Rebecca 0:00
Y’all we have made it to week four of four in our AP science teaching series and I am thrilled to be ending this series by having back on my personal favorite teacher who also happens to be my chemistry one and AP Chemistry high school teacher, Zach Matson, and he is on to talk all things AP chemistry with you. Zach has a BS in chemistry, a BA in Spanish, a BA in computer science and an M Ed from Valparaiso University. He also has an MS in engineering through Purdue University. And he has been teaching since 2001. He is certified in secondary chemistry, physics and mathematics. And he spent two years teaching chemistry, math and physics on the south side of Chicago at a small private school before moving to a public high school in Lexington, Kentucky where I went to high school where he has spent the last basically two decades teaching all levels of chemistry. So he’s taught on grade level honors pre engineering, which is a part of a magnet program at my high school. And of course, a p. So this is Zach’s fourth episode with me on the podcast because you all love him just as much as I do, which just makes me so happy. And so many of you have asked me just to keep bringing him on. Some of you have even asked me to make him a co host, which I absolutely love. And if he wasn’t teaching full time, I would probably try to make him do but he just is so great to have on because he has so much wisdom and you’re gonna obviously hear that in this episode. So to give you some context, cuz I know this is a long one. Our conversation starts with just great advice for any AP science teacher, whether you teach chemistry or not. And then we just gab all things AP chemistry, and we end if you make it to the end, you get to a little unfiltered rant from Zack about how he really feel about college board. So listen to the end, if you want to hear that. And y’all I knew my episodes with him are always extra long, but I kinda don’t care like I just I can’t have any of this goodness cut out. So I’m sorry if this takes you several days or commutes to and from school to listen to it, I really think it will be worth your time. So like I said, he starts by sharing general AP teaching tips before covering how to balance homework and lecture and labs how he deals with grading. He shares specific lab ideas just to get the most bang for your buck with your time and energy investment. He talks about how he utilizes peer tutors, how he uses fr Q’s and practice multiple choice exams to review and he gives really great specific advice for new AP Chem teachers. He answers all of the specific questions you all submitted to me to like what exact chemical list to stock your closet with if you are on a limited budget, and truly so much more. My time spent talking with Zack is always worth every minute of it. And I really hope you feel the same when you listen to this. So I know I said this is longer. So I just need to stop my gushing and let’s get straight into my conversation with Zack Matson. This is secondary science simplified a podcast for secondary science teachers who want to engage their students and simplify their lives. I’m Rebecca joiner from it’s not rocket science. As a high school science teacher turned curriculum writer, I am passionate about helping other science teachers love their jobs, serve their students, and do it all and only 40 hours a week. Are you ready to rock the time spent in your classroom and actually have a life outside of it? You are in the right place teacher friend. Let’s get to today’s episode
Mr. Matson Welcome back.
Zach 3:42
Rebecca, it is so good to see you.
Rebecca 3:44
I am not exaggerating when I say that when I sent out a podcast survey to my email list of over 15,000 people. There were multiple digits of people that just requested that I just bring you back and several that said you should just make him your permanent co host.
Zach 4:00
So multiple digits meaning like 1.201 Yeah,
Rebecca 4:08
like over at least over 50 people, which I thought was impressive that they would and I didn’t even mention you it was just like I had one final question. That was like anything else you want to tell me and multiple people were like, can you just keep bringing back your chemistry metric by bringing that shirt back? So we brought him back? There’s no one else I want to talk about AP chemistry with the new so but before we do that, you’ve been on here several times. But for people who are new to you give them some context for your school and where you’re coming from when you talk about AP Chem.
Zach 4:37
Alright, so started teaching in 2001, taught on the south side of Chicago went to Lexington, Kentucky started teaching AP Chem in like 2005 ish. And I’ve been teaching it since then. We’ve got about 2500 kids at our school. It has a magnet STEM program for pre engineering and that’s got about 350 ish students. Generally per year I’ll have two or three sections of AP Can that can be like 15 to 33 kids per section as enrollment for AP classes, especially hard ones, it’s all over the board. So I’ve had 600 Plus kids take it average Re is like 3.3. Overall. So that’s like a 75% pass rate.
Rebecca 5:17
That’s a great.
Zach 5:18
Well, I don’t know, like, I think it’s, anyway, we’ll talk, we’ll talk. Anyway. So just as a quick note, before anything else, I want to say that there’s basically two schools of thought on AP chemistry exam, one of which is teach exclusively the content, and the other of which is like kind of teach a course and then have an overlap. I understand the motivations for people who say, teach it just to the course. Like there’s a very vocal member of the AP teaching community who always says, When my kids ask a question about such and such, I just tell them that’s not on the test. And we’re not going to talk about it, which, on one hand, I feel it’s offensive. On the other hand, it’s like, I guess, if you are in this contract with AP US, and that’s how it is. So I will acknowledge that those people exist, I’m not going to judge them. But that’s just like for background, that’s not really how I roll. So and
Rebecca 6:06
I can speak because I was one of your AP Chem students, and I can’t believe I had you in 2007 2008. school year. So that was your third year teaching it.
Zach 6:15
Yeah. And it was horrible. Like, as I look back, every year, I teach it more, I realize how much worse it was back then. But there’s a dividing line, I think that’s important for teachers to hear, which is there is a point where you become so efficient at delivering exactly what they need, that they aren’t doing the amount of struggling that it takes to learn it better. So
Rebecca 6:34
that’s so true. So I don’t know if it’s always been this way, or how I don’t even remember, were we on like an AB schedule, and I saw you every other day all year. Is that what you still do? Okay? Yep.
Zach 6:45
So 90 minutes every other day. Okay.
Rebecca 6:48
I for some reason, I’m feeling like I saw you every day, but I guess maybe was I wasn’t your TA because I was, um, I was Miss WASPA speech today? Probably. Maybe I was just in there a lot.
Zach 6:56
No, that’s possible and or on off days. And on days, you were having nightmares about me. So that that could have made it feel that
Rebecca 7:04
way? Or honestly, I could have been I have a lot of memories, leaving my physics one course, that was not my forte with Coach Hayden. And they go into your room for help, because I just was like bumping, I’m not worried about physics. I’m worried about AP Chem. Yeah, that might be my memory. Okay. Well, you had some great ideas to start with giving some suggestion just for AP teachers in general. So when then we’ll get more specific in the AP Chem. So let’s start with that. Sure.
Zach 7:29
So AP, in general, you’re dealing with a demographic that has traditionally been super successful. And so they aren’t used to taking a test where they do poorly, you know, like a test where 45% of the tests, they might not know, yeah, and you need to train them for that, you need to train them that 80% is a really good benchmark, and like, even passing might be 45% overall. And so like I, my strategy for that is I try and especially first semester, give unit exams and give other assessments that are approximately that difficulty, and then kind of curve them to 80%. And my general way of curbing to 80% is just taking the average and dividing by like, usually point eight, two or something. So I
Rebecca 8:09
didn’t believe in curves until I taught AP. And then I was like, I have to curve, because if I’m giving them the assessment at the right challenge, it has to be curved, because the whole thing is curved.
Zach 8:18
Exactly. And it’s weird to hear other people’s strategy on that. But like, I think it’s important that they feel the frustration of I don’t know how to do 50% of this in the middle of a test and to not give up. So regardless of AP exam, like not giving up and realizing that keeping going is the important part.
Rebecca 8:34
That is so true. That is such good advice. Yeah. And
Zach 8:38
related to that. So I said, I kind of curve it to around 80 83%. And then for the kids who are really struggling starting off, I’ll do remediation to some degree and I like I’ve got different remediation options. Like sometimes I’ll have them write a test, and then somebody else takes it, or I’ll have them. And there’s only a few of these that I do this, have them look at the answers they got wrong and explain why they chose their answer and why they understand the new answer. And then in terms of remediating you want to be equitable, or at least I do, because other kids whine, but like, I’ll go F to 69%, D to 75%. C to 80%, which I think is pretty fair.
Rebecca 9:15
Yeah, I like that a lot. I think that’s really helpful. I just can’t agree more of what you said about you have to like build their resiliency so that they don’t crumble when they get to the test.
Zach 9:23
Right. It’s soul crushing for them, although that has changed a little bit with time. So one kind of AP note is like we’ve got the Chemistry Reference sheet. I think it’s useful for them to use that or have it available for every assessment from day one. So they get used to the feeling of looking at that and knowing what’s on there. One thing again, this is probably more science related, especially recently, study pictures, pictorial representations of molecules and stuff, graphs, and they added a big emphasis on data tables not that long ago.
Rebecca 9:54
We saw that a no, that’s great. We saw that in AP Biology too. That’s why I started getting into pogos just so they were Seeing models all the time because a buyer loves the model. And they love to give them something they’ve never seen. And then the kids panic because they’re like, she never showed me. But I’m like, it doesn’t matter because everything’s in the picture, you just have to like, use the test to your advantage. Right,
Zach 10:13
exactly kind of like a CT on that. So totally, I always tell my kids as we’re going through the year, like, oh, College Board would love to get this question because it doesn’t involve any math. So one of the things that I’ll mention is they’ve really turned back on math. And then like, I think, generally, for AP teachers, for me, a lot of the actual AP questions are pretty broad in terms of content. And so in the beginning of the year, we might not have covered it all. So if I’m hitting practice AP tests and stuff during first semester, usually I’ll just put like one FAQ, or a handful of multiple choice that are relevant to that specific topic. So first semester, I’m not really looking super close at AP questions, period, I guess that’s the end of that sentence, right?
Rebecca 10:55
Cuz you don’t have to have it covered enough to do a ton of AP questions,
Zach 10:58
right. And the good ones involve multiple things that might not have been covered yet. Now, second semester, I only give like one or two unit exams. And then every week, I’ll assign an FR Q, or a multiple choice section. It’s due on a Friday. And I think like, this is something that I feel is very important, which is self assessment is basically impossible, especially if they don’t know the content super well. So when they take it, they can see what they got wrong. And then they can retake it as many times as they want, until they get full points. So it’s a little bit of a carrot. But also like, there is a lot to be said, for taking the same test over and over and over until you master those processes, you master how to address questions that are coming up like that.
Rebecca 11:40
Okay, so are you doing those during class? Are they doing them at home?
Zach 11:44
Oh, in fact, I know it Look at you.
Rebecca 11:46
So how are they not just Googling all the FAQ answers,
Zach 11:49
so some of them are okay. But guilt is one factor. And maybe fear is another factor. Because I tell them, you know, let’s say back in the day, it was 75 multiple choice. So I’ll post one of those. And then I’ll set the benchmark of full credit at 40 points. And I’ll tell them, if you get 40 points on the first try, I don’t believe you, you’re gonna come in and take it in front of me. And then I think with this these type of kids, it’s pretty important to say, or 39 or 38.
Rebecca 12:15
Right, but so I guess the like giving them the you can do it as many times helps them stay honest, in terms of like this is just to help you. Right?
Zach 12:22
And I tell them, like do what I tell you, and you’re going to be successful gaming the system. And you’re not, I’ll know. Yeah, your gaming system, congratulations. But I think in general, for any AP, there’s so much to be said or anything, take the same test over and over and over until you know, muscle memory how every type of question works. And so this allows them to just focus on the ones they got wrong focus on the ones they got wrong. And then they can take the whole test in like 10 minutes and get well some of them chop off at 40. But some of them are like how do
Rebecca 12:48
you rearrange the answer choices or do anything to manipulate? Are you truly given the same one? I’m
Zach 12:53
just giving them the same one? Would it be nice if I did? Yes. Are there a lot of calories involved? Probably. So the way I do those is I’ll post a Google form with a link to the PDF questions. And then the Google Form is just for their answers. So I couldn’t rearrange them because the PDF of the questions is a set order. Right. Okay, that’s helpful. I feel like for practice second semester, because that kind of came up in some of your other questions. That’s how I do it. For the majority of it is once a week, they got this thing to do on a Friday. They know theoretically, it’s not more than an hour and a half commitment per week. And they are basically determining their grade for the semester. So that’s like a carrot for pay. Play the game. Yeah, absolutely. Related to that is F RQ. And F r q rubrics. So that’s a pain. I don’t really like grading those because it takes time. However, it’s ridiculously useful for kids to score fr Q’s, to score other people’s fr Q’s. So they see the types of things other people do and the types of mistakes other people make, and the score their own, so they can compare their type of answers. And part of it too, is just gaming the system. It’s like, okay, here are ways to get points, blah, blah, blah.
Rebecca 13:59
Well, I remember that distinctly. You putting things on the projector and us there being like, they only got four to seven points. And we could figure out why like that was a very helpful visual, even stuff like labeling the parts of the question because we couldn’t find the answer. And thus, the reader might count it wrong. Little things like that.
Zach 14:16
Right? And the like bizarreness of sometimes on a problem, they’ll score the answer, sometimes in a problem, they’ll score one of the intermediate steps, sometimes they’ll score the units. So I mean, being comprehensive and that type of stuff you put and then I think for Cameron, probably math and these other ones when it’s a multi step problem, I think from second one, they need to realize that if they encounter a part that they don’t know the answer to and they need it later, make something up. You know, I’m like, if you’re gonna make something up, just make up literally, right. I don’t know how to get this answer. So I’m going to use one and then tell them they will lose points on that part, but they can get full credit from their out. So again, it’s this idea of keep going. Don’t just give up so that that is a part of the AP exam is they’ll let you do that. I
Rebecca 15:00
remember you telling us that too, and thinking that was so wild, but I distinctly remember a thermodynamics question. I couldn’t figure it out. And I did that. And I don’t know, I cried your room so much. And I somehow got a four. So that just shows like, you really just need to build endurance, and get like, maybe 60%. Right, maybe even 50. And you’re still gonna, I mean, I’ve never been more flabbergasted than getting that score in your class, because I was like, There’s no way.
Zach 15:27
Right, right. And so some of that has shifted, but I agree 100%, I do now feel guilty about all the crying but we’ll, I’ll worry about that later.
Rebecca 15:35
Hey, but I cried way less than college because I, I retook chemistry in college, because my advisor told me that if I was going pre med that I shouldn’t use AP credits, I should retake. And I literally made like a 98 and chem 101 and chem 102, because it was so easy after taking AP Chem and I never cried then. So I like literally couldn’t believe I was like, I’m not learning a single thing new. Like, I’ve already learned all this. And it was so nice of me, it was a nice, like, ease into college. Honestly, that’s
Zach 16:02
one of the things that I all mentioned later is just Gen Chem is a major weed out class, you’re probably going to have to take it having seen it makes it easy. And you’ll watch everyone around you drowning.
Rebecca 16:12
Truly this ridiculous anecdote, and I don’t think my freshman year roommate will ever listen to this. But I knew she was copying my chemistry homework. And so I did all the problems wrong once. And then I changed them after I knew she’d copied it. And then she freaked out. And I was like, you shouldn’t have copied my stuff. Right. But that’s how easy it was for me and how hard it was for other people. But because I take an AP Chem, right,
Zach 16:34
I agree 1,000% It’s big bang for the buck. Alright, last two items. And I know in front loading, sorry, not trying to bully Oh, I love it, I guess. So I don’t use it much. But people should use AP classroom a lot. It’s basically a way you can do an entire class online. So make use of that resource. You can like pull questions and make specific tests. And you can do things that people were doing before in very cumbersome ways, like lists of questions by topic and all that on previous exams.
Rebecca 17:04
And so you don’t use it just because you’ve already have all this other stuff, though. old dog new
Zach 17:08
tricks. I don’t know, part of it is just my stubbornness, which is they already have too much control over me. Let me be my own person. Right. And that’s really shifted over the years for especially teachers starting out, why not use the tool that they’re giving you to do exactly what they want you
Rebecca 17:25
to do. Kind of like a robot, but helpful. Yeah,
Zach 17:29
I’m going to pause, we’ll give it a dramatic pause. Okay, so last item that I want to toss out in the beginning. And it’s kind of irrelevant to what you had said earlier, I think that the class content is way more important than the AP exam, in general, the AP exam might help them, the content will help them. And that’s what you need to convey is, even if you fail the test, I tell my kids as take it in college, but the content is what matters, that’s going to carry long term, whether they pass the test or not. So I don’t put a tremendous amount of emphasis on passing the test. I know that’s a big stressor for a lot of teachers. So I don’t know, I think
Rebecca 18:04
that’s great that I genuinely feel like any student who wants to be an any like a nurse and engineer, whatever pre med, like you need to go ahead and take this once, right, get it out here. Get some help with it. Right,
Zach 18:18
and wait till you hear all the words I have to say about that. Okay, I’m
Rebecca 18:20
ready. Let’s talk AP Chem, specifically. Yes. All right. People who’ve never taught it or maybe like this is going to air like towards the end of April. And so a lot of people are finding out they’re like it’s on their docket for next year. So what’s kind of the focus? How’s it changed? What do you love? Or do you hate?
Zach 18:37
All right? So I think College Board’s focus, it’s hard to say like, luckily, chemistry is very concrete and the types of information you need to know their focus. I mean, obviously, it’s making money I do want to point out, well, I have no acting ability, you’re going to be quite impressed when we get to the end of this. And I let my true feelings fly. But what I put is major themes. And this I think, is a major theme Overall, these aren’t College Board’s word is basically like three things, which is spontaneity, and kinetics and equilibrium, which is still part of spontaneity. And I tell my kids, the power you can have is predicting quantitatively whether or not anything’s going to happen. That’s, that’s spontaneity. kinetics is how long it’s going to take. And I always give the example and you got little kids too, which is my younger son was like, Hey, can you put some more time on the switch? Can you unlock it? And I’m like, yeah, go do the dishes. And then he’ll bring me the switch after that. And just stare at me and I’ll stare at him. And I’ll be like, Well, I didn’t tell you when. So super jerky maneuver, but like you’re a parent that concept drives at home is like kinetics. Yeah, spontaneity is whether or not it’s going to happen. kinetics is how long it’s going to take. And then equilibrium is how things are going to look in the end. So I really think that if AP is mimicking what’s actually important in chemistry, it’s those three things. And then I’ll toss in these other two again, not their words, but like, if you can break it down into two key ideas intermolecular forces for physical properties and electronegativity He type stuff for chemical properties. So I didn’t use their words, but that’s what I liked. I would like their words to be. Yeah, I
Rebecca 20:05
love that.
Zach 20:06
So has it changed over the years? Yeah, fewer calculations, more pictures, less content. Those old exams are brutally hard. Like they had 85, multiple choice and 90 minutes. And not only could you use a calculator you had to so
Rebecca 20:22
do they like announce when they, as they’ve like, made it less quantitative? Did they announce that or you just noticed it happened?
Zach 20:29
I think that it is happens year to year. It’s an interesting question. Hard to say. But I’m just gonna declare, you notice it getting easier and easier. I know that philosophers have declared that the slippery slope is a logical fallacy. But it’s a frickin slippery slope. We let you do this. And now you’re going to do this. So
Rebecca 20:48
it’s hard for me to imagine chemistry not being super quantitative. That’s interesting. Yeah,
Zach 20:53
it’s harder for me, because I think the quantitative is really where my skills lie. But at least it’s forced me to cross train and kind of try and emphasize how things are happening qualitatively behind the scenes.
Rebecca 21:04
I just like numbers to back it up. Oh, numbers.
Zach 21:08
That’s what it’s all about. I love data. Yeah. And that’s something I really think is important later. So he said, What do I love? What do I hate? Love is a pretty strong word. But I think that it gives a basic framework to standardize content for all these schools. So rather than every school just doing their own thing, it’s like, here is a structure you could follow for kids at this level. And what do I hate? So everyone? I’ve got, I’m gonna save that for the end. But I think succinctly, I don’t like the amount of power they have over curriculum, and over the education of college bound students, all these top tier students are taking all these AP classes, and College Board has exact control over the content and the delivery and everything else. I don’t like that.
Rebecca 21:57
Yeah, they’re the only ones. Yes, yeah. And they’re covering every subject our kids,
Zach 22:02
like we’re taking, right and it is at their whim, what content they want. So I don’t like that. Yeah.
Rebecca 22:07
Okay. So do you follow their scope and sequence that they recommend? Is it the same already to what you did? Or what do you do there? Because that’s a big question. A lot of people ask, because they’re, I think people feel scared, especially if they use the AP classroom, it feels too tricky to go in a different order, even if you want to, like I love doing evolution first, for bio, but that’s like last for college board. They didn’t have all the fancy online stuff when I taught it so I could get rid of it easier. Spectacular
Zach 22:34
question. And I think big stressor, especially for new teachers, luckily, I think we’re benefiting in chemistry from the fact that there’s really a logical order of things. And so I was surprised. I hadn’t looked at the order super closely. But I think that overall, their order pretty much matches mine there. Number nine, which is applications that thermodynamics, I think needs to go after they’re number six, which is plain old thermodynamics, or at least number seven, which is equilibrium. And there number five is kinetics. I like luckily, kinetics can go on either side of thermo topics. So short answer, it’s pretty okay. But they’re their orders solid. Okay.
Rebecca 23:10
And so speaking of order and scope, obviously, the next question is, then how do you get through it all, because most people will just feel like, they can’t do it without lecturing 24/7. And I feel like chemistry isn’t a subject you really like, go home and read to catch up like biology, you can be like, just go read like 10 chapters and figure out how to do it yourself. But I feel like chemistry is so much more like, need so much more support.
Zach 23:32
Amen. And so I think, and we’ll talk more about this in a minute, but like AP Chem, or chemistry two year course. So first year chemistry cover, basically the first four units of what college boards got, and some other stuff, fruit basket upset in terms of just grabbing some stuff. And then in API, review all of that stuff and then hit you know, five through nine, or whatever. So
Rebecca 23:54
we had talked about this before we recorded but what would you say then to the guidance counselor admin who’s trying to just put kids straight into AP Chem without having taken Kim watts, oh, my gosh, and the nicest way possible, so we don’t get an explicit rating.
Zach 24:08
I know, I scripted this out a little bit, because it’s an emotional topic for me. AP Chem isn’t one of those chump other AP courses. It’s like it is one of the OG AP courses, the ones that people benefited the most from taking in high school. You can’t fake your way through it. There’s just too much new material. If you haven’t taken Chem, you don’t know any of it. And you’re you’re getting dumped in this. And then I think here’s the argument that they should present to admins or whatever. The vast majority of college kids can’t pass gen chem, even with a year of high school Chem under their belt. I mean, what’s the fail out rate that UK university Kentucky like, you know, two thirds of them are failing out first semester and then another half of those fail out second semester. And those are top two your kids in college classes. And that’s over two years, right? Because they had at least one year in high school. And then I have philosophical reasoning for why not which is educational. Psychology, the longer you can expose someone to content, the better, they’re going to retain it. And if you are cramming it all in one year, which is I hate when schools will do like double block or something where they’ll cover the entire year of chemistry in one semester is a hot button for me, you know, what’s the point? It’s basically cramming, and there are kids who could do it and pass the test. But like, it’s not beneficial in the long run, especially like I said, from an educational psychology standpoint, why would we be trying to cram this stuff in? I mean, kids could do it. But why? Yeah, they need time. Yeah. And then you can toss in the other argument, as you’re staring blankly at your administrators, which is, given the lab requirements and the face time requirements. I don’t know how you could pull it off in one year. So unless they’re just fudging the numbers and doing double blocks, then calling it a one year course, which again, I don’t like to Yeah,
Rebecca 25:52
I feel like too, one of the best hot button ways to get admin to do something you want for teaching a science courses, tell them how it’s a safety concern. That’s how I got out of having 35 Kids, it is a literal safety concern. And we could get sued if something happens, you know, and you could say, AP Chem, like the labs are expected to do they have to have a prerequisite year is there it’s a safety concern. That’s brilliant.
Zach 26:15
And how about this, take this on, and you can’t rush safety.
Rebecca 26:19
Oh, that’s a good line. You can’t rush safety. That’s so true. And then either maturity too. I think like a sophom*ore taking AP Chem is like disturbing, that they have to be upperclassmen.
Zach 26:30
Right, and that I think that I’ll mention that later. But like, the idea that a freshman or a sophom*ore in high school could take an AP class that is equivalent to some college class is absurd, because if they were college classes, then they would be targeted at the 18 to 24 demographic of life skills and of background experience.
Rebecca 26:48
I know we’re rushing all of them into I feel like every high school has like the first AP course they can take as a freshman AP, human geography or something. It’s just like, why are we doing this these kids? Well, I’ll talk about. Okay, we’ll get back to the question that I totally diverged from, which is, how do you balance covering all so you said, you kind of need the first four units, fasters, and one,
Zach 27:09
so you’re one first four units ish, and then develop a lot of the lab skills in terms of like, you know, titration, how to handle things, how to read balances, you know, whatever. And then AP, review that stuff. And I do split the review of that stuff. So I do a lot of the things like maybe gas laws, which I think are a kind of low hanging fruit in terms of difficulty, and periodic trends and stuff, which I feel are very qualitative, toss those in at the end, because they can kind of remember that, and I front load structures, basically. So like, here’s basic, you know, stuck down here dimensional analysis, which is actually important, and then right into structures and physical properties. And that’s kind of the order they have I just took their number one and tossed it on the end. Yeah,
Rebecca 27:53
I love that. Okay, so always an AP question we get to is like, how do you deal with homework while not overwhelming kids? Because there has to be homework to reinforce but like you said, most of these kids in these classes are taking like four or five APs. It’s insane. Right.
Zach 28:10
So I think that a lot of the APS chemistry is hard, hard. It’s not like large homework assignments hard. And I guess like a different way to phrase that is, you know, I call AP US History or something. AP worksheets. So AP maps. Yeah, exactly. And so for chemistry, it is a completely new skill and homework is practice. So if you want to learn and or master something, you’ve got to practice and no one questions that athletes have to be at practice, you know, 10 hours a week or whatever, no one questions that musicians are putting in 10 hours a week, yet, they’re like, oh, you know, kids shouldn’t be doing homework, there’s just not enough time. So the concept that’s a big sticking point for me is the education system has ruined these kids because they don’t realize that just like they practice in sports, just like they practice in the arts, is how they have to practice for things they don’t know like chemistry, right? Not like a push or AP huge or other things. I don’t want to disparage those classes. But
Rebecca 29:10
yeah, now I mean, I feel like the hard thing is because all these students are conditioned to think they have to be AP everything and if they would actually just take the APS and they’re like strong suits are where they’re trying to head like Why on earth did I take three years of AP history? I took AP World AP US and AP Euro and that is like my worst subject. And it got worse each time. Like I pass AP world didn’t pass AP US didn’t take AP Euro test. I was like, I’m not even taking that test. But like why was I in there? Because I felt like I need to be and then I was wasting time practicing and studying for courses that didn’t matter at all. And my AP World credit pass my gen ed that I need it I never took history in college. Like I should have just stayed with all the AP thought I didn’t even take AP Bio. I’m like I could have taken that and said Why was on AP Euro? What was I doing? Because
Zach 29:57
then I have to remain neutral. really are because the people who tell you it’s important are the people benefiting from financially from you doing that. And again, I will mention that more later, but you’re doing it because College Board has this monopoly where they have declared, If you want to be successful, if you want to be a top tier student, you need to pad your resume with as many of these things as possible. And I’ll tell you, this is like one of the first times I’ve seen this. So my oldest son is going to be starting high school next year. And so I flagged down a bunch of nerds in my classes, and I’m like, hey, what classes should you take? And there’s this one guy, who’s, you know, a couple steps up above a robot. And I was like, hey, why not? AP, whatever. And he’s like, there’s no payout. It’s not worth it. And I was like, user are genius. It was some AP History class. He’s like, there’s no payout. Meaning, if indeed it would get him to test out of something, it would be easy or maybe something else is going to take care of it. So like, that opened my eyes. I was like, oh, man, are you a genius? And I’m so glad that you actually are putting energy into things that matter
Rebecca 30:59
seriously, if you want to take them all take at least one in each to get your done Ed’s done and then even English, like I didn’t have to take English or history in college because I had enough but like, I took too many English like I didn’t need AP Lang and AP Lit I wanted really one of those. But anyway, I digress. Sorry. You’re not
Zach 31:17
a good student. If you don’t take them all. Rebecca, oh,
Rebecca 31:19
my gosh, I still like look back and like I can’t believe I didn’t take AP Biology like being pre med and like, wanting I mean, I’m glad took AP Chem but I should have taken that one too, and says sitting on a sofa in the back to the AP Euro history class that I did independent study with mush. We did an independent study while he taught another class. What were we doing? No, I don’t know. It was my guidance counselor. Okay. Or school counselor. That’s what they’re that’s the appropriate name. Now.
Zach 31:44
I call them schedulers. But don’t tell them that. Don’t want my best friend’s a school counselor. She
Rebecca 31:49
would kill me. Okay.
Zach 31:50
I mean, scheduler, yeah. Actually, I have to jump back to your question. So homework wise, what do I do? I think that that’s important. Yeah, just like, I give two or three assignments per week. And that’s like 20 to 30 questions. And I set aside a ton of class time for going over homework questions. I think that’s really important. Because struggling is important learning, struggling too much is counterproductive. Like there is a point where it’s diminishing returns. So try and figure it out. And then we can go through it in class. And we can usually go through it in a reasonable amount of time, in such a way that we’re just filling in those gaps.
Rebecca 32:27
I do distinctly remember that too. And I want to encourage you like I remember that was helpful at nights when I was having such a hard time knowing you never rushed through going over homework. I never sometimes I never there was maybe once or twice, or we even spent an hour of the 90 minutes. And it was just affirming, though, as a student to be like, he’s going to help me through this. I think I think that’s a really wise thing that you did. Right?
Zach 32:49
Well, I mean, it’s interesting, because that has dropped exponentially. Then I’ll just as a point, I will say like since COVID. And I think switching to online, maybe it makes it easier to cheat or easier to share information. So they don’t have those questions in class. I’ll say like the kids who are trying I know this sounds offensive. But um, did I give my disclaimer that I usually talk in hyperbole? Yeah. My opinions are not the opinions of my school district or the staff of it’s not rocket science slash Secondary Science Podcast. But I’ll tell them, it’s like when a kid asks a question. It’s like, okay, I knew that was gonna be a homework question. And then the other kids are like, staring off into space. And I tell them, I’m like, Look, someone smarter than you is asking a question. So you would have the same question if you were going to do the homework assignment. So pay attention. Yeah. So sometimes that gets under their skin. If you’re like, somebody smarter than you is asking a question. So you’re obviously going to have a question about it.
Rebecca 33:41
Okay, wait, so do you grade them for completion? Or how did you do grading? I remember turning in homework in general, regular can but what did you for AP homework grading?
Zach 33:50
So I think it’s mostly spot checked. And part of it is like, yes, it’s easy to abuse. But also, there’s a finite number of calories. I would like if time existed, I think it would be good to do what a lot of colleges do, which is pick three homework or three problems for a homework assignment. And 90% of the points are based on those problems. If time existed, that would be a good way to do it. Yeah. Right and giving feedback on those problems.
Rebecca 34:14
I never felt bad about spot checking in AP. I’m like they need they could use some buffer grades, or whatever. Right. Okay. Does that cover homework? Yeah,
Zach 34:22
I think you had mentioned like summer work, I don’t know summer work. I think the I should be able to cover the material in the time I’ve given which sounds like super snotty, but I’m trying to value the time of the kids or their give them their space. I don’t need to be intruding on every part of their life. That’s fine. I know a lot of classes do. I will say like, I know, some teachers will give an adjacent reading over the summer. Like here’s a book about, you know, the double helix or whatever. I mean, it’s cool. I’m not going to do it, but it’s nice if they’re reading something about science. Well,
Rebecca 34:54
and I just remember, I love reading but I just want to read fiction and I felt like sometimes High school reading like that, that adjacent reading just kind of sucked the love out of me. And I didn’t recover it till after college, you know? Yeah. And
Zach 35:06
I think especially for chemistry, there’s no books, or independent learning opportunities that are going to be worth whatever they’re doing. You know what I mean? So what can they do over the summer that’s going to be meaningful, and not in any efficient waste of time? I don’t. I’m like, I’m sure there are people who have stuff. Yeah,
Rebecca 35:24
that’s great. Okay, speaking of reading, do you use a textbook? And if so, do you have like a recommendation? How are you? How do you use it effectively?
Zach 35:33
So yes, ish. I used to give out hard copies of all the books. But now that we’ve transitioned to Canvas, I have like pictures, PDFs of all the homework problems. So all my homework problems are from textbooks, I make hard copies of the textbooks available, if they want to check one out. I think it’s smart, but it isn’t really necessary. And then, in terms of textbooks, I think there are three key ones potentially, which would be ZM doll, and I’d like some doll chemistry, whatever it is, that will have an AP stamp on it. Brown and Limaye is another big one. And then I know the University of Kentucky uses tro, which is another one. So I pull questions from those, I think Trump, so zone doll is historically, the book I have used, the homework problems get really hard, which is good. And there’s a very big diversity of them. I think Brown and LeMay does a pretty good job of explaining and it fills in in terms of homework questions, some of the prostrating from some DOM. And then if you need to read about it, I think Joe does a pretty good job in terms of words. And so this comes up all the time in chemistry, Facebook groups and message boards, which is like I’m starting out What books should I use? And then promptly, more vocal members of me doesn’t matter. Bla bla bla bla bla, well, how about an answer? There’s my answer. Go trope.
Rebecca 36:48
I love that. I also liked the idea of just since we were like, Where were you living where I used to live? There is the UK, if you teach where there’s local universities do what book they’re using kids, if your kids are gonna go there, at least they’re familiar with the same book. That’d be a great starting point.
Zach 37:02
Yeah, I don’t know if I thought of that particular thing, but your reasons, much better than mine.
Rebecca 37:07
I mean, I hadn’t thought about until you even said mentioned you Kay’s book. I’m like, Oh, he even knows what they use there. That’s so smart. Well, figured out. Okay. So you said at the beginning, like some years, you have six students, some years you have 35? You know, how are you recruiting for AP Chem? If so, how are you doing that? And another big thing that came up when I asked for AP questions was like the struggle with competing with dual enrollment. So do you have that at Lafayette or what’s kind of going on with that?
Zach 37:34
So just to clarify, like, usually, I’ll have two or three sections of 16 to 33. So I’ll have generally will say like 40 to 60 students a year. Not that that matters. But just that’s
Rebecca 37:45
a lot of sections, though. Like I thought a message of just get there one section. That’s pretty cool that you have that bigger program. Yeah,
Zach 37:51
but we got 2500 kids right now. So I’d like percentage wise, that may not be that high. I when I read your question, and I was like, man, we’re lucky, we don’t have dual credit at all, that your are just well, okay, so we don’t have it for Kim. And we don’t have it for bio explicitly. They did it for anatomy, there are logistics issues with dual credit. But I have a lot of words to say about that later, I used to frown upon dual credit strongly. However, I’ve kind of gotten more towards the middle of the road. So how do I get them? I do think I do a lot of recruiting in my first year classes. I tell them explicitly, like if you’re planning on going to college math, science, engineering, and then I have to clarify, including medicine, you will have to take general chemistry, and it is a major weed out class. So whether you pass the test or not having seen that material is going to pay dividends majorly. So, like I had said, this isn’t one of those Trump AP classes. I know that’s like offensive to people, but
Rebecca 38:51
whatever. It’s only usually science teachers listening anyway. So don’t worry, yeah, good.
Zach 38:55
So they walk into a class and they don’t know any of it. And they have to apply it and then they can College Board has reached such a dilution of their brand that you can take off. Okay, brace yourself for like defending people explicitly, like AP precalc, AP Computer Science Principles. It is offensive to me that AP precalc even exists. Yeah,
Rebecca 39:13
that’s insane.
Zach 39:14
I don’t know, I’m not doing a good job of acting like, I don’t have problems with college board. But anyway, students see I can get AP credit. And I can have an AP on my transcript and do that much work versus like Chem. And that is such a huge deal. And like the only justification I have, I have to recruit. And I tell them, in fact, I have a sign that says like planning on a future question mark, take a pee camp. So and also, I tell the kids MyClass helps you learn how to learn, which is a skill they have not developed because the education system has cheated them by setting the bar too low. And to keep up with the consistent workload and I don’t care what your major is in college. Those two skills are important right into the working world, regardless of the exam, learning how to learn and keeping up with a consistent workload and that’s Two of the most common items of feedback I get from my kids are your classes, the only one that prepared me for college, because things were moving fast, and there was new stuff. And like, I’ll toss this in there like and, and whilst these class, but I was gonna say
Rebecca 40:13
AP Stats was like the other most practical one I felt like I took, right. So I think that’s great, I think, yeah, there’s just so much benefit of experiencing something really, really hard but with a teacher you already know and you’ve already learned from and in such a small context. I think there were 300 people in my chem 101 class, you know, and my teacher barely spoke English. So right, there’s
Zach 40:37
completely. And so that’s a very interesting point is familiarity, which is taking it in an environment you’re familiar with that school, in a department you’re familiar with, and possibly a teacher you’ve had before. That’s a really good point.
Rebecca 40:50
And a teacher, you don’t mind crying in front of? Well, okay,
Zach 40:53
I’m praying now. Okay.
Rebecca 40:55
So this is, I think, one of my favorite questions to ask, because for even the people who are still listening, you don’t teach AP, what do you tell the chem one teachers to focus on? I think there’s such a benefit that you’ve taught those students like, I love that I had taught all my AP Bio students in biology because I like got to prepare them. So what would you tell them to better prepare them? Or even like the bio one teachers? Hey, what do you guys need to stop doing to better prepare them for AP Chem? Or do better? Well,
Zach 41:23
first of all, I’ll say I’m ecstatic when a kid appears in my room from another teacher’s class. And I think often it is a rough transition, because I’m like a freight train when I hit these kids. And some of them are used to that. And they’ve seen me and some of them, I think it’s very intimidating. And I think sometimes word gets around like, Oh, if you’re not in his class, first year, you’re not gonna be able to pass AP Chem. But in terms of content, I think first year chemistry class, like I said, it’s, it’s a pretty standardized curriculum, they’ll have the foundation that I need, what I need from them, is, I need kids who know what it feels like to work through the learning process. I need kids who can keep going, even when something’s hard, even when it’s frustrating. And even when it takes time. That’s 110%. I can catch anybody up on content, but they have to be willing to work at least as hard as I am, right? Yeah, real college courses are a meat grinder, or at least they used to be I don’t know things are. And it’s like, you need to have that resiliency, and the ability to deal with adversity. So if you can train your kids, first year chemistry and first year bio teachers, get them ready for things that are harder. And I put a two special notes for the bio one teachers. Number one, I need exactly the same thing. And number two, which is the important rant for everyone, which is that breaking bonds is endothermic. forming bonds is exothermic. And I understand the biology textbooks give this idea of breaking off the phosphates and ATP giving you energy. But from a thermodynamic standpoint, breaking a bond increases entropy fact, right? If it was also an exothermic process, it would be spontaneous at all temperatures, all bonds would spontaneously break or maybe never even formed in the first place. Right. So those two factors, you are increasing entropy fact, if it was also favorable in terms of enthalpy, then all the bonds would be broken, maybe not even formed. So I think it’s important that you at least spend 35 seconds telling them there’s a net release of energy, because after using energy to break the phosphates off, they go somewhere more favorable. And there’s a net release in energy. So twice, I’ve screwed up because one of the biology teachers, and actually one of my favorite biology teachers, last year, I did this apparently, but I did this, I called them up in the middle of class. I was like, I was told my kids, I was like, there is no way anyone in this department said that. And then they’re like, Well, no, so and so did, which is like double impossible for me to believe.
Rebecca 43:47
And then you call them they confirmed. Yeah. And then
Zach 43:51
he’s like you did that to me last year to sound
Rebecca 43:53
like, hysterical. Well, I distinctly remember, I think it was my first year teaching messaging or emailing you and like sending you a picture from the textbook and being like, it literally says this. But I know you’ve said otherwise, and use you to help me clarify. And now I still probably get several times a semester, a teacher telling me that the slides are wrong when I teach about ATP. And I have like a standard response now where I explain it all like that. But the problem is like most biology teachers don’t remember all of that chemistry background. And so you start talking about entropy, and they’re like eyes glaze over. Maybe just
Zach 44:28
tell them magnets, right? Like if you have two magnets close together. I mean, that’s analogous of a bond and you want to separate them, you have to do work, you have to apply a force over a distance, energy is required to do that, left to their own devices, those magnets would go together, and you’d say like lower potential energy state or whatever, but I think the idea of two separate magnets you have to do work to break a bond. You have to do work and letting them go back. You can have it do work, because they’re applying a force of resistance anyway. Just tell them magnets and when they’re like how do magnets work? You can be like Magic. No, no, I
Rebecca 45:01
love it. Okay, let’s talk about labs. There’s like so many of all the sciences because I sent out questions. I was like, ask me your APS, awesome. Your AP Bio, but the lab questions were all like for AP Chem, so let’s talk labs. What do you do? Are you doing one per unit? Do you recommend all the ones they recommend? So
Zach 45:20
I split it up over the two years, I think I do about, you know, eight to 10 Labs per year. So they got like, 16 to 20. Total by the end AP. I don’t follow their list of the AP lab manual. I think, again, it’s a good resource. If you’re starting out, actually, I think those labs are frickin impossible for new teachers. What the heck, why would you put that in front of them? So long? There’s so long and so complicated. Okay. So in terms of time for labs, you know, I guess that breaks down, you know, whatever, every couple of weeks or every three weeks. For the AP kids? Well, for the first year chemistry kids is basically one block 90 minutes, some of the AP labs will be two or three blocks. So like 270. And I’ve tried to adjust that a little bit. So there’s less rushing and more comfort during the labs. And so sometimes you need a lot of data. And I have a couple of labs like that. And so I have them pooled data into a spreadsheet from all the groups, you know, when you got to titration of multiple different acids or whatever, here’s all the data in one place. And like, I think one of the most important skills that could walk out of high school is how to use spreadsheets. And I have a feeling you and I are kindred spirits on how amazing spreadsheets are.
Rebecca 46:31
I have a mug that it’s like a coffee mug that literally says something about like, I won’t do without a spreadsheet or something. Right,
Zach 46:39
right, exactly. I think spreadsheets are super important that has gotten easier for the most part. And to address those college board labs. You know, they say inquiry or they say discovery, I feel like a true 100% discovery or inquiry lab, if you wanted to do 16 Of those that would take two years with no content presentation, it would just be here, figure this crap out, you got some time. So I don’t think the picture they paint is feasible in reality, right. But I think that you can interpret in cover inquiry and discovery by looking at how they make their conclusions and how they analyze the data. So I think, especially new teachers, make it more meaningful than just filling out blanks on a handout. And you can do that with like data analysis and conclusions. And that is a great start. Right? get exposure to the equipment, get exposure to the concepts, and diminishing returns is infinite basically instantly.
Rebecca 47:37
And I always told my AP Bio kids because they were always so stressed out about getting like the right data. And I’m like, the most important thing I can teach you is, well how to like graphically represent data and interpret it, but also how to write a good error analysis. That’s all you’re gonna do in college is like talk about where you were not precise and how you could have done it better.
Zach 47:56
Right? And absolutely, like we do a thermal lab that’s like that, where it’s like shockingly high error, we do an electrochem lab, we’re like, I don’t even know why I’m the only one in the world who can’t get an electric em lab to work, but having the data and seeing these things in their hands. And it’s like, yeah, you got 2,000% error. Why did you talk about you guys? Your Canvas discussion? I wish I were exaggerating, anyway. But like you guys list for the other groups like things that may have been a factor for your group in cell preparation, or that may have been an issue for your half cell that you come up with? So 100% error discussion, analysis conclusions, there is a lot of discovery that goes on there. Yeah,
Rebecca 48:35
I think so many teachers are so worried about looking stupid in front of their students. It’s like the lab bus. But I just seem like it happens. And this is truly what happens when you’re in real lab. So we got to figure out together this no indication of me if we don’t, it’s not personal to me if this goes bad, just like not personal necessarily the kids, we’d have to like learn from it, you know? Yes,
Zach 48:57
absolutely. I think that you just kind of have to take it in stride. Like, I’ll tell the kids it’s like these, like, oh my gosh, you know, I got I’ll make more hyperbole. And I got a 700,000 percenter. And then it’s like, well, that’s
Rebecca 49:10
bad math, probably. Yeah.
Zach 49:12
But also, one thing that I kind of noticed is, we will go through the class data, often in class to get the spreadsheet practice. And, you know, one of the things you talked about in science is like standardizing how you read instruments standardizing the instruments that are used in the units so that you can communicate to other people. So we’ll pull up the spreadsheet and the ridiculousness that people have, like the other groups, look at that. And I’m like, This is reality. In reality, all researchers are pulling from other people’s data. Look how horrible some of these groups did. Imagine that being the real world. We’re like, there’s money at
Rebecca 49:43
stake. So true, big learning there. One of the specific questions someone asked was, What labs do you consider essential to the course ones that you would never skip? Maybe regardless of the time crunch because I think that’s people are always weighing like is this worth all the time because like you said, there’s nothing worse than like rushing through a lab just to get through it. It’s like, no, let’s learn through it. So how do you any advice for that?
Zach 50:05
So number one, acid base titrations, you get stoichiometry, you get equilibrium concepts, you get acid base concepts, pH, electrolyte strength, and all that, plus you get hands on lab skills. And if there’s something that kids come back and say, it’s like, oh, we had to do a titration, in lab, and we were out in three minutes, and there were groups that never got out of there. And we had perfect results. So like, man, a hands on titration, you can cover so much with it. And plus, you know, collecting the data, and then analyzing titration curves and stuff, since that comes up on the AP exam. Having done it hands on, I think really helps drive those home. Another one, thin layer chromatography, if you can do it, I think that is a good one. If it is a hurdle, then don’t do it, you could do something super simple. And I bet you’ve got in your toolbox, some simple TLC labs, like color chromatography or something. And you could get that point across, I do a TLC of analgesics lab where they have a bunch of standards, you know, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, Anacin, whatever. And then they have to identify the unknown. But you know, there’s a fair amount of energy involved in that. And if you’re starting out, don’t do that. I think electrochem is a really good one, because seeing the half cells in action, it’s almost like speed dating, where they have to go meet up with all the other half cells, and realizing that those half cells are completely independent of each other in the beaker. I think that’s really important. I think it is useful to do a hydrates lab where you’re dehydrating, hydrated crystal, because you can get empirical formulas out of that, you get the idea of chemical and physical changes, you get the idea of thermodynamics, you’re heating up to get the water to go away. And that’s an endothermic process. And like, especially with something like copper sulfate, you put the water back, you get the heat back, you know, so and then I think that some stoichiometry lab with precipitates or whatever, something simple like you could do I do calcium chloride with sodium carbonate. And you catch it by filtration, which is another lab skill that they’re interested in. And then you dry it. So you can get that mass and you compare it to your theoretical, and that’s the situation or they can get 100% They’ll be like how far off snot good. And I was like, Well, whenever to the crime lab, when you at NIDA, National Institute of Drug awareness, if you’re off by more than 3%, then you failed. So I’m obviously I don’t feel them at 3%. But they still be like, Oh, 85. That’s pretty good. And I was like, no, no, it’s not.
Rebecca 52:19
Well, I think that’s really helpful. Those are really specific suggestions. So I appreciate that good bang for your buck labs. Yes, definitely. Okay. Someone also asked or said, I have an extremely limited budget for chemicals, any RECs for labs to prioritize our chemicals to be sure to have in the supply closet?
Zach 52:36
Yes. So I made a list. So whoever asked that, get a
Rebecca 52:41
pencil out, get a pencil out.
Zach 52:43
I think that you could do almost everything you needed to do with hydrochloric acid, copper sulfate hydrate, zinc, magnesium peroxide, manganese dioxide, or potassium iodide, or both got to have phenol failing sodium hydroxide, calcium carbonate, sodium carbonate, sodium bicarbonate, baking soda, and vinegar. And so like, I tried to pick things that a don’t cost that much. And B, you could go to the hardware store and get like you can get hydrochloric acid muriatic acid, you can get copper sulfate for plants, you can buy peroxide at that store, you can buy sodium hydroxide at the store, you can buy baking soda, you can buy washing soda and vinegar. So short answer, that’s my list. That’s a great and you can do a lot of what I had talked about in terms of those essential labs with that stuff. So that’s kind of how I tried to pick those things. Awesome.
Rebecca 53:34
Okay, so what do you have them turn in for labs? And how on earth do you grade? It All? Are the exact words that someone says, yes.
Zach 53:41
So first year chemistry, for about half the labs, I have them do a full formal lab report in a lab notebook, keep it research style, I think it’s important that they get a feel for in reality, you’re writing things down in pen as you go. Which boy, that is devastation. Yeah. But like the reality is, in the research setting, you have to be able to prove you did what you did, how you did it when you did it. And the way you do that is writing it in real time and pen. So anyway, about half of that. And then about half of the first year chemistry labs, I do quantitatively where it’s data collection and data analysis. For the AP labs, it’s pretty much all full formal lab reports. I will sneak in as many spreadsheets and graphs as I can, getting them comfortable with using a spreadsheet to mash lots of numbers together and get rid of all that gratuitous stuff. And the idea that you can just show a sample calculation, and just like you did is copy and paste. So full lab reports for them with an emphasis on data analysis, like you said, through PUC error analysis, and also I think it’s useful for them to be like, what would you change in the future or what would be future directions for research? So now scoring, PA,
Rebecca 54:55
I know because that’s I think you said like seven to 10 That’s like one a quarter are minimum, a lot of grading?
Zach 55:02
Yes. So I’m very lucky. I have peer tutors. So they offer advanced peer tutoring as a four credit class. And so I have really good peer tutors. I try and put it in this perspective, which is, where in life would you get like the top 2% of the population working for you, right? Because these kids who are signing on my peer tutors are these top tier students in the building top like 2%. And so I have written a lot of my own labs. And even if I didn’t, for the ones I write, and for the ones I don’t, I have really detailed rubrics. And then I get into the peer tutors. And I say, make it happen.
Rebecca 55:36
So they’re probably they took it as a junior maybe, and now they’re senior,
Zach 55:39
okay, yes. So and like, I’ll skim a sample of them quality control wise, just to make sure they scored. But like, all of these kids have done all these labs and written these reports, I guarantee at this point, they’re better at assessing them than I am, because like they’ve lived it very recently. And they know how people cut corners, and they can spot it so. And if they score too harshly, there’s possibility to make production. So that’s what I have turned in. That’s how I graded. I don’t have a great suggestion for people who don’t have access to student labor. I remember you saying one time like student labor is such a lifesaver. It’s a
Rebecca 56:15
game changer. So is that is that peer tutor thing different from a TA? Or is that the same thing, you just call it peer tutor now,
Zach 56:21
so they have something called Student Aid, which is nothing credit. If I have a student aid, I don’t expect them to do anything, right. But the peer tutors have jobs than like, I have a spreadsheet and they can claim jobs. And they can add jobs, like, you know, they want to teach this or I’ll be like, this is a very hard skill, which is delegation. And I guarantee you also have trouble with that. But putting on there, like, I need you to look at AP classroom and figure it out, and then explain it to me like a toddler, or I need you to find a lab for this. And then you can leave the lab, you’re in charge or during lab, they are the ones walking around talking to the kids asking questions. And also there’s menial stuff like, you know, go through Canvas and check off this work and skim it. So I would like more meaningful stuff. And some of those kids, I do a skill or interest survey at the beginning, some of these kids love getting in front of the class and like teaching something, some of those kids don’t want to do anything, but I have had some kids produce some really good stuff. And I I will say this, um, I shouldn’t say it later. But here is a tip for I don’t know that it’s gonna say saving time. But I will say improving yourself as an educator and really making a meaningful contribution to the students delegation. All right. And people don’t realize my wife has been struggling with this, she works at the College of Pharmacy, she’s just like, you know, I have to like, teach someone how to do this. And then I have to go through the whole thing. And so it’s been very hard for me to be like, say to a peer tutor, write this, or make this poster or do whatever this is. And I would say, you know, I try and tell people, you may spend 80%, as much of the time as you would have doing it yourself, and you might not get the product you want. But it’s a better experience for you. Letting go of some of the control and letting people again, this is a super smart demographic, letting people approach things from their way. You know what I mean? Like ways that I wouldn’t think of doing it. So kids that are smarter than I am come up with different ways to do things that may be better, it’s hard to let go of control. But you got to do it. It helps the kids so much to give them independence. And to trust them and to go through the revision process with them. It’s not going to be right the first time when you’re making a handout or whatever. And for me, it’s very hard. I’m just gonna say it for you. It’s very hard, isn’t it? Right? Like,
Rebecca 58:36
yeah, okay.
Zach 58:37
You’re already blankly which either means you’re in terror at the thought of delegating?
Rebecca 58:42
No, we’re not in terrible. I know how hard is the same, like, I mean, every single day, my husband’s like, hire more help. And I’m like, but then I have to teach them. And he’s like, but then that’s the long term return. I was thinking through. When I taught at a really small private school, I probably only had one person over the four years that would have had the level to be a peer tutor. But you’re pulling from a lot, a lot larger school, but I love the concept of a peer tutor because I’m like obsessed with having a TA I’ve always had a TA but the peer tutor is a game changer. And I love that there’s more skin in the game because it is for you know, you said it was an advanced class.
Zach 59:16
They countered as an advanced credit, which was good. And I think that a lot of people don’t have their peer tutors do anything. Sometimes my job for the peer tutorial days will be like look, your job for a day is to not judge me that I’m not more organized that I don’t have anything meaningful for you today. That’s your job. But so
Rebecca 59:33
like that is I like harp on this so much but like that is such an easy free way your admin can support you by putting a program like that in place. Like that’s a game changer. laughing
Zach 59:43
because I’m sure that was not their motivation when it happened but I have recently
Rebecca 59:46
because they never want to spend money on any like things you want. Well, this is free and it would help so much. And those students benefit because like you said, they’re gonna learn so much but also like that’s a great relationship. You’re gonna write them a great wreck because you’re so close to Then,
Zach 1:00:00
right. And I’ll toss this in as a side note, which is, when you write recommendation letters, haven’t read it. Colleges, it’s, and I might have said this in a previous podcast, but like, I’ve written, I don’t know, 700 plus recommendation letters, and you cannot just copy and paste because someone would notice. And also, I feel like the kids have invested their time in me. And I want to invest some meaningful time in them. colleges don’t care. They have like a checklist of keywords they’re looking for in a recommendation letter. But if you’re pouring your energy and your heart into it, I think it’s important for the kid to see it. Because they’re the only one who cares. You know what I mean? That’s such
Rebecca 1:00:38
a great point. And I distinctly remember reading the one he wrote me and it like giving me so much encouragement when I was feeling really defeated. So that’s such a good point, like write it for the kid? Because like you said, the colleges don’t care. No,
Zach 1:00:49
no one does nothing to do with the parents just write it for the kid.
Rebecca 1:00:53
Also, random side note, it’s okay to tell a kid you don’t think you should ride their wreck? I’ve said that before. You should ask somebody else. Right? That is hard. It is so hard. Definitely.
Zach 1:01:04
Don’t put yourself in that position. So and I tell them to like, you’re a stakeholder in this, I pitch it as their property. You know, it’s like, okay, we both look like fools if this is crappy. So find any problems.
Rebecca 1:01:18
I love that. Okay, you might, I thought you kind of talked about this at the beginning. But I’ll just ask it again, in case you anything else? How do you manage content plus labs plus review. And the teacher said they want to practice more FAQs, but finding the time is a challenge. So
Zach 1:01:32
here we go. Most of the content I cover by direct instruction, that’s will say out of a 90 minute block 50 to 75 minutes, depending on how much time we spend on homework questions. You know, that could be five minutes, that could be 60 minutes. And the way I work in labs is I try and get ahead on the homework assignments. So a lot of times, we can cover the material faster than I can assign homework problems in an equitable way. So I’ll try and get the notes ahead of the homework. So that then we can do a lab while that’s going on. So that’s the homework. And then that’s kind of labs, and then I’ll put the lab due dates for the reports out like two or three weeks, so they can kind of spread that out. And then as far as the practice goes, most of that is second semester, like I said, one a week for a half of a practice test. And then towards the end, we’ll do like an in class dry run over two periods of real one under constraints. Oh, and actually didn’t mention that about the practice tests. I tell them from day one of the second semester, those weekly practices, take it legit. You need to know what it feels like. Don’t sit there and try and find the answer to everything and don’t cheat, just take it legit. You need to know how it feels. And you need to assess your abilities. Otherwise, they’ll spend like nine hours trying to get your All right, or they’ll spend nine minutes copying off the internet. So
Rebecca 1:02:45
I’ve said this, like 50 times on here, but I’m still gonna say it again. I like couldn’t agree more. And I think the one good thing I really did teaching AP Bio was doing the time tests. And I know people will disagree because they’re like, it’s a learning experience. But all I’ll never forget getting on the AP Facebook group and everyone freaking out after the test saying like all my kids that they couldn’t finish and every student my class that I had no problem with the time because they were used to the pace. I think that that’s great wisdom. Yeah, it’s hard, though. Okay. And anything like anything you say, I feel like anytime I make a stance like that, like half the people can argue, but it’s so much better to get the time. So whatever. But that’s my thought
Zach 1:03:22
I am with you, whatever you say 100%.
Rebecca 1:03:25
Except if I say that breaking bonds is excellent. Okay, well,
Zach 1:03:30
wrong, then I disagree.
Rebecca 1:03:32
Okay, any favorite demos that you do specifically for AP? Are they even time for demonstrate?
Zach 1:03:38
So when I saw that question, I was like, man, what do I do? And so I don’t do as many demos. But here’s how I decided to spin it. Like I’m not a hack. I was like, they’ve got the background. They’re doing the hands on stuff that I would normally do as a demo. Right? So that’s my hack answer. I mean, it’d be great. There’s demos, some people are better. And that’s one of the things I tell my peer tutors, find some demos, you can do a demo doesn’t matter. That’s great. And then I had said, specifically, I think they could see a like there’s a peroxide Promag and a titration. That I think is really neat, because it’s such a good stoichiometry one or just one of those ones endpoint whatever, or like a super quick one complex ion formation when you get into solution stuff, which is you can take something like copper nitrate, dumping some base, and it forms a precipitate, keep dumping in base and it resolves. So that’s something you can show them really quickly. That I think is good bang for the buck. I
Rebecca 1:04:32
think that’s a good point, though. Like in, you know, on grade level classes, I’m doing demos of labs, I don’t trust them to do that’s my demos. And but in AP Chem they’re doing the stuff. So Right. There’s not as much necessity for a demo. Right? That’s a great point. Any favorite labs?
Zach 1:04:46
So this is I think, a question you’ve probably got as well which is like what do you do after the AP exam or whatever, which is I do a lab and I put that in as the final exam score is the synthesis and testing of alum which I think is a really neat lab because there’s so much going on, you’re synthesizing and then you’re testing purity via different techniques. And that’s a pretty, you can find that a version of that lab anywhere online for free. So I like that one. And then a super cheap one is the airbag lab where you give them like a Ziploc bag and a graduated cylinder and you’re like, here’s some baking soda, here’s some acid, figure out how much it’s going to take to fill it. If you pop it, that’s bad news. If you haven’t filled it enough, that’s bad news. Yeah, I
Rebecca 1:05:27
love that one. Okay, what topics do you notice students struggling with the most? And how do you try to combat that?
Zach 1:05:33
All right, spontaneity, the relationship with entropy and enthalpy can bring that in qualitatively, because I think that’s the direction AP has gone, which is like I had said earlier, if both are favorable, then it’s going to happen if neither are favorable, it’s not going to happen at all. Otherwise, temperature matters. So I think that’s really important working the reaction, quotient, Q, and K and predicting shifts in equilibrium using those, because you can do a lot of qualitative stuff, and you can do a lot of quantitative stuff. So that’s something that can be a hurdle. And these are overshadowing concepts that you can keep working back in. Because, you know, equilibrium applies to thermodynamics and solubility, and electrochem, and everything else. And it’s like cheese. And so the other one that I always tell my kids, I’m like, here is the easiest topic that I apparently can’t teach because no one ever gets it, which is some electrochemistry stuff calculations, which I think are neat. But I’ll blame redox. So applied redox suddenly becomes very hard, you know, like having to look at half reactions and come up with electrons, but then apply them in the bigger picture. So I think electrochemistry can be
Rebecca 1:06:38
kind of tricky. Yeah. That’s not my favorite. Not even close my electro
Zach 1:06:42
chemistry lab that fails spectacularly as not.
Rebecca 1:06:46
Okay, I think we already talked about review. Any doubts, I want to say about review. Yeah, the
Zach 1:06:51
the last three or four class periods, a lot of time, I’ll hit things that I feel like are one day, or partially topics like photoelectron spectroscopy, which no one had ever heard of. And I say no one again, it’s hyperbole. until like, it appeared on the AP test one year, and then every AP teacher was scrambling to find it. And there was one book that it was in and just happened to be one of the people who was like on the curriculum development committee. Anyway, that is my version of the story. As I remember it, I’m sure other people, I do like photoelectron spectroscopy, though, because it’s experimental evidence for electron configurations. So it’s neat, I think it has merit. Again, it’s qualitative rather than quantitative. I mean, there are numbers, but you don’t do anything with them. And I do feel like it maybe was not genuinely in the way in the reason it was introduced. But I’ll take but again, you can knock that out in one day periodic trends, I feel like you can review and hammer right before the test. And then I budget, like I said, two class periods for a dry run. And usually I’ll do that before the review just so they can say like, here’s how it felt, here’s my overall score. So they have that going in of like, here it is start to finish. I didn’t cheat. Here’s what it took. So I think that’s my big review and things. That’s great.
Rebecca 1:08:00
Do you struggle with unmotivated students? Or do you feel like kids are weeded out enough before they get to that they’re pretty motivated if they’re signing up for AP Chem. So
Zach 1:08:08
I won’t read anybody out, I think anybody who’s willing to sign up for it has the potential to pass it. I think sometimes life circ*mstances put them in a position where it’s not worth their energy to do it. This is something I’ve said a lot in recent years, which is chemistry should not be your most important priority. There are things that are much more important than chemistry. What I will do, if I don’t think AP Chem is worth their time, at this point in their life, I’ll have them dropped the class and stay in as a student aid, which is no credit, they can sit in the room with the other kids and be exposed to the material with no time commitment. And again, that doesn’t happen too often. Otherwise, I don’t really read anybody out.
Rebecca 1:08:48
I love that idea, though. That’s such a great idea, like still be here. But let’s take the pressure off.
Zach 1:08:54
Right? And then they can retake it next year, or whatever or not. Yeah. And then the other kids don’t even have to know there doesn’t have to be that stigma. So yeah. And then the other one would be like kids who are quickly falling by the wayside because they feel like they’re getting overwhelmed. I think that catching them, letting them know, one on one that I’m willing to work with them, and just putting in the face to face time with those people to let them know, I think people who are signing up for AP Chem on average aren’t going to be super unmotivated, because those people are taking AP and Vairo, which is a decent AP class, but again,
Rebecca 1:09:26
it is but there is a stigma that it is the easiest of the sciences. Yeah,
Zach 1:09:31
I knew those.
Rebecca 1:09:32
I literally say those words. Do you tell your students like I’m here these times every day? Like when are they if they want that extra help? Are you like, I’ll always be in my room These times are how do you kind of build that in your schedule?
Zach 1:09:44
I’m lucky because it’ll change actually. But my youngest son was at an elementary school. There’s like kind of right around the corner and they start before we do so I don’t even usually they’re pretty early like we’ll say 40 minutes before school starts. And then I’m there a lot of days after school and then I Have we have scheduled tutoring on one day? Okay, so short answer, there is time available. And I tell them like available by request to, you know what I mean? Short answer available by request. And again, you had said tips for saving time or whatever this is contrary to that, which is like get out the door, get out that frickin door, don’t get out, after five minutes, clear out a small to do list and get out, you know, aim for 30 minutes or 45 minutes. So that’s, again, I’ve made a list of those. And that’s one of them. Now, that was
Rebecca 1:10:32
my built in 30 minutes for tutoring, which was actually required at my most recent school and then 30 to 45 minutes, like you said, but then I gotta get out. Like, you just gotta leave. Yeah,
Zach 1:10:40
because I mean, I would imagine you were in the same boat. There are many years, right? Never get out before like, 530 when school gets out at 315. Yeah. So for better or worse. Luckily, that doesn’t really exist for new teachers. Yeah, I
Rebecca 1:10:53
know. Okay, what advice would you give a teacher who’s finding out right now they’re going to teach AP Chem for the first time.
Zach 1:10:58
My advice that I don’t like, but I think it’s good advice is, everything already exists as a cookie cutter, and all you have to do is follow the template. That could be as simple as AP Chem or any of those things. It exists. Don’t reinvent the wheel, you can start inventing wheels later. Yeah, get through it. And the kids are smart. So they’ll supplement whatever you get wrong. Be sincere. You don’t have to tell him like, I’m dumb. I don’t get this. But along the way, you could be like, there’s gonna be some hiccups. Be sincere with them. I think that helps. But don’t make yourself out to be incompetent, right?
Rebecca 1:11:33
Just a knowledge like this is hard. But we’re in it together, you know, right. Okay, any anything else? I didn’t ask you or you want to say before I ask my last question. You
Zach 1:11:42
had mentioned, AP prep books, hate them. On average, there’s one that I do recommend. And sometimes our school buy copies for the kids. It’s by this guy, Adrian Dingle, who is very vocal in the community. It’s cheap, and it’s small. I mean, it’s like, I think that there is no one on the planet, who is more of a robot for understanding the intricacies of AP and how to game the system. So it’s not a bunch of patting. It’s like, here’s what you need, make it happen. So that book by Adrian Dingell is the only one I recommend, right?
Rebecca 1:12:14
I’ll link it, we’ll see if we can get you an affiliate link for people who are gonna help
Zach 1:12:19
but I, all these barons, all these other ones, again, that’s for consumers, the fact that the book looks so huge reality is what do you actually need? Yeah. And I think he distills it down. Although he may be a controversial individual in the community.
Rebecca 1:12:32
Okay, that’s a good preface. Anything else we missed summer Institute’s,
Zach 1:12:36
I think that they can be worth it, especially if you’re a new teacher, if you can do that, right off the bat, somebody will be essentially handing you a course and materials and everything else. And reteaching you a lot of times content that may not be fresh in your mind. So short answer, in my experience, longer AP Institute’s are totally worth it. Or could be. I agree, I have not been to one in quite some time. It’s a toss up. But
Rebecca 1:13:03
I do think like you’re saying as a new teacher, and I had to really push to go to one in person. Like I had to compromise my school. I was like, all pay for lodging. I stayed to just stay with a friend. I was like giving this one in Atlanta where I have a friend I can go there. But I was like I just to take it online, you’re not good. It’s just not the same. And that’s what I feel like a lot of people push now but the in person ones are a game changer. I
Zach 1:13:23
agree. And they’re basically Well, depending on your instructor, they’re basically handing you an entire course
Rebecca 1:13:29
literally, I got a flash drive. And then they also just you get so much free stuff because there’s so many vendors, they’re so like they’re giving you kits for lab kits and textbooks and
Zach 1:13:36
right, you know, right, and it is important, at least the ones I was that you are relearning or polishing some of the areas that you might not have covered in teaching your first year courses. So, yes, like those. All right, what else we got? Anything
Rebecca 1:13:50
else you wished you learned, or USD sooner didn’t have to learn the hard way?
Zach 1:13:54
That’s a tough one. For me. It’s like the life lesson of Don’t be so hard on yourself when things aren’t going well. As you know, like, I still feel guilty about how poorly things went, when I started, your class may be good. And the kids may remember you for a long time. But the day to day things don’t matter. It’s not even a blip on the radar you are so if our class or our school has like eight classes that they’re taking at a time, your content is one eight, were in my class, you know, like seven eighths of what they’re learning, but 1/8 of their day, every other day. So don’t be so hard on yourself Be sincere. I think that’s what kids respond to. So
Rebecca 1:14:33
true. All right. Is there any way that you’ve been simplifying your life recently that it can be in the classroom or out?
Zach 1:14:39
I tried to come up with a new one, although I did say get out of school earlier. That’s good. But here’s what I kind of started doing last year, which is make lab edits in real time. So I will have a Google doc up on the screen with the instructions. And then like as there’s hiccups, or as there are things that a lot of kids are asking questions about. Then we’ll try and refine those Instructions. So I think that can help. And also having instructions that are clear enough that when a kid has a question, you can say, what instruction? Are you having a question on? So that is additional advice, which is when a kid has a question in lab say what an instruction that you have to at least burn a calorie to have read the instructions.
Rebecca 1:15:21
That’s a great point. I love the idea of like having a Google doc just up. Like I have like a post it note on every single thing of like, these are the pain points. So I remember like what I always had, like whiteboard notes, right to emphasize, but I just love the idea of is there any way I could have just made this more clear on the front end? Go ahead and bold it? Yes,
Zach 1:15:39
absolutely. However, it’s when you do it on a post it note or whatever that means you have to go back and do it. And it’s too easy for me to procrastinate on that. So I think that that can help. That’s
Rebecca 1:15:48
a great tip. All right, well, I’m definitely going to link your YouTube channel, maths and chemistry. Is there anything else? Oh, you have more things? Okay.
Zach 1:15:58
I’ve waited this long to rant about. Maybe you just need to
Rebecca 1:16:01
I’m sorry. I forgot. I promised math. And now we’ll leave him a time to rant. So that’s the end of our formal questions. Now, if you’d like to stay for his rant, we will enter into his rant he’s stretching. I
Zach 1:16:14
would love to take the stage. All right. Anyway, so I am not a fan of college board. I feel like they have jumped the shark and become obsolete. They are and have always been a parasite. The pay is $0 to schools, yet they get a huge presence on the schools and on the curriculum development and everything else. While it is pushing, it’s for pay services, public schools, especially that is a socialist system. And then like saying, Hey, we’re going to toss in this capitalist aspect that gets to like, do their thing for free. I don’t like that. Right. And I realized, so I’m going to try and phrase this, there are businesses where you can pay a company to give you their name, and a handbook and their product, and their resources, and they will train you and that’s called a franchise. Yes. But when your job is to recruit, and they make money off who you recruit, and they like blow smoke up your posterior to like, make you feel like you’re important. That turns a franchise into a cult. So AP College Board is a cult, there are people who will frothing li irrationally defended, because it is a cult, you are a franchise that doesn’t get paid. And I’m not saying I don’t want College Board to pay me. That’s ridiculous, that should not happen. But I am saying like, how is this and I wouldn’t say for profit, because they’re a nonprofit, how is this revenue generating system allowed to be a parasite on the education system, and then my other big one, and there’s merit, and historically there’s been merit, but like, historically, I think it’s important to look at the evolution of college board. And the AP tests, historically, there were hard college classes, and they jumped in to fill this void of, hey, we’re going to take care of the market for these hard classes. So you don’t have to take them in college. So that was like the market niche they were looking at. And the way that they determined their content was They vetted it against top tier schools. And so then any lower tier schools would be like, Well, if you know Princeton is going to accept this, then we’ll obviously accept it. There’s a problem, though, which is like those schools are high maintenance. And college board then didn’t have control over the content that they wanted to present. Because they were stuck, you know, toeing the line for these people. And so they wanted to take control. And when they did, then they started to lose the buy in of those top tier schools, because it’s not your schools are like, Well, you’re not doing what we’re doing. So they’re not getting the credits. Right. And so it was a huge deal for a student to take an AP course you and take, you know, two or three, during your high school career as a junior or senior, right? They were justifiably hard because their college courses, right. And again, like right now, there isn’t, there should not be something that is called a college course that a high school freshman could do, right? That’s what it gets. So College Board didn’t want to jump through the hoops, they started declaring, we’re not going to meet what you want, we’re going to declare what you need. I don’t like that at all. But they did. Their opinion has become the law. And that’s why it said earlier, I don’t like that. But they make money by giving exams. And so this is, I think, a transition exactly dealing with what we had mentioned before they make money by giving exams, the way to make more money is to give more exams. The problem is there’s a finite talent pool that can operate at the tier where they were, and those people have a finite amount of time. So part of the solution was like, Hey, we’re gonna offer more courses, right? But again, there’s a finite amount of time that people who can operate a tier have. So they’re gonna start dropping their standards a little bit and then the apocalypse happened, which there was a huge push for dual credit. And schools are now partnering with community colleges, right, and teachers are required to follow that established curriculum. And students get college credit without having to take an exam, while also meeting Community College standards, which, objectively speaking, those are lower than especially top tier schools. So without a doubt, like in Lexington, you can take 105107 at the University of Kentucky, or you can take whatever they offer at the community college, it is infinitely easier. So everyone the College Board’s panicking, because it’s they’re losing money. In fact, I wrote down a year 2016 or something, I don’t know why I put that I’m gonna say 2016. They had like 161,000 tests given or something. And it has been down, down, down. So what do you do? Well, you start inventing even easier courses. Now. You’re changing your standards. And it’s like, forget you talk to your schools. We’re going to community college level so we can compete with dual credit, because they’re taking a huge part of our market share. And we’re going to start inventing classes that wouldn’t exist a college like AP precalculus, or whatever. Right? Right. So that is their primary competition. And so this past year for chem, and I think it was the year before that for bio AP Bio D declared, We have audited our courses by having college students take them and determined that our AP tests are too hard. So what they did then, have you heard of this or no, no? Okay, well, I wanted to get to this because I think it’s like of critical importance. All right, which is, so they said, we are adjusting our grading scale, because college kids can’t do well, in these courses, I would bet that the data exists, who those college kids are, right. And I’m sure College Board would claim that it’s the same type of demographic I guarantee to you, it is not a top tier school. And when I say top tier, that could be as simple as the University of Kentucky, you know, any one school or whatever. So here is some statistics that I decided to crunch. So I’ve been teaching since like, 2005 ish, average global score 2.73 Last year, average global score. 3.26. Wow. So standard deviation for 2005 2022 ish, point oh seven. So it jumped point five, three in one year. Because they just said, We’re resetting our standards. They are now a joke to colleges, the four year institutions, which is fine, because those four year institutions will take the community college credits in most cases. But I can’t imagine any the pass rate went from 53%. Average to 75%. Last year. Yeah, that’s crazy. And so they did it for bio, too. They just said, Hey, our classes are too hard. I can’t imagine that any. And I see real, I don’t want to offend anybody. But I can’t imagine any real college will ever take them seriously again. Yeah, but they don’t care because they’re competing with dual credit. And that’s a very different tier. So their mission has gone awry. They don’t care because there’s more money to be made at a lower tier. There used to be a huge buy in AP courses used to mean something. And now it’s just like how you pad your resume is by feeding this company.
Rebecca 1:23:04
That’s crazy. Do you think he’ll teach it long term? Or it’s hard to say?
Zach 1:23:08
It’s getting harder because exactly what we said earlier, which is it’s hard to get the kids to work that hard when there are easier pathways, right? So it’s getting harder and harder to get students to buy in. And college standards are truly dropping a bit. So like my expectations of what they’re going to see in college are starting to shift of it. I’m going to try and finish out, you know, whatever, I got seven years or something, continuing the AP, I have always been resistant to dual credit, because I feel like the standards are so much lower. But I mean, why would you take AP and dual credits and option two, the argument has always been that like, oh, a lot of times dual credits only viable for in state schools that will take that community college credit. However, anybody will take anything at this point.
Rebecca 1:23:52
I when I remember when I was in college, like if you wanted to get a class accounts for something else, you basically had to just get like seven, it was like seven signatures, you had to go to like all these different people and kind of pitch it. And then he got everyone signature on the thing. Like I took a class abroad. And I got it to account for my technical writing credit like Gen Ed because I got enough signatures on the paper. So it’s like you can probably convince someone to cover anything if you really want. And if you’re schmoozing after
Zach 1:24:17
they have agreements with the community college, this basically like, Hey, we’re going to take your courses and you’re going to be the students. So
Rebecca 1:24:25
yeah, it’s really crazy. So I think College Board
Zach 1:24:28
has jumped the shark, which is like an old expression, but it’s a TV trope where it’s like, it’s become so ridiculous. There’s no point in an existing anymore. The problem is there’s no replacement, right? Man that frickin parasite is dug in so well.
Rebecca 1:24:43
But it hopefully though, to like end on a positive note. It’s like then that’s where it goes all the way back to the beginning. The focus should be not these kids passing this test that’s like so arbitrary anyway, but building the resiliency and the problem solving and the critical thinking skills and yeah,
Zach 1:24:58
that’s why you are the world’s greatest podcast host, because you’re able to bring that full circle to is the content and the experience that matters. And you can control if you want to add stuff to that. Yeah, you’re right. You’re right. So
Rebecca 1:25:12
this is ending so depressing, because that is pretty depressing. So
Zach 1:25:15
it’s your lemonade.
Rebecca 1:25:18
Squeeze the limit that you wish to make your limit. No. Right.
Zach 1:25:21
No, you’re absolutely right. Which is like, it’s the experience, and it’s the exposure to the content that actually matters. Yeah,
Rebecca 1:25:26
well, you’re only seven years out from retirement. Yeah, that’s crazy. I mean, I don’t feel like you’re that old needs to be put down. I can’t imagine anyone else in your classroom either. That’s gonna be crazy.
Zach 1:25:37
It’ll be interesting. The gal who was there before me was in there for like, 30 some years. Wow.
Rebecca 1:25:41
Well, we need to have you need to do like a big retirement party and invite all your old students will all come. Oh, that’d be cool. Yeah, seven years. That’d be fun. Well, seriously, thank you. This was a treat. Well, thank
Zach 1:25:52
you for having me.
Rebecca 1:25:53
I’m grateful that you gave me some of your spring break. So seriously. Thank you. It
Zach 1:25:57
was it will be the highlight of my spring break. It’s all downhill from here.
Rebecca 1:25:59
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode. And specifically, this being our last episode in this month, AP science teaching series. I really hope you guys have loved it as much as I have. It’s honestly one of my favorite things I’ve done on the podcast yet in this first, you know, two and a half years of the secondary science simplified podcast. So if you did love this episode in this series, would you please do one of two things or both? If you’re an overachiever, would you leave a review for the podcast? And then would you share this episode or maybe another episode in this series with a teacher friend, sharing the episodes and leaving a review are the best ways you can support the secondary science simplified podcast without spending any money or anything else? So I would love it if you would do that. And if you need any of the links mentioned in today’s episode, or want to see the links to the other episodes, he has been on the podcast for you can find this on the show notes at it’s not rocket science classroom.com/episode 127 And I also have linked there, the Matson chemistry YouTube channel if you want to check that out as well. All right, teacher friends, that wraps up today’s episode. If you’re looking for an easy way to start simplifying your life as a secondary science teacher, head to It’s not rocket science classroom.com/challenge to grab your classroom reset challenge. And guess what? It’s totally free. Thanks so much for tuning in, and I’ll see you here next week. Until then, I’ll be rooting for you Teacher friend.
