We had a lovely online discussion with several practioners of IB Chemistry at both high school levels and the middle school level, along with folks who don't teach IB but were interested.

We'll post the recording on the NEACT YouTube channel and provide a link from here as soon as possible.

Join us for an open roundtable on the other end of the spectrum - teaching heterogeneous classes - on Oct. 19th (see EVENTS to sign up).

ChemChats are back for 2023-2024!

A dozen teachers had a great discussion on Nuclear Chemistry Aug, 17, 2023. This is a topic that often gets neglected when it is not on our state list of required content but has great interest for students. A folder of ideas that were discussed can be found here. As soon as the recording is uploaded to YouTube that will be added here as well.

The topics for the next two ChemChats of the 2023-24 school year have already been chosen. On Sept. 14th we'll be discussing ideas on teaching International Baccalaureate (IB) Chemistry, and on October 19th we'll look at how to handle heterogeneous Chemistry courses. Note that the Oct. ChemChat is the 3rd Thursday in that month (we normally run on the 2nd Thursdays).

Want to sign up for a ChemChat? Go to EVENTS: each new ChemChat is posted as soon as the previous one has been run.

Have a a topic you want to discuss? Email me at sklemmer@mac.com.

NEACT is excited to announce that the Summer PD series will return for 2023! The format will be a 45 min presentation followed by a 15 min Q and A.

We plan to have weekly one hour remote presentations on a variety of topics. The day and time of the week will vary based on presenter availability - we will announce the full list of dates and times once the schedule is finalized. PDPs for 1 hour will be provided and a video of the presentation will be available to NEACT members for future viewing.

SHARE YOUR SKILLS and IDEAS! If you are interested in presenting at the 2023 Summer PD series, please contact NEACT president Kristen Vanderveen by June 23 at neact1898@gmail.com

   Due to the change in date we only had 3 participants in the April ChemChat, but Kirsten and I met a new person and had a great conversation not only about Electrochemistry but also got to know one another.

   May's LAB SAFETY ChemChat was a hit, with 19 attendees getting a lot of very thoughtful and useful information from Jim Kaufman at the Laboratory Safety Institution. This is a great resource both for proactive work keeping yourself and your students and staff safe and also for help when you have a problem. You can contact them at labsafety.org

   Note that there IS a June 8th ChemChat (see "Events") but none in July.

My apologies on not holding the April ChemChat on April 20th.

It has now been rescheduled to April 27th (same time of 4:00-5:00 pm).

The April ChemChat will be held April 20th, the third Thursday in the month, and not April 13th.

10 participants shared resources and ideas on teaching thermodynamics and thermochemistry on March 9th. The conversation ranged from what AP students need and find problematic vs. what beginning chem students need to vocabulary mismatches in the high school to college transition.

You will find a recording of the Zoom meeting - including the chat (which has some good resources) here.

You will find a google.drive folder with additional resources posted by the participants here.

The next ChemChat will be Thursday, April 20th from 4-5 pm. The topic is ELECTROCHEMISTRY.

Eight teachers from California to Rhode Island joined in a discussion of "Solutions, Acids and Bases" on 2/9. We shared out ideas for demos and labs and lamented the impact of lack of time in covering a topic we all enjoy and see around us daily.

Click here to go to the google.drive folder where we shared documents.

Click here to watch and here the video of our ChemChat, including links and documents posted in the ZOOM chat.

Our next online ChemChat will be Thursday, March 9th, from 4-5 pm EST. The topic will be THERMOCHEMISTRY.

On 12/8 we had a wonderful discussion of the particular challenges teaching chemistry to English language learners. Click here to see the ZOOM recording, including some great resources in the chat. Although our group was small (10 people) it was far-ranging, including teachers not only  from Maine to Maryland to Michigan but also from Milan (yes, Italy!) and S. Korea. As host, I am always grateful for the opportunity to have honest discussions with colleagues from such a wide range of teaching situations and perspectives.

Thank you to our presenters Dr. Mackenzie Stetzer, Dr. Mila Kryjevskaia and Dr. Beth Lindsey for two evening presentations on Dual Processing. We learned about intuitive vs. rational reasoning and the reasoning pathways students take while solving problems. We also learned about two techniques for helping students see their own thinking and help teachers see how students think. We experienced "logic chains" and "paired questions with salient distractors" for ourselves on the 2nd night, and had extra insights from college chem teachers Dr. Mitchell Bruce and Dr. Alexey Leontyev.

Stay tuned: there will be a double evening followup in the spring for our fall participants to practice these techniques and share their design and implementation experiences. Dates have not been set yet.

Here are the links to recordings of DAY 1 and DAY 2.