is incomplete. These are all better answers than shutting a kid down because he asked an offbeat question.
PS: The cyanide question also made it onto the AP biology test but in a deeper form, because they happened to be studying the electron transport chain. I love it when a plan comes together.
I hope that your students ask lots of cool and strange questions. Engage with them in a way that is beneficial for them and not detrimental to the class. Honoring their wonder with your wonder can go a real long way.
Want another way to engage their minds? Try chemistry games from Stoich Decks. Watch how competition will bring out the deeper questions. Check them out today.
Comments