Teaching High School Chemistry: Content and Instruction - Softcover

Are you new to teaching chemistry? Possibly you have worked as a chemist and have decided to switch careers, desiring to pass on to others your love of the subject. Maybe you need ways of describing concepts that you yourself understand very well. There can often be a difference between knowing something and teaching it! Even if you are an established teacher of chemistry I hope that this work can be of benefit. It is always advantageous to have an extra description or analogy handy for those instances when you are faced with a few confused faces after presenting in a manner that usually gets the point across to most students. While in college I found it advantageous to dissect complicated material into more easily manageable components. I needed mental images and developed analogies in order to understand. Plenty of those tools which I used to learn chemistry found their way into my lectures when it was time to teach. Many students enjoyed, and found advantageous, lecture descriptions that differed from that which they read in their textbooks. I tweaked these devices over 20 years as I became more aware of student preparation and misconceptions. I make no references regarding pedagogical research or "best practice". I offer simply a good review of content, accompanied by comments regarding presentation, mental imagery, analogies, common student errors and misconceptions. In other words I attempt to make you aware of "things that worked for me". While writing this book I could not comprehend a way to discuss methods without first describing content. I have endeavored to describe these concepts in the same way I do in the classroom. This is not meant to insult your intelligence. For those who need it, this may serve as a decent basis of review. It is hoped that you will use some of my descriptions to complement what already works for you in your classroom.

Thomas Williams received his Bachelors of Science Degree in Biochemistry from the University of Maine at Orono in 1984. From 1985 to 1991 he worked as a research scientist for Intesco Laboratories, Inc., performing chromatographic and spectrophotometry studies related to a pharmaceutical product, at the time undergoing clinical trials. Returning to UMaine in 1992 he completed courses leading to licensure as a teacher of the physical and life sciences. He taught honors chemistry and anatomy & physiology in Massachusetts for twenty years, retiring in 2014 due to reasons concerning health. He now substitute teaches a few days a week and hopes to do some more writing.