Session 1: A Clean Sheet
Three groups were formed each taking one of Inorganic, Organic and Physical
Chemistry as a theme.
The idea was to look at a concept (“chunk”) and see if a storyline
could be used to teach it.
E.g. The group working on Inorganic looked at storylines to teach the
Periodic Table (conventionally covered using electronic structures and
trends in behaviour)
- The storyline approach here was to:- get students to look at the composition
of the Earth (or the Oceans) in terms of percentages of different elements.
- To think about how you could look at organising atoms, in terms of
size? number of electrons? What is the difference between one element and
another? Theory would require some idea of how you arrange electrons within
an atom (s, p, d etc) leading to the concept of a Table.
- Group work could be given to students to look at trends in elements
eg. 10 students to a group looking at 5 elements (from a group or row).
- The task would be find 10 bits of information about the elements in
their group (eg: mp, conductivity, ionisation energy, electronic configuration,
electron affinity, atomic radi, common oxidation states, reactions with
H2O, reactions with O2, some ionic/covalent compounds).
- The group would pool the information about their elements and then
in a teaching session the whole cohort would pool information. The reports
would be on one A4 sheet that was handed in and collated.
This approach would cover this material in 2/3 hours.
Conclusions on Session 1
It was felt by all that thinking up suitable storylines was not easy.
It was easy, however, to get sucked into discussions over styles and minutiae.
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