Finally, teaching for my sixth year, I have been allowed to
work with an average to above average academic group of upperclassmen teaching
chemistry (my primary endorsement)! Now
that I have started off with something positive I feel I can now unload a bunch
of negatives:
It has turned out that my standards for this group of
students has been far too high starting out the year. When it comes to previous knowledge of the
content they probably should have been the same for my chem students as they were
for my frosh science class.
My husband teaches sophomores in Corvallis the same content
we are working on in my junior/senior class.
We gave a common assessment – our first test. Corvallis sophomores on average scored 20%
better than the Lebanon juniors and seniors in my class. Many of my chemistry students have expressed
a desire to go into medicine in college.
Next year or the year after when my students go to college there will be
no allowances made for the city they come from. I worry the accommodations we are so used to
making at our high school are giving students like those in my chemistry class
a skewed view of what it means to be a good student and to work hard.
And yet so many students think that this work is too hard –
there are only about 70 students enrolled in chemistry in our district. LHS has about 200 more total students than my
husband’s school and his has ~100 more students enrolled in chem. I know these are two very different cities,
but I feel like our students are capable, that it is fixable, and it is
important – so many good jobs require at least success at chemistry in school
if not application of chemistry principles in the workplace.
I am curious about perceptions of chemistry (+science and
math in general) among adults and students and how this influences success and
enrollment. I want to know specifically
where the hang ups are for chem students.
The math we do in my class (What is the common denominator of 3 and
2? We have 6 on the left side and 4 on
the right, how many more do we need on the right for them to be equal?) is so
much simpler than what they are doing in the high school math classes I don’t
feel like math can be the primary issue…
Is it vocab? Is it something else?
Wow, you have hit on some amazing data here. Do you share this information with the students? How about others in your department? Do we need to "beef up" physical science to get them more ready? What makes Chemistry interesting and how do we "market" it differently so that more students participate? What are your theories?
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