Sometimes, it’s the little things that make a day great. Today, I decided to give my chemistry students a “pop quiz” over the material we covered in class on Wednesday. I wanted a quick formative assessment to see if they could work through slightly different heat equations then we did in class. (This was focused on food calorimetry.) When students walked in the door, I let them know about the quiz and asked them to take out their notes. I passed out the quiz and let them use their notes as they completed the quiz. (It was a calculation based problem.) I then asked students to bring me their quiz when they were done.
As soon as students started turning in the quizzes, I noticed a common error. This let me see that their was a disconnect in one of the steps of solving the problem. Once all students had finished, I immediately went over the problem so students could understand the misconception. It was great.
But that wasn’t the best part.
The best part?
One of my students who struggles in chemistry but works hard, answered the question correctly. He figured out all of the variables and completed all steps in the problem.
And that made my day!