In this episode, Mark talks with chemistry teacher Scott Milam. They talk about his interest in the history of chemistry thinking and the development of models in chemistry as far back as hundreds of years ago. They talk about how Scott thinks about teaching chemistry, and the questions he is focusing on right now. This leads them to talk about setting up assessments so he focuses very intentionally on key goals in each unit. They also talk about his chemistry content, his YouTube Channel, and Scott's book Teaching Introductory Chemistry.

Guests

Scott Milam currently teaches chemistry and IB chemistry HL at Plymouth High School in Michigan. Scott holds a BS and MS in Chemistry. He completed his initial training in Modeling Instruction pedagogy in 2015, and has led workshops in 2018, 2020, and 2021. He helped lead the Intro to Modeling Instruction workshop 3 times and led the Chem I follow-up workshop this fall. Scott was the 2017 Michigan Science Teacher of the Year and was a 2019, 2021, and 2023 PAEMST finalist. Scott is the recipient of AMTA's 2023 Malcolm Wells Award Leadership and published "Teaching Introductory Chemistry" in 2022.

Youtube | Facebook | Instagram | X (Twitter)

Highlights

[2:32] Scott Milam "I find that me being able to add stories of the smartest people in the world at this time, having these thoughts that were incorrect into my instruction is really powerful for students in that it shows them it's okay to not be at perfection, that as long as you're progressing and moving up, that you're doing something useful and productive."

[15:45] Scott Milam "what I try and do is listen very carefully to what my top students are doing that's getting them to make sense of these different things, share that with all of the students."

Resources

Ep 54 Transcript