The Cavalcade o' Teaching

Hi everybody.  Welcome to your COVID-19 chemistry teaching hometown.  Feel free to put on your Tyvek suit and your respirator so you can make yourself at home.

At this point, many of you are busy trying to figure out how to teach your students meaningful material when you’re not there to actually help them out.  My general advice in a situation like this is as follows:

1. Give them a resource that teaches them the material.  This can be a textbook, some online tutorial, or whatever other sources you can drag up.  For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, this can also include my totally free and ad-free tutorials at www.chemfiesta.com.
2. Give them an activity they can do.  This site has a lot of activities that can probably be adapted so that kids can do them at home, and if you can’t find something you like here, I would encourage you to look for some of the resources that homeschoolers have put together for their own curricula.  After all, if anybody is a pro at teaching kids at home, it’s these guys.  There are also virtual labs at various places on the Internet, so have a look around and see what you like.
3. Give them some practice problems.  You’re already in the right place for that.  However, there are also many other online resources, so check those out, too.
4. Assess their progress.  I’m not entirely sure how to do that.  Google forms?  Let me know what you find is useful and I’ll post it here.

Also very important is getting help if you need it.  If you’re having problems figuring out what to do in some particular case, email me at misterguch@protonmail.com.  I’ll see what I can do to help out.

No matter what you do, don’t give up.  You were trained to teach in a classroom and it’s going to take you a while to figure out how to teach in the COVID-19 world.  Don’t be too hard on yourself if things go badly, and celebrate the successes you have.

Happy teaching, and stay safe.  And if you need help, please email me!

Ian Guch

3-26-20

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A quick bonus note:  If you’re having trouble opening .odt files, you can get the info you need by clicking HERE!