Name: Abby Kozerski Houck
Project Category: Conference Attendance
Project Description: Attending the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education
Teaching Subject: Chemistry
Issues addressed: Student engagement, differentiation, modeling, best practices in chemistry classes
Topic: Incorporating the use of particulate diagrams and modeling in representing chemical phenomena
Rationale: I planned to attend the Biennial Conference on Chemical Education because I follow a large number of inspiring chemistry educators on Twitter and several of these educators were slated to attend and present at the conference. My goal was to attend workshops, learn methods, and glean ideas to improve my fledgling teaching practices. My students struggle with explaining macroscopic phenomena that occur on microscopic levels and my hope was to focus on attending seminars that focused on using particulate diagrams to better describe such events. This conference was cancelled due to COVID-19, so the appropriated funds are currently being held with the hopes of being applied towards another chemistry education conference, ChemEd 2021 at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario.
- Students taught: 101
- Student demographics: 50% White, 24% African American, 16% Hispanic, 5.5% Asian, 5% Multiracial, 0.5% Native American
- Small school (< 550 students)
- Urban
- Traditional public school
- Enrolled Students: 539
- Free/Reduced lunch eligible: 57.3%
- Demographics: 50% White, 24% African American, 16% Hispanic, 5.5% Asian, 5% Multiracial, 0.5% Native American