I had to cancel the Sept. ChemChat due to a family medical emergency (things are stabilized now).
So ... we ran the Sept. topic in October: "AI Promises and Challenges." Unfortunately, something went wrong with my handling of the recording and it is lost. My apologies. We had a lively discussion. One high school teacher is facing a new policy that teachers had to sign that they were essentially monitoring their students' use of AI and looking to catch inappropriate uses. But most of the discussion focused on how to make good use of AI.
- the need to teach students to use generative AI that is already changing the way chemistry research is done
- the need to find ways to assess student knowledge that does not rely on rote memorization but in critical thinking and analysis
- the need to minimize student temptation to use AI as a cognitive offload devise and maximize their use of AI to handle tasks that free the student for analysis: like using AI to generate stats/graphs or collate information
- the problem of how to help students identify false info genrated by AI when their content knowledge of chemistry is still elementary
AI is going to come back in February as a more specific topic. Here is the schedule of ChemChats for the next 5 months. Please email me at sklemmer@mac.com if you have suggestions of other topics. All ChemChats are held on Thursdays from 4-5 pm Eastern time, and are open to everyone (not just NEACT members).
- NOV. 12th Favorite YouTube Channels for Teaching Chemistry
- DEC . 10th Building Critical Reasoning Skills
- JAN. 14th Invention Education in the Chem Classroom
- FEB 11th: AI Applications in the Chem Classroom
- MAR. 11th: What is Essential Knowledge in First Year Chemistry?
Thank you - Sue Klemmer, ChemChat facilitator
