Reflections for QCY 522 microteachings

Reflections for QCY522 microteaching

Things I did well

I anticipated possible misconceptions that the students might have including Jimmy’s representation of the repeat unit of the polyethene molecule. As such, I was well prepared to answer such questions since I had given much thought to explaining it earlier. I felt that I managed to give a reasonable explanation that could be rationalized by students even though no such explanation has ever been given to us when we were students, nor could it be found online.

The analogy of the train carriages helped students to visualize the repeating units joining up. Furthermore, the visual representation of the passengers alighting from the train served as a useful reminder of the difference between the addition polymer and condensation polymer.

The animations used depicting how the ester linkages formed was another powerful imagery for students to visualize. Instead of merely seeing the final product on the screen, students get to see how the atoms join and where the oxygen in the respective atoms go.

The use of the Bakelite example allowed students to appreciate that knowledge goes beyond just the curriculum. It was also an example of a condensation polymer so that students can appreciate that such polymers were not restricted to just polyesters and polyamides. Furthermore, as chemistry students, it is important to have an appreciation of some synthetically or historically important developments.

Things I can improve on

Firstly, my time management was bad as I exceeded the allotted time by 6 minutes. This was due to the slow polymerization reaction which was unplanned. In my initial trials, the reaction took only 1 minute, but during the demonstration, it took 5 minutes for the reaction to occur. I had prepared a video initially so I should actually have showed the video while waiting for the reaction.

Secondly, when I asked for students to write their answers on the board, one student drew the Lewis structure for the monomer. I should have spent a few minutes to explain why there was such a geometry instead of skipping over it and marking it correct.

Lastly, the unreactive groups in the dicarboxylic acid and diol is commonly represented by a box to represent that it is unimportant. Perhaps I should have spent some time to show the full molecular formula of one such compound and show that it can all be collapsed into the box to indicate why it is not involved in the reaction at all.

Things I should not have done

The Bakelite polymerization actually used toxic chemicals such as formalin and phenol. Glacial acetic acid is quite pungent as well. In a normal classroom, this reaction should not be carried out due to safety reasons. In a laboratory, this reaction should have been carried out in a fumehood. However, I was worried that students might not be able to get a good view of the reaction if it was carried out in the fumehood.