This week is a celebratory blog post as this week is the 2 year anniversary of my first ever ChemJungle video! 73 videos, 60,000 views and 700 subscribers so far (300 to go until I can celebrate true YouTube stardom according to my G12s!)

The channel was born from frustration (as so many creative endeavours are!) as a result of other YouTube videos either having too little information for my IGCSE Chemistry kids or information that was way beyond the scope of the course. I was continually annoyed by watching tons of YouTube videos to try to find the “perfect” amount of information for what I wanted. Eventually I got to a point where I decided that I’d create my own YouTube channel with a video for each syllabus point to allow maximum flexibility in teaching.

Sure, it’s been a massive time commitment and it’s really hard to stick to a one-a-week  schedule when reports are due or my marking pile is taller than I am. But even though I’m still a long way from completing the syllabus, I keep powering forward knowing that it’ll pay off eventually. These videos give me and my students more freedom than I ever expected; I finally achieved my life-long teacher dream of actually being able to be in two places at once!

What I wanted to do in this post is to share a few moments that caused me to realise how powerful using YouTube videos can be (especially if they’re your own):

Freeing up time in lesson for 1-on-1 support and meaningful extension activities

I teach the entirety of our Bonding topic through ChemJungle. Students watch the videos at home and then in class they have options of activities that they think will benefit their understanding most. My main concern was that students would feel like they didn’t understand the material as well as other topics that were taught in a more traditional way. But actually, at the end of the unit : 90% of students felt their understanding was better than or equal to previous units – a massive success!

Comments included:

“I was able to take better notes and go slower to understand the unit more”

“We had much more time in class for learning further in depth about the topics, and doing experiments.”

In fact, the only downside that was mentioned was that sometimes students couldn’t ask questions immediately if they were watching at home – definitely something we could solve with a better system of posting questions.

The power of having a resource which is completely aligned with the syllabus requirements means that there is a significant amount of time that I can use to work with students who are struggling as well as providing more exciting opportunities for extension.

Sometimes kids want you on 5x speed

During a lesson on tests for cations I asked my students to write ionic equations; a skill that was rusty for most of them. I gave them the option of coming up to the front to listen to me go through it, or to watch my video on the topic. I was incredibly surprised (and borderline offended…) when every single one of my kids decided to watch the video. Every single one of them chose to speed up the video so they could use it as a quick reminder of how to construct the equations. Using this as an option in class means that no momentum is lost and that kids are in control of how quickly they move to the questions.

Bringing consistency to revision

Kids absolutely love these videos for revision. If they understood something the first time, but have forgotten the details then they find it super helpful to hear me explain it in the same way. As they’re labelled with syllabus statement numbers it means that students can independently find the videos that they’re looking for with ease.

“Thank you for the ChemJungle videos, they’ve been an absolute lifesaver”

Incredible if kids miss classes (or if I’m off sick…!)

The videos provide a really simple way to help kids to catch up if they’ve missed classes. Even though the videos are organised by syllabus point, I still have to link videos specifically for the students that need them – I’m hoping to get to a point where they know the syllabus statements that were covered and they can proactively catch up on the work missed.

But why should I create my own and not just use other people’s videos?

Most of these things can be achieved using normal videos on YouTube (and there are certainly some great YouTuber’s out there!) so maybe you’re questioning the logic in putting so much time into creating content when it already exist out there. My opinion is that if there is someone on YouTube that is already producing great quality content and the material is super aligned with the course that you’re teaching – awesome! If you’re like me and you find yourself using a million different YouTube channels for different things then you should definitely consider creating a resource that helps your kids to find what they’re looking for more quickly. I promise you that you’ll reap the benefits sooner than you think!

My wonderful G12 students leave this week and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this massive transition and what we can do to really make those last few days super memorable and enjoyable for them.

The plants are a nod to my ChemJungle youtube channel 🙂

I always felt like I was one of those people who “embraced change” – after all I’ve changed country, continent, job, house and friends more times than most… The more I think about it, the more I realise that I love planning for change, but the execution I definitely don’t like so much. For example, my graduation from university was supposed to be a super exciting day to celebrate 4 years of hard work and the start of the next phase of my life. To say I hated it would be a massive understatement; I felt angry, I wouldn’t let my mum take any pictures of me (the poor woman!) and I didn’t enjoy the day at all. Instead of reflecting on the incredible experiences, being grateful for the people I’d met and the person that I’d become I was completely consumed by the fear of what was next.

Recently I’ve read the “Power of Moments” by Chip and Dan Heath (if you haven’t read this book then I 100% recommend it!) and the cogs have been turning in my brain ever since. They summarise the 4 key features of making a moment memorable as:

• Elevation: breaking the script – doing something unexpected
• Insight: changing the way that we see the world/ourselves in the world
• Pride: giving recognition and finding milestones to celebrate
• Connection: sharing our moment with others

But the key take away for me is not the features but the fact that we can synthesise these moments, and create memorable experiences for others (and for ourselves!).

“We can be the designers of moments that deliver elevation and insight and pride and connection. These exceptional minutes and hours and days—they are what make life meaningful. And they are ours to create.”

The Grade 12s are leaving high school tomorrow and it’s a big deal for them. Many of our students will be changing schools, country, continent, home and friends in the next few months and the school does a great job of making their last day a celebration; pranks day, assemblies (with and without parents), visiting early years classes and the final grand walk – the entire cohort led by a samba band through the entire 3000+ strong school community. There are so many examples of elevation, insight, pride and connection within those events that I wouldn’t even know where to start!

Whilst the memorable moments for the school community were fairly easy to spot, creating that moment for my own G12 Chemistry students is something I’ve always struggled with. Bringing cupcakes, doing quizzes and even roasting marshmallows on bunsen burners doesn’t really feel special enough. I don’t feel like those are the things my students are going to remember in a few years time…

This year this is what I did to try to make it more of a “moment” for my students

1. Trying to “break the script” – I created a kahoot quiz which was all about them and scenarios from the lab over the last 2 years eg. who is most likely to ruin a titration? who is most likely to turn a pH curve into a cat? THEY LOVED IT (even if they disagreed with some of the answers!). I’m considering how I could make this into something they could keep for the future – ideas welcome!
2. They created their university destinations posters to go around my classroom – my kids are utterly mesmorised by these and I love the way it shows that you don’t need to study science at university to study chemistry at IB. It really gives the “I want to be on the wall one day…” feelings 🙂
   

   Here’s an example if I had one!

3. We also created a legacy wall of advice – this was new for me and every student wrote pearls of wisdom for future generations of chemistry students. I was hoping this helped them to really think about what they’d learned over the past 2 years and how they’d grown to become incredible chemists.
4. Not strictly something I did, but my marvellous students brought an ice cream cake for my gluten free needs and also made me a quiz to show me how much random knowledge they had gained about what gluten was. They made this moment so much more memorable for me by ‘breaking the script’ by going completely above and beyond what I expected. Still gives me warm and fuzzy feelings now!

I’ve found thinking about the 4 features of memorable moments really helpful when trying to plan stuff that will hopefully be more meaningful for my students than simply stuffing their faces with cake.

How do you create a memorable “end of the year” experience for your classes?

BLOG CHALLENGE – Week one

“In the future, students will need to be nimble. They will need to know how to experiment, iterate, and pivot. ” (Spencer)

@FriedEnglish shared “7 ways to inspire divergent thinking” with me last week and the article resonated with me immensely. After all, as a scientist this is our bread and butter. Scientists are naturally curious, risk-taking experimenters so surely these things were abundant in my classroom just by the nature of the subject?

The more I read the article, the more concerned I became about the amount of options I give my students to play and to take creative risks (I got to number 5 before I could make any connections with what happens in my classroom….eeeek!). “Oh, this article must be intended for primary/middle school where they have more time to complete projects” I told myself momentarily. The focus on large long-term projects to inspire divergent thinking caused me to spiral into a little bit of panic. I want my students to be creative thinkers but the syllabus and time restraints of IGCSE and IB mean that completing long-term projects is pretty challenging.

As a result, I spent all week playing “spot the divergent thinking” in my classroom to identify day-to-day activities that inspire thinking. There were several activities that encourage creativity and flexibility that I was already doing (phew!):

• Experimental work with minimal equipment “Can you work out the formula mass of the gas inside the lighter with just this equipment” (sometimes I let them request one extra item!)
• Experimental work with no method eg. “Create an experiment to work out which one of these is the best antacid.”
• Synthesising numerous hypotheses: Come up with 3 hypotheses why the colour changes? How could you test your hypotheses?
• Evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of models: lots of good answers possible.
• Linking key concepts together. eg identify places where hierarchy is important in science.

Whilst I was reassured that these activities were already a part of my teaching I had a much bigger realisation: no matter how jazzy my thinking activities are, the kids must feel happy with being mildly confused for a while (check out my previous post on the gift of mild confusion). It isn’t easy to create a culture where getting things wrong is okay and creative risk taking is celebrated, but there’s some key factors that I’ve found definitely help:

1. Be goofy. Let the kids see that you say stupid stuff sometimes and that you make mistakes too. A relaxed attitude is far more likely to encourage them to think outside the box rather than trying to give you the answer they think you want. (The power of humour in creativity).
2. Tell the kids when you’re trying something new. Let them see that you’re taking risks and that it’s something to be excited about. Model the behaviour that you want to see in them.
3. When you fail, be explicit about the learning. When something didn’t go as planned, talk about it. Discuss why you think it didn’t go to plan and how you might adjust it next time (maybe even redo the activity with them the following lesson if appropriate).
4. Celebrate the students who take risks. Spotlight the thinking to the rest of the class, tell them individually how impressed you were with their thinking, send an email home, maybe get a marching band… But definitely make sure the kid knows that their kind of thinking is awesome.

Creating divergent thinkers is all about being intentional;  intentionally being a good role model and intentionally planning small activities that have a multitude of pathways for students to take.

Are there any other ways that you help kids feel comfortable?

Are you a high school teacher that manages to incorporate projects and really inspire that curiosity? I would love to hear from you!

Imagine arriving at a train station in a completely new city and navigating your way to your hotel. If it’s a short distance most of us would just use google maps to navigate the journey and walk the quickest route. If the following day you lost your phone, there would almost certainly be some panic around how to get to the hotel even though you walked the exact same route the day before.

If you never owned a phone in the first place how would your behaviour be different? You would probably have written down directions from the hotel. You might look for landmarks or street names to help you to remember where to turn. You would also probably be more confused and disorientated than if you could just whip out your phone. It’d take you longer but you’d get there eventually. If you had to do the same journey on the second day (still phone-less) then you’d be feeling far more confident about where to go having worked it out the previous day.

Technology has become our default. Having information at the touch of a button means that the “thinking” phase has vanished from many of our daily tasks. Learning anything new is the same as the journey – if we get told how something works then you have far less chance of remembering it the next time you have to do something similar.

My students love to memorise and just google anything that they don’t immediately know the answer to. They also love to panic whenever they’re given anything that is unfamiliar. My very British response to the situation went something like this…

‘They’re scared of new problems. Let’s give them loads of new problems .’

I learned the art of making my students confused, frustrated and generally annoyed (I definitely shouldn’t lead with that statement in an interview!). Of course, I’m still aiming for them to feel confident by the end of the topic, but the “mild confusion” stage has become an intrinsic part of my teaching style. 

For me, being a good scientist is all about thinking “hey I wonder how that works” or “that’s weird, I wonder what causes that”. The only way to get to that point is to purposefully create scenarios that you can’t immediately answer with your current understanding.

As students get more familiar with these scenarios I can genuinely see them becoming better scientists. I can feel the progress from unjustified guesses towards a state where students look for more than one factor that may be influencing the outcome and arguing about which factor will be the major one. In the same way, the more train stations you arrive into, the easier it becomes to navigate where to go. 

At the moment I’m thinking a lot about self-directed learning and allowing students to pace their own learning. When I’ve tried this I’ve found students just use Google to answer questions they don’t immediately understand and then they just end up back in ‘accept the answer and memorise it’ land.

How can you get students to embrace confusion when they’re in control of their own learning?