On 12/8 we had a wonderful discussion of the particular challenges teaching chemistry to English language learners. Click here to see the ZOOM recording, including some great resources in the chat. Although our group was small (10 people) it was far-ranging, including teachers not only  from Maine to Maryland to Michigan but also from Milan (yes, Italy!) and S. Korea. As host, I am always grateful for the opportunity to have honest discussions with colleagues from such a wide range of teaching situations and perspectives.

Thank you to our presenters Dr. Mackenzie Stetzer, Dr. Mila Kryjevskaia and Dr. Beth Lindsey for two evening presentations on Dual Processing. We learned about intuitive vs. rational reasoning and the reasoning pathways students take while solving problems. We also learned about two techniques for helping students see their own thinking and help teachers see how students think. We experienced "logic chains" and "paired questions with salient distractors" for ourselves on the 2nd night, and had extra insights from college chem teachers Dr. Mitchell Bruce and Dr. Alexey Leontyev.

Stay tuned: there will be a double evening followup in the spring for our fall participants to practice these techniques and share their design and implementation experiences. Dates have not been set yet.

Here are the links to recordings of DAY 1 and DAY 2.

THANK YOU to the 18 participants in this month's ChemChat on "sustainable demos". We had high school and college folks from Maine to Virginia and a lively conversation.

Here is the link to the google.drive folder containing shared work.

Here is the link to the recorded video.

Here is a thought-provoking article about science education from Chemistry World

https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/do-science-courses-need-hands-on-labs-to-be-effective/4016216.article

THANK YOU to all who participated in our August ChemChat. We brainstormed some topics for this year's roundtables, and plan to do more of this in September. Topics currently being planned are 

• SEL: implementing social and emotional learning within a chem curriculum
• DEMOS: how to include meaningful but easy-to-sustain demonstrations
• NGSS: how are folks implementing this?
• READING: how to bring outside readings into the classroom in ways that are meaningful to students but not time-intensive for teachers
• ASSESSMENTS: streamlining assessments; assessing skills
• DIFFERENTIATION: how to implement differentiation without burning the teacher time candle at both ends

We wish everyone a joyful and peace-filled start to their school year.

"Chem-Chats" will run every 2nd Thursday from 4:00-5:00 pm (EST).

Plan to attend the Annual Massachusetts Marine Educators Conference on Saturday April 30 at the Quissett Campus at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.  This year's theme is "Ocean and Coastal Data."  You can find more information at
https://www.massachusettsmarineeducators.org/annual-meeting-and-conference-at-woods-hole