Category Archives: Chemistry

Feedback from a Chemistry Teacher

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I listened to your video.

A few points of feedback. You have not mentioned that the Chemistry and Physics syllabi are now context-based. The most recent version only requires one context per year, but originally, it was fully context based. I have been involved in teaching Senior Chemistry for many years, and have been teaching the fully context based course since 2005. I have found a remarkable increase in the overall recall of students from the beginning to the end of the course. Under the previous unitised system, students would study for one test, forget it, and study for the next test. It became very difficult to teach year 12 as they had forgotten everything they ever knew about bonding or stoichiometry and any other important concept.

With this syllabus, concepts can be introduced in a context, developed in a later context and finally and very fully developed even later in the course. Because students now see Chemistry as an important real-world thing, and because you can remind them – remember we learnt about why molecules can be polar when we studied water, they can quickly relate the concept in a huge number of other situations, have a better memory of everything, and a greater understanding and appreciation of the subject.

I was surprised to see you video describing EEIs and ERTs as 5000 to 6000 word documents. While students generally keep a daily journal/notebook of handwritten notes/reflections and possibly results (many record results straight into spread sheets these days for quick manipulations), the analysis discussion and conclusion of an EEI has a required word limit set by the QSA. For Year 11 it must be 800 to 1000 words. For Year 12, this increases to 1000 to 1500 words. This does not include any introduction, background theory, hypothesis. However, most students would complete this part fairly early in the piece. Data should be analysed as they go along, and any teacher following acceptable practice would be monitoring and encouraging this to happen. Even with initial planning, students should plan it out well enough first, so that the teacher can direct them to have another think before they start (not tell them the answer, but just say – go back and plan more carefully) If this is done by the teacher, I do not think you would see students doing weeks of experimenting and ending up with no good data and a failure. So, if students are doing weighty tomes, they are outside the QSA guidelines. I have seen schools who have students type up everything that would have originally been in a journal, but this sort of time-wasting exercise is an unnecessary demand made by those schools. It is not the fault of the QSA.

I did talk to a non-Science teacher from a large private school in another city. He was telling me of the stress put on students who were submitting reports for EEIs that were a minimum of 30 pages in length. He was astounded, and asked me the requirements. I was astounded too, but told him that the demands being made on those students was far far in excess of the requirements of the syllabus. He did intend to look in the syllabus document and work with the teachers back at school. Part of this also means that the teacher has to explicitly teach a concise scientific writing style. Often, when I have worked with science students who are having trouble with word limits, they are either waffling on with flowery or non-economical language that they can be taught how to edit, and learn to more naturally write in such a concise style in the first place. Or, in the case of ERTs, they can end up saying the same thing over and over in different ways, or write about aspects that are not terribly relevant.

While particular schools and teachers may expect or allow their students to be greatly exceeding the quite reasonable word limits which are in line with other senior subjects, then yes there is a problem. The problem is certain schools, not the syllabus, nor the QSA.

I also note your comments about students having to submit up to five assignment type items a couple of days before exams as well. Again, this is something that does not have to happen. It is not the fault of the QSA or the syllabi in various subjects if certain schools do not look at assessment calendars to ensure that this sort of thing does not happen. It can be worked out satisfactorily. eg, a school can ensure that the EEIs for different subjeccts are at different times of the year, so that no student is complting two EEIs around the same time. I would be thinking that if a subject has a major assignment due around exam block time, then that should be it for then. Any other assessment should have been scheduled at other times for that subject. This is a workable model.

No assessment model works for all students though. Despite the time given well in advance of due dates for assignments, ERTs EEIs, there will always be a few students who do leave it until the very end. I have seen super-organised students who have it all under control, and I have seen a few who don’t have this sort of approach. However, these would be the same students who if assessment was mostly exam based would be not doing much all term and cramming the night before.

Senior science is a nightmare

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I fully support your actions in bringing attention to the crisis in science education.  Senior science is now a nightmare, and science teachers are expected to implement an ideologically driven agenda that has no concern for students.

The assessment regime is “over the top.”  English teachers say to us, “we don’t use marks, why should science use them?” What they fail to acknowledge is that they’re assessing processes. Criteria based outcomes may work when looking to see if a student can write an essay; English teachers don’t have exams as well, and neither do they have to assess knowledge in an overt manner.  Science teachers have to write complex exams, as well as giving students assignments, EEIs and ERTs. Principals will actually say to science teachers, “English teachers manage with no marks; what’s the big deal?” The lack of intelligent, reflective thought among school leaders is alarming: comparing apples to oranges is no bother when someone says they’re the same fruit.

Radical change occurs in Qld schools because those in charge don’t have to pay for change – teachers do the preparation for change at home – hence it’s cheap.  If the QSA had to pay for change to occur, they wouldn’t be so eager to implement extremist views.  QSA constantly derides teachers who question them, calling teachers who protest “dinosaurs”.  Are the people on the QSA driving change experts on science?  They don’t consult science faculties at university.

Dinosaurs became extinct because they couldn’t survive in changed circumstances.  Teachers do change; questioning the change doesn’t mean they can’t survive it.  Can the QSA survive the new climate?  That is the question.

Chemistry teacher of almost 30 years.

Why EEIs and ERTs are not good assessment methods in chemistry

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The school year is crowded. Public holidays, sports days, reporting deadlines, co-curricular activities, QCS practice, pastoral care initiatives, together with shortened lessons for school assemblies and ceremonies all cut into the time available for teaching and learning. It often seems that there is barely time available for the minimum 55 hours per semester required by the Senior Science syllabi. This is especially true of the second semester in year 12 when Seniors finish early in order to fit in with state reporting deadlines. Emphasis on long duration non-test assessment such as EEIs and ERTs mean there is less time available for basic concepts and skills. There is a danger that students will not develop a good grounding in writing formulas, balancing equations, stoichiometry, periodicity, and structure and bonding.

If the recommended minimum time of four weeks for an EEI is adhered to then available time for teaching other topic in Chemistry is significantly reduced. ERTs have a similar effect on student learning although the requirement of two weeks minimum class time is less. Having tutored students from schools where the assessment is divided evenly between test and non- test I can say that their grasp of fundamental concepts definitely seems weaker than students from schools where the emphasis is on exams. For this reason I have always advocated a minimalist approach to non – test assessment in schools where I’ve taught Chemistry. I believe this leads to enhanced student outcomes. In my experience students suffer less stress and learn more Chemistry when they are not asked to spend many hours constructing EEI reports and ERT essays. Evidence that supports my belief are the high proportion of my Chemistry students who achieve VHA’s (usually over 20% of the cohort) and comments from former students that their high-school Chemistry gave them an excellent grounding for first year University Chem.

As Science teachers we will always face the dilemma of what aspects of our subject to continue to teach as  being  ‘fundamental’ to its understanding and which aspects have to be left for later specialised studies. I do not believe emphasising EEIs and ERTs in a Chemistry teaching program is a solution to this.Too often students have to investigate concepts in Chemistry or Physics that are beyond the scope of high-school Science or are trying to collect data of detail or precision beyond the limits of school laboratory equipment. Good design of EEI tasks will avoid this; however I have seen students from other schools struggling with concepts such as the detailed Chemistry of marine artefact restoration or of the Physics of resonance of wine glasses. The danger of poor design of ERT or EEI tasks is that students are faced with the predicament of either dealing with a topic in a superficial way or of going into depth beyond their understanding and quoting formulas and research articles that neither they nor their teacher can understand. The net result of such tasks is that students spend a lot of time learning about a very narrow aspect of Chemistry or Physics and that they may not even understand what they are investigating. They would gain a far better understanding of Chemistry or Physics by spending the time on broader, more guided studies.

Lastly, an ironic consequence of EEIs is that even though they are an ‘experimental’ investigation, they can result in limiting the amount of practical laboratory manipulative skills a student will experience during the two year course. A term spent on spectroscopy or wine-making means less time for titration or gravimetric analysis. In contrast, a regular program of small experiments mean students can incrementally build their lab skills over the two year course.

In summary, I believe that many Chemistry work programs have too much emphasis on non-test assessment. Many EEIs and ERTs are poorly designed and cause undue stress to students while limiting their overall understanding of Chemistry. While formulating hypotheses, designing experiments, researching literature, and learning practical skills are essential aspects of a high-school Chemistry course, there are much better ways to cover these than by the current QSA emphasis on EEIs and ERTs.