Many high school courses don't have time to go over formal charge, so you may need a refresher.

This is a complimentary post in order for you to understand more about the azide ion. To check out the ionic/covalent worksheet where this ion was introduced click here, or read the blog post of frequently asked questions here.

I have a coloring worksheet that many middle school and high school teachers use to introduce or review ionic and covalent compounds. It's great because students color metals gray, nonmetals red, and polyatomic ions blue. This gives them a visual reinforcement that ionic and covalent compounds aren't just randomly established. There are rules. Using colors just makes it a little more fun! However, I get a few questions that come up on a regular basis that I'd like to clear up here.

In our slide drenched classrooms where we post our PowerPoints and Prezis to our Google classrooms, students always have access to our notes. So, students think that they do not need to take notes since they have constant access to information. Some of my students have even said they have teachers that say not to take notes because they can get it online later.  I haven't investigated, but I hope that isn't the case.

I was helping a student this week and I said, "Let me see your notes and I'll show you..." What I was saw was a bunch of scattered words on a piece of paper with no cohesion and thought process behind them. We harp about taking good notes, but let me ask you, have you ever taught a class how to take notes?

​I haven't until now. Do you want to know what I learned?

 My solution is to teach this topic visually! 

When I first started teaching, I'd look at the book that I was teaching out of and cut out several examples. My thought was that I would save time because once I had shown them the concept they should be fine, right?

Not so right.

Each of the examples in a book or lesson plan is usually teaching a different nuance of the topic. Once I realized that, I tried to accentuate that to my student by saying, "This example is an example of when you have this situation."

So, when I teach balancing chemical equations, I start by showing them a simple balanced equation. Then, we go though and count each atom type.

Then I show them an unbalanced equation.

We go through and count up each type of atom and they see that it is not balanced. Then I ask them how would we go about fixing this. 

Usually a student suggests changing the subscript and at that point I draw this out to the side. I explain how the 2 subscript is explaining that the hydrogens come as a pair. 

We usually get to an answer of 3 sets of 2 pairs of hydrogens. At this point I have them count on their papers and tell me if it is balanced.

The last thing I do is I write out the equation again with subscripts one color and superscripts another color. This leads us into the point that superscripts and subscripts are different and you can't just change superscripts into whatever you want.

Superscripts do not have Superpowers!

Hope that helps. If you'd like the free worksheet that goes along with this click here. There is a more involved($3) worksheet that is 3 pages and differentiated in levels here.

Yup. I said it. We all have no money for labs. We often spend our own money for labs. But, what if we spent less and everyone got something out of it? So, even if you have to spend your own money you and the students get something tangible AND practical out of the lab. I'm talking about cooking with chemistry. 

If you are reading this, you have been there, or maybe you are right in the middle of it right now. If so, I'm sorry and I completely understand! At the beginning of my 3rd semester teaching, I was assigned this new curriculum that was going to change the world of math and solve all student problems with learning math. It was going to be a miracle. 

It was a disaster.

But, it wasn't a total loss. I learned about the red folder trick.

There will be a lot of people who disagree with me-and that is okay. Different things work for different teachers. This is how I establish authority and style in my classroom. The number one way to catch and maintain authority in the classroom-is to prank the students on the first day of class.

​Now, hear me out. I've tried it your way.

I'm one of the instructors at our college who helps students with their schedules at orientation. I'm always SO EXCITED when a student brings me a list of their classes. I'm like "Eeeeee! This one knows what they are doing!"

​But, I've been thinking. These students who are getting ready for orientation don't know that we expect them to have looked over our plan of studies, our course catalogues, and the semester schedules to have already picked out their classes. and this is a problem.

So here is the ONE thing I want you to do before you go to college orientation. First go find the "plan of study", "major map", or your college's version of your roadmap to your 2 or 4 year degree. Go to the college's website and find the link that lays out the classes you must have to get a degree. This is what we call a plan of study.

​There is an example of what this looks like here, here, and here. 

​Now that you know what you have to take, schedule out your next THREE semesters at the very least. This will help you fix any scheduling conflicts now. Pay close attention to courses that are ONLY OFFERED IN SPRING, FALL, ODD, or EVEN years.

​That is a thing. I'm not making this up!

In doing that last step you might have needed to go through the course catalogue because you might have seen that you could take MATH 2245 or MATH 1200. Go into the course catalogue and see what you are qualified for or what level of torture you would like to take on. :)