Data from VCE high achievers list 2018-2020 and the top 100 Asian surnames according to Wikipedia
This chart shows the percentage of students with a top 100 Asian surname among high-achieving VCE students (≥2 study scores ≥40) by subject with EAL students excluded from the analysis.
The proportion of high-achievers with Asian surnames was highest in the following subjects: Specialist Maths, Maths Methods, Physics, Chemistry, Accounting and English Language. Conversely, the least Asian subjects among high-achievers were Drama, Sociology and Theatre Studies.
All spelling variations of the top 100 Asian surnames listed on Wikipedia were included in the analysis, for example Li as well as Lee.
In this analysis, I defined “high-achieving students” as those who achieve at least 2 study scores ≥40. I then compared this with enrolment data to see how their subject choices differed from that of all students (from VCAA statistics).
Choosing these subjects doesn’t guarantee you a high grade. But it does provide some interesting insight into the patterns of high-achieving students, who are more likely to have chosen Specialist Maths, Latin, Chemistry, Global Politics, Physics and Literature.
Students obsess over significant figures and mole calculations… but these are only worth 1 and 16 marks, respectively in the final written examination. Over two-thirds of the marks in the VCE Chemistry written examination are awarded for written responses where calculations are not necessary.
Tip for students: focus on perfecting your written responses such as explanations of bonding, chromatography, protein structures, and, most importantly, critiquing experimental designs.
Plotting a graph of ΔATAR/study score vs ATAR gives an interesting curve: students whose ATARs are around 50 have the most to gain from an additional study score point. Above about 90, the incremental ATAR gain from a single extra study point is probably below the margin of error given the way in which ATARs are calculated.
Tip for students: check the entry requirements for your course and make sure you meet those first. If your requires, for example, a particular score in the UMAT or in English, make sure you get that score. If your course requires a particular ATAR, make sure you get that, too. Remember that these scores are just entry requirements for undergraduate courses; not indicators of self-worth.
This book is a collection of lies we taught to our Year 12 Chemistry students in their graduation year.
The lies include well-meaning simplifications of the truth, mistakes in the textbook, and, in a few extreme cases, blatant falsehoods.
This book isn’t a criticism of the VCE Chemistry course at all. In fact, I wrote this book to demonstrate the overwhelming complexity of Chemistry and the consequential need to make appropriate omissions and generalisations during our teaching as we tailor our lessons to the appropriate year level of students.
Rules taught as true usually work 90% of the time in this subject. Chemistry has rules, exceptions, exceptions to exceptions and so on. You’ll peel pack these layers of rules and exceptions like an onion until you reach the core, where you’ll find physics and specialist maths.
Click here to download We Lied to You (2019 edition).
‘Beryllium’ page from Theodore Gray’s book, The Elements
Initial condition
H2(g): 0.70 mol
He(g): 1.00 mol
Li(s): 0.40 mol (still solid: it melts at 180.5 degrees)
LiH(s): 0.60 mol
Pressure = 525.5 kPa
Temperature = 99°C
No reactions!
Beryllium doesn’t react with any of the things in the vessel: H2(g), He(g), Li(s) or LiH(s). My one mole of beryllium powder (which would cost me over $70) would just sit at the bottom of the vessel doing nothing.
With not much else to write about in the Periodic Table Smoothie this week, it might be a good idea to calculate how much this Periodic Table Smoothie would have cost in real life.
A new survey by Stop Procrastinating shows that social media is the biggest distraction students face while studying
The leading internet blocker, Stop Procrastinating, has announced that 64% of US students have cited online distractions such as social media as a hindrance to their productivity. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, shopping websites and YouTube were among the sites that students found the most distracting.
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
Nearly all of the students who responded in the survey referred to a ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO), which is the anxiety that people experience when they believe that important events are happening without them. The anxiety arises from a perceived decrease in ‘popularity’ if they’re not up-to-date with the latest happenings in their social circle. Teenagers are particularly susceptible to FOMO, and 24-hour social media feeds such as Facebook and Twitter are exacerbating the problem. Students are constantly checking their social media feeds (sometimes a few hundred times per day) in order to keep up with the latest drivel happenings.
Interestingly, first year university students were the most affected. It’s possible that in first year (sometimes called “freshman year”), people’s social circles haven’t quite cemented since the upheaval of leaving high school. People are therefore more anxious and fear missing out on new friendships and events… so they gravitate towards social media.
Almost half students surveyed admitted to losing an hour each day to social media. Common Sense Media estimates the real figure (including traditional media such as TV) is more like 9 hours per day. That’s a lot of screen time, and it’s affecting students’ social lives, their grades and their sleep.
Over half of the respondents said they’d been stopped from writing an essay because they felt compelled to check social media at some point. Any issue that’s stopping half of our students from writing essays (or concentrating for any extended period of time) needs to be addressed urgently.
This problem needs to be addressed urgently
The level of distraction today is unprecedented. We all carry televisions and music players in our pockets. I got in touch with Tim Rollins, the director of Stop Procrastinating, who said:
“We have made Stop Procrastinating free today in order help students to beat their Internet distractions and boost their performance in their studies. The Internet, social media, emails are pervasive and eating into our quality time. We need urgently to put ourselves back in control.” – Tim Rollins
Software is one of the tools that can help students get the lasting willpower they need to overcome FOMO and get back into studying. Here are my tips for eliminating distractions while studying.
Tips for distraction-free studying
Delete all the Facebook apps from your phone
Study with your phone in aeroplane mode
When using your desktop, use the Stop Procrastinating app to limit your access to social media sites.
Study without music. All the research says it doesn’t help.
Don’t eat and study at the same time.
Drink only water while you’re studying.
Sit upright while studying: don’t study laying in bed or leaning back on the couch.
Have a goal for each study session. Write it down and work until you’ve completed it (e.g. make notes on all 6 types of acid/base chemical reactions with examples)
Study in a location that you never use for relaxation… the library is a great choice. Most students can’t study in their bedroom because they usually relax there.
Limit the number of Facebook friends to 30. Delete all the others: I understand this takes some courage, but you probably don’t know them anyway! Their unimportant updates distract you from studying.
Stop Procrastinating is an Internet blocking and productivity application compatible with OS X and Windows. It allows users the option to block the Internet for a period of time in three ways, depending on how much self-discipline they have.
Demonstrate electrolysis with an electrolytic cell in a petri dish.
Materials
1 × Large petri dish
1 × DC Power pack
~50 mL Distilled water dH2O(l)
~3 g potassium nitrate powder KNO3(s)
2 × Graphite electrodes
2 × Wires with crocodile clips
1 × Clamp and stand
1 × Very strong static magnet
1 × Roll of sticky tape (any type)
~10 drops of universal indicator
~50 mL dilute HNO3(aq)
~50 mL dilute KOH(aq)
1 × Spatula
Method
Place petri dish on clean, light-coloured bench and add distilled water until it is two thirds full
Add ~10 drops of universal indicator and observe the colour. Q: What pH is the distilled water? (You’ll be surprised!) Q: Why is/isn’t the colour green?
Add ~3 g of potassium nitrate to the petri dish and stir using a spatula until completely dissolved
Adjust the pH of the distilled water carefully using the nitric acid and potassium hydroxide as required. Try to make the universal indicator colour green (as pictured) ~pH 7
Attach one electrode to each of two wires using crocodile clips
Dip each graphite electrode into the green solution at opposite sides of the petri dish. Hold these electrodes (and wires) in position by in position by sticky-taping each wire to the surface of the workbench
Demonstrate the strength of the magnet by attaching it to the clamp. Carefully, clamp the magnet into the clamp and position the magnet 2 mm above the surface of the green solution
Ensuring the power is turned off, very carefully, attach the wires to the DC power pack according to the manufacturer’s instructions
Turn the voltage to zero (or very low) and turn on the power pack
Turn the voltage up slowly (12 volts worked well) and observe any changes you might see in the Kennedy Rainbow Cell
Extensions
Turn off the power pack and stir the solution. Explain why the colour goes back to being green. (If it’s not green, explain that, too!)
Turn the magnet upside-down (TURN OFF THE POWER FIRST)
Reverse the polarity of the wires
Use AC current instead of DC
Use different indicators
Why would using NaCl(aq) be dangerous in this cell?
Make your own risk assessment before carrying out this experiment
The strong magnet is capable of attracting both wires to itself. Don’t be touching the exposed parts of the crocodile clips when this happens. If this does happen, immediately turn off the power pack and fix the problem. Secure the wires with more tape. Don’t touch the electrodes while the Cell is operating.
Don’t use chloride salts or hydrochloric acid in this experiment. The voltages involved can cause the production of toxic chlorine gas if sodium chloride is used. Use nitric acid and potassium nitrate instead.
Make sure the wires don’t touch each other.
Again, make your own risk assessment before carrying out this experiment
Video
Disclaimer
This cell is potentially dangerous. I accept no responsibility for and loss, damage or injury caused by the operation of a Kennedy Rainbow Cell. If you’re under 18, always get adult permission before you make this type of cell.
Click to download by Sample 2015 VCE Revision Timetable
You’ve got 100 days until your English examination and full-time revision should begin from today.
How to Make a Revision Timetable
First, print my 2015 wall calendar in A3 size or larger. The left, middle and right of each day-box represents each of three study sessions:
Morning session: 8am to 12pm (make a dot to the left)
Afternoon session: 1pm to 5pm (make a dot in the middle)
Evening session: 6pm to 9:30pm (make a dot to the right)
Next, use coloured stickers from Officeworks(or coloured markers) to label your examinations. Use a different colour for each subject. Working backwards from those examinations, put more stickers on the chart to denote which subjects you’ll study in each study session.
Rules when filling your timetable:
Plan 100 revision sessions in the 100 days before your first examination
Try not to plan revision sessions on school days – save that time for homework!
Adjust the number of sessions you will have for each subject: you might want to focus more on some subjects than on others, or prepare for them all equally. It’s up to you.
Revise for 12 sessions each week that you’re not in school
Revise for no more than two sessions in a day
Avoid the evening session when possible.
Use your free time to relax or get some exercise.
You may move a study session but you are not allowed to cancel it
Make Your Own Revision Timetable
Click to download a printable 2015 calendar
This strategy worked extraordinarily well for me during my A-level studies. I studied this much (48 hours per week) and achieved an equivalent ATAR of over 99. What’s your revision strategy? Leave your ideas in the comments section below.
Inspired by the enthalpy diagrams we’re currently drawing for Unit 4’s thermochemistry chapter, I thought I’d put a timely reminder on the site about how stressed you need to be in order to maximise your academic performance in Year 12.
Most of the Year 10-12 students I’ve encountered in my teaching career have been in stages 2 or 3 of the above curve, but I’ve certainly taught students in each of the five stages. I’ve seen the characteristic signs of each stage. Research has shown that being on top of that curve maximises your performance in a given task. Therefore, your goal as a student is to maintain your position in that third quintile: to stay motivated but not lazy; and to stay productive without feeling stressed.
1) Procrastination
In stage 1, students have no idea what they want to do after Year 12. They don’t study particularly hard, they don’t enjoy reading, and their ‘default state’ is not studying: it’s usually surfing the Internet, playing computer games or playing sports.
Symptoms of stage 1 include:
“I’ll be alright in the exam”
“I’ve didn’t finish the homework the teacher set me”
“I didn’t really understand that topic but I’ll be fine anyway”
“I vaguely remember learning this” (referring to the start of Unit 3)
“Honestly, I’ve never read the textbook”
“I’ve done one practice paper – and that was during class”
2) Laziness
In stage 2, a student’s goals and ambitions are defined only very weakly. Most students in this stage haven’t yet decided what they want to study at university, and are looking to “keep their options open” without actively looking for a career or course that they want to pursue. Some students in stage 2 have a very vague goal but they’re not taking any action towards achieving it. There are more students in this stage than in any other.
Symptoms of stage 2 include:
“I didn’t do that homework because the teacher won’t check it anyway”
“Do Checkpoints questions? That will take me HOURS!”
“Some students work so hard: they study about 3 hours per night”.
“I don’t like writing in textbooks”
“I’ve always been good at Science. I’ll be alright in VCE.”
3) Motivation
Stage 3 is ideal: the student has a clear goal for the next few years and is committedto pursuing that goal. They know which university courses they need for their future career, and they’re studying diligently to get the required ATAR for that course. All students should endeavour to be in stage 3.
The following statements are typical of a student is in stage 3:
“I need a 42 or above in Chemistry to get into Medicine at Monash”
“Could you please check over these questions for me? I got a couple wrong.”
“I need an ATAR of 86 to get into my preferred course. I need to stay near the top of my class”
“I study every day according to the revision timetable on my wall unless something urgent comes along. If I miss a self-study session, I reschedule it.”
“I’m under pressure to succeed – but I have the confidence that with enough hard work, I can achieve my goals”
Stage 4 is when stress becomes intense and counter-productive. A student who is too stressed will perform below their optimal level. Students in this stage have either: (a) no clearly-defined goal and thus little intrinsic motivation – just pressure from external sources; or (b) have a clearly-defined goal but are motivated too much: they thus stress themselves out physiologically, which hinders their ability to study.
In both cases, the symptoms of stress & anxiety include:
“Chemistry really annoys me. There’s so much work to do.”
“I feel overwhelmed with all the stuff we’re expected to learn.”
“I didn’t get much sleep because I was worrying about the Chemistry SAC”
Avoid this stage at all costs. Students who have burned out have given up on their goals because they felt overloaded with pressure. The most dangerous aspect of burnout is that students will actively quash their ambitions in an attempt to de-stress themselves. Students in this stage need support from external sources (friends, parents, and counsellors) and need to take a short (~7-day) break from studying.
Symptoms of burnout include:
“University? I hate university!”
“Who needs an ATAR, anyway?”
“I’d rather walk the dog than do anything related to study!”
“I’m doing amazingly well in World of Warcraft. Soon, my character will be worth a Bitcoin or two.”
“I never want a job.”
When students burn out, after sarcastically making some silly, low-level goals for a week or two, they usually re-appear in stage 1: procrastination. The cycle then begins again: they’ll need to be re-motivated with new, meaningful goals to get back into stage 3.
To escape procrastination and laziness, make a goal for the next few years. Imagine your ideal life in five years’ time as if nothing could hold you back. Your goal might be to become a doctor, to start your own business, or to buy a house: keep the goal large but attainable. Everything you do every day should be done with that goal in mind: will playing more computer games get that house purchased? Will watching more TV help you get that masters degree? Remind yourself why you’re studying VCE. The ‘why’ will be different for every student. Study daily with that greater goal in your mind and you’ll feel much more motivated to keep going.
Take a week off to relax and do something you really enjoy. Relieve some of the counter-productive stress that’s built up within you and you’ll feel refreshed afterwards: you’ll be in a better state to continue studying. Daniel Pink gave an excellent TED talk on how excessive motivation made people’s ideas more narrow-minded, and in a complex subject like Chemistry, a narrow focus can actually be a hindrance to your understanding because you need to synthesise information from several different sources. Taking a break will actually improve your performance.
Studying is actually really simple. Master these three simple principles while you’re in Year 12 and you’ll be on the path to excellent learning outcomes in university.
1) Analytical Reading
We learn the majority of our information by reading. It’s your responsibility as a student to make a careful, analytical reading of the textbook in order to understand all the concepts taught on your course. Beyond Year 10, the pace of your lessons will increase and you’ll find that simply paying attention in class will not be enough to gain a full understanding of what’s being taught. The earlier you master the skill of analytical reading, the more you’ll learn from your university investment. University lecturers don’t have time to explain all the concepts to every student in person!
Annotate the textbook as you read it. Paraphrase and summarise your notes onto paper and organise them obsessively into large, lever-arch folders. Colour-code all your subjects: Chemistry has always been a ‘green’ subject for me. In lectures, don’t rely on the printed notes/slides provided by your lecturer. High-achieving students make their own notes during the lecture. Cornell Notes helped me enormously in Cambridge: master this skill if you want to thrive in university.
After Year 10, teachers will check your homework less frequently. Don’t use that as an excuse to slack off. As you grow into adulthood, you need to become a self-motivated learner. You’ll need to be proactive and get help when you need it. Share your assignments with your peers, attend group study sessions, and knock on your professor’s door when you want some advanced Chemistry questions answered. University teaching staff don’t have time to check every student’s progress all the time – but if you approach them and ask them for help, they’ll definitely be delighted to help you out. Make the most of your university experience by being proactive and asking for help.
Are there any crucial study skills I’ve missed from this list? What else do you need to master before you go to university? What do you wish you knew before you started undergraduate degree? Write to us in the comments section below.
I’ve been there: the teacher has moved onto a topic about which you understand nothing, and you’re sitting in class waiting patiently for the next topic, which you hope you might actually understand. Students in these situations often shy away from asking questions in class because they’re afraid that they’ll interrupt the lesson for the other students. Most hide the problem and stay quiet until the next topic comes along. It’s sometimes only when the class sits a standardised test that the issue is even brought to the teacher’s attention.
Here’s some (modified) meta-data from students I’ve taught in the past year. I searched my inbox for the surname of every student I teach then counted the hundreds of questions they’ve asked me collectively since the start of the academic year. I grouped the students into quartiles and plotted the average number of questions asked in the last few months versus their current academic performance.
Results were shocking: not only did the higher-achieving students ask me more questions by email than the lower-achieving students, but the correlation was surprisingly strong (R² = 71%). This begs the question: do high achieving students get higher grades because they ask for more help? Is there a causal link between getting more help from a teacher and achieving a higher grade? Common sense suggests that there is.
What does this mean for you?
Students should ask for more academic support in order to maximise their learning. In particular:
Always email your tutor with academic questions. Number each question for easy reference in later emails.
Remember the 5-minute rule: ask for help from your teacher or tutor if you make zero progress on a question for more than 5 minutes.
Ask to see your teacher or tutor if you don’t understand something. Just ask them to “explain [topic] to me because I didn’t really understand it in class”. They’ll be happy to explain it to you.
Don’t get put off if your teacher seems too busy to help you right now. Just ask them, “do you have time tomorrow?” and schedule a more convenient time to meet.
In university, teachers don’t pay such close attention to the individual progress of each student. After Year 12, you’ll be mostly on your own. You’ll have to be proactive, take responsibility for your own learning and ask for help when you need it.
Are you a top-achieving student who learns all by themselves? What are your thoughts? Leave your feedback in the comments section below.
In 2011, 17% of Australians, 21% of Americans and 53% of Europeans spoke two languages fluently. Being bilingual not only opened them up to new cultures, and earned them more money, but also, according to several recent studies, protected them from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease later in life. Here are 9 great reasons why you should learn a new language.
1. Bilinguals have higher cognitive processes.
As Maria Konnikova writes in the New York Times: “[A bilingual child]… develops enhanced executive control, or the ability to effectively manage what are called higher cognitive processes such as problem-solving, memory, and thought. [A bilingual child] becomes better able to inhibit some responses, promote others, and generally emerges with a more flexible and agile mind. It’s a phenomenon that researchers call the bilingual advantage.”
2. Bilinguals are better able to attend to important information and ignore the less important.
Cognitive neuroscientist Ellen Bialystok has spent her career studying how bilingualism sharpens the mind. She said in an interview with the New York Times in 2011: “We asked all the children if a certain illogical sentence was grammatically correct: “Apples grow on noses.” The monolingual children couldn’t answer. They’d say, “That’s silly” and they’d stall. But the bilingual children would say, in their own words, “It’s silly, but it’s grammatically correct.” The bilinguals, we found, manifested a cognitive system with the ability to attend to important information and ignore the less important.”
4. Bilinguals are somewhat protected from the effects of dementia.
A 2006 paper by Bialystok et al. showed that bilingual dementia patients showed an onset of symptoms 4.3 years later than their monolingual counterparts. The disparity is thought to be explained by the increased cognitive load demanded by comprehending and speaking in two languages. The brains of bilingual patients with Alzheimer’s disease function cognitively at the same level of monolingual patients who have suffered less brain degeneration.
5. Bilinguals are better at spatial working memory tasks.
A 2013 article by Luo et al. tested the spatial working memory of monolingual and bilingual adults of different ages. The researchers found that bilingual people outperformed their monolingual counterparts in spatial working memory tasks at all age levels. (Having a strong spatial working memory helps with navigation, direction, location, and visually processing spatial orientation of objects in our environment.)
6. Being bilingual improves cultural awareness.
Language is inextricably linked with culture, and learning a language involves a developing a heightened awareness of the culture that speaks that language. Bilingual speakers can understand jokes and sayings in two languages as well as any mistranslations between the two that might not make sense to a speaker of either language. Being bilingual often leads to being bicultural.
8. Being bilingual makes travelling easier and cheaper.
I know from experience that if you only speak English in China, life can be confusing and expensive (unless, of course, you’re lucky enough to have bilingual people on hand to help you out). Travellers who don’t speak Chinese can only visit high-end hotels and restaurants, and they need an expensive bilingual travel agent to book tours. When I was in Beijing in 2011, Great Wall tours were five times more expensive if you booked via an English-speaking agent instead of directly with the Chinese tour operator. Long-distance bus tickets were double the price for those who couldn’t haggle in Chinese, and China’s leading plane-ticket website is about 20% cheaper if you purchase via the Chinese-language version of the site instead of using the translated English version. Finally, of course, being fluent in Chinese earns you much more respect from the locals when you visit China.
We can’t choose our first language. However, we can choose our second, third and fourth languages. I studied English, French, German and Welsh in school but still chose to learn Mandarin Chinese after graduation from high school. Chinese attracted me because it trains parts of the brain that English doesn’t: it’s visual, logical and of increasing importance culturally and economically worldwide. For me, Chinese was the key to a fascinating culture very different from my own.
9. It takes only 600 hours of dedicated study to learn many new languages!
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State has compiled approximate learning expectations for a number of languages based on the length of time it takes to achieve “proficiency” in each language. The good news is that some (French, Italian, German and more) can be learned in only 600 hours of dedicated study.
Sally Pearson (not the Pearson who wrote your Chemistry textbook!)
1. Do all the required work for your course.
This includes the required textbook questions, any weekly quizzes and worksheets or booklets that are provided by your teacher.
2. Read the textbook one week ahead of the course
Refer to the course outline and read the textbook chapters before we study them in class. It makes a huge difference to your level of understanding.
3. Check your weekly quiz answers very critically
Compare your answers in the weekly Chemistry quizzes with the ideal answers on the examiners’ reports. (These will be sent out after each quiz has been completed.) Textbook questions are a bit like reading comprehension questions: they test your understanding of what you’ve just read in the textbook. Weekly quizzes are written in a much more similar style to the VCE Chemistry examination you’ll sit at the end of the year.
4. Re-do any SACs that you did not get 80% in
Ask your teacher for a SAC follow-up exercise if you achieved less than 80% in any SAC. Hand in the SAC follow-up exercise to your teacher when completed for marking. (Only your first SAC score will count; however, this strategy is an excellent way of highlighting areas in need of improvement, and then improving on them.)
5. Complete Checkpoints Questions
Your goal is to complete all of the questions in the Checkpoints book before 20 July 2015. Complete Checkpoints questions on the topics you study as you progress through the year.
6. Complete Dimensions worksheets
Your teacher will sometimes set Dimensions worksheets as an assignment in your VCE Chemistry course. You can always ask your teacher for extra Dimensions worksheets. Note that some of the questions in Dimensions worksheets extend a little further than the scope of our VCE study design.
7. Refer to additional textbooks (and do some of the questions)
Use additional textbooks for alternative explanations of the same topics. Please don’t use Google to find Chemistry information because about a third of the results are awful (answers.com and answers.yahoo.com are two such examples). Use Heinemann, Dimensionsand StudyONinstead: these are the three best textbooks for our course. Complete questions from these textbooks for additional practice on certain topics as required.
8. Complete past examination papers
By June 2015, you will have finished studying all of Unit 3. You will therefore be able to complete Unit 3 practice examination papers from VCAA’s website (or from your teacher/tutor) by this time. Complete past examination papers in exam-like conditions and check your answers critically using the examiners’ reports provided.
9. ASK YOUR TEACHER/TUTOR FOR HELP!
If you get stuck, just ask your teacher/tutor for help. Send them an email saying “Sir, I have no idea how to answer this question!” or knock on their office door for advice. They’re always happy to help!
Remember the 5-minute rule. If you’re stuck (i.e. making no progress) on a single question for more than 5 minutes, ask for help and move on. Re-do the question once your teacher or tutor has responded with tips as to how to answer the question.
Do you know of any more study tips that aren’t in this list? Add them in the comments section below.
Hydrolysis (or formation) of a triglyceride. Click to download PDF version for printing.
Visualising reaction mechanisms in VCE Chemistry can sometimes be difficult. Making plastic models helps, but I’ve been thinking that it would be much more convenient if students had their own paper version of molecular models that they could keep for themselves and use at home.
That’s why I created Foldable Biomolecules. Each Foldable Biomolecule is a PDF template that students can fold into a shape that demonstrates a chemical reaction clearly. Pull apart the edges of each sheet to visualise a hydrolysis reaction, and push them back together to visualise a condensation reaction.
Click to download Foldable Triglyceride
Click to download Foldable Biodiesel
Click to download Foldable Dipeptide
Click to download Foldable Sucrose
Click to download Foldable Nucleotide v2
These paper-based biomolecules are downloadable, shareable and much quicker to set up than their plastic counterparts.
You can also download the complete set of Foldable Biomolecules as a single PDF here.
At the beginning of each academic year, I ask my VCE Chemistry students what the most important things are in the classroom in order to learn Chemistry. Typical answers include ‘pens’, ‘notebooks’, ‘tables’, ‘chairs’ and ‘a teacher’. I have a different view.
1. Students
Students are the most important ‘things’ in the classroom if any learning is going to happen. No learning happens without students present!
2. Textbooks
The primary source of information is not the teacher. It’s the textbook. The textbook explains every topic on the course concisely and accurately, and teaches students all the theory required for the end-of-year examination. Textbooks contain so many practice questions that some students don’t even complete all of them. Before hunting for extra resources or question sets, do all of the questions in the textbook first.
Pens are more important than notebooks because the textbook is designed to be annotated. The giant margins in a textbook (which aren’t there in novels) are placed purposefully to accommodate students’ personalised notes. Students should use at least two different colours of ink to annotate their textbooks, and they should highlight important definitions and phrases as well. (They should translate words, too, if they are fluent in another language.) Teachers will need to guide and encourage students through this process initially. Some students enter your classroom with an aversion to writing in textbooks.
4. Notebooks
Making your own notes is a very efficient way to learn. Any teacher who gives pre-made notes to their students is depriving their students of the opportunity to learn for themselves. It’s fine to give some notes to students as an example, but the vast majority of student notes should be written by the students themselves (even if they’re copying most of it from the whiteboard).
An interesting study found that students who reviewed their own notes outperformed students who reviewed notes given to them by their teacher.
A teacher’s role, in addition to providing academic and moral support, is to bring the textbook (or the subject) to life. A teacher is the difference between reading a play and watching a play. A teacher makes the subject more engaging, more interesting and more relevant by bringing their own experience, funny stories and exciting experiments into the curriculum. Great teachers make even the dullest academic subjects exciting to learn. They serve to inspire and guide students to an extent that technology will never be able to match.
Not in my top 5…
PowerPoint slides
Internet access
iPads, laptops and other gizmos
interactive whiteboards
laboratory equipment & chemicals
printed notes for students
past examination papers
What do you think of my low-tech “top 5” list? Should technology be in the top 5? Will technology reduce the need for teachers? Is something other than the textbook the primary learning resource in your classroom?
The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the US Department of State has compiled approximate learning expectations for a number of languages based on the length of time it takes to achieve “proficiency” in each language. The good news is that some (French, Italian, German and more) can be learned in only 600 hours of dedicated study.
James Kennedy 