Honors Chemistry with Dr. Halley

This article was part of a series by the Board of Student Academic Support Services (SASS) that interviewed OHS teachers about the classes they teach. We hope these articles will be a useful resource for students who are selecting courses for following years.

SASS: What is your favorite thing about teaching Honors Chemistry?

Dr. Halley: I like teaching Honors Chemistry because students tend to come in with a preconceived notion that chemistry is a really hard subject and I like teaching students to approach difficult science problems while teaching them the study skills to do more challenging classes in the future.

SASS: What challenges students the most in Honors Chemistry? How would you recommend that students overcome these challenges?

Dr. Halley: The biggest challenge for new chemistry students is just learning how to study it. There is a bunch of different types of materials: some things you need to memorize, some concepts you need to understand, some math skills you need to master, and also some drawing things, like molecular structures. The biggest problem is that some students just take one way of studying and try to apply it to all the different things they have to do. The best way to overcome this is to sit down at the beginning of the year and find the best way to study for each thing. We work on getting a balance for each chapter and make sure students develop the sense of what type of material it is and how they need to study for it.

SASS: What types of students do well in Honors Chemistry?

Dr. Halley: The types of students who do best in Honors Chemistry are those who are able to do a little bit of work on chemistry every day. Chemistry is like learning a language; you have to continually let it sink in and let the concepts build. It does not reward cramming in information since the chapters build on one another; you must have fluidity of the skills week to week. The best way to understand the material is to break it down and do a little bit every day. The only thing I have really seen separate great chemistry students from those who struggle is having a good strategy for understanding the material. As far as a background, a little bit of physics can be helpful, like understanding the way charges work. Knowing some physics is very helpful but not essential; the big thing is just getting the right study skills.

SASS: What does the average workload for each week look like?

Dr. Halley: Before every class, you are expected to have done the reading and worked through the example problems. I would say that is about an hour to an hour and a half of work before classes. Students are expected to do their MasteringChemistry homework after each discussion section to work on their skills. MasteringChemistry can take anywhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours. The classes themselves are about three hours a week. Students are also expected to do weekly labs, which can take about 2 to 3 hours. There are also weekly quizzes which can take about 30 minutes themselves but can require about 2 hours of review before the quiz. It is all around 10 hours a week, maybe a little bit more around midterms and finals because students will be reviewing the old material.

SASS: How do you recommend that students prepare for exams in Honors Chemistry?

Dr. Halley: Students should start doing extra preparation about two weeks before the midterm or final by doing an extra hour to an hour and a half of review every day. They should start with things that they have struggled with in the past by looking over old weekly and unit quizzes and reviewing their notes from those concepts. After that, they should dig into a more broad-based review. There is no one size fits all; it is all about what the student is having the most trouble with.

SASS: How is the participation grade for Honors Chemistry determined? 

Dr. Halley: A lot of the class takes place in text chat so just being active in text chat and answering questions in host chat is the only required participation. The only thing I give bonus points on is participation, which a student can get by coming on camera and working problems.

SASS: How is a student's overall grade in Honors Chemistry determined? What percentage of a student's overall grade is determined by exams, homework, quizzes, participation, etc.?

Dr. Halley: The midterm and final are both worth 25% of the total grade. MasteringChemistry homework is worth 16% and weekly Canvas homework is worth 5% (however, if a student gets 70% or above on those assignments, it will be automatically rounded to 100%). Weekly labs are worth 16% of the total grade and the two unit exams each semester are worth 5%. Participation is worth 8%.

SASS: What materials do students use in the course (textbooks, lectures, online resources, etc.)?

Dr. Halley: The textbook we use is Introductory Chemistry by Nivaldo Tro with access to MasteringChemistry. We also have a lab kit specifically for the course from Home Science Tools. Students are responsible for either doing the assigned reading from the textbook or for watching the lectures but they are not expected to do both. The online MasteringChemistry is a big part of Honors Chemistry as well as the at-home labs.

SASS: Are students expected to be on camera for the entire class? 

Dr. Halley: Not in previous years, but I may experiment with it next year.

SASS: Have you had any experiences with students in Honors Chemistry that could encourage those who think they cannot learn chemistry to take the class? 

Dr. Halley: Yes, I'd say there are a ton of cases like that. This goes back to my previous answer for what types of students do well in Honors Chemistry. Chemistry is not an intelligence test; it's all about how you approach it. Students who do well in Honors Chemistry have a good strategy that they stick to while students who do poorly don't have a strategy or do not follow it. I enjoy helping students come up with their strategies and helping them stick with it.

SASS: What about Honors Chemistry interests so many students?

Dr. Halley: I think students that really enjoy Honors Chemistry like how systematic it is and how they learn strategies for solving particular problems that get more and more involved. By the end of Honors Chemistry, they are able to approach problems that would have seemed completely impossible at the beginning of the year.