Chemistry Boot Camp

As I mentioned in a previous post, I attended a week-long AP seminar in early July. I was one of 7 teachers taking the class. I had gone to AP courses before, once for Chemistry and another time for Calculus, but neither were as intense as the one this summer. Our fascinator described her approach as “total immersion” but I would describe the experience as “Chemistry Boot-Camp.”

The week began with registration on Sunday afternoon, followed by dinner with the other AP teachers and facilitators. All together there were about 30 teachers at the week’s activities from 4 different AP subject areas. After dinner, we went to the classroom across campus and were introduced to the AP fascinator who was to conduct the class for the College Board. We were asked if we had brought the assigned materials, but nobody had because a list was never sent. We then took a test to see what we all knew. The questions were basic Equilibrium Chemistry and I had no trouble with it.

Breakfast was served each morning from 7:00 to 7:45am, with class beginning at 8:00am. The first morning, Monday, I got to the cafeteria early for coffee and something to eat. The food all week was outstanding. The meals were more like a hotel buffet than college cafeteria food, and the conversation during meals with the other teachers were enlightening and useful.

Class began at 8:00am sharp with our tests from the night before being returned. I got 19½ out of 20 possible points. The facilitator took off ½ point because I did not explain one of my answers. The question did not ask for an explanation, but who am I to argue. She said that she was happy because everyone got at least half the points possible. The next two hours each day were taken up by doing problems from old AP exams. Each day at about 10:00am we had a 30 minute break, followed by another hour or so of problems and instruction.

Lunch provided a welcome break from academics for an hour, as well as time to get to know the other teachers in my group. We came from all over the mid-west, some traveling eight hours to get there. I was the only one to teach in a private school, with the exception of the fascinator who retired from a public school system to teach in an all girls Catholic school. We shared a common set of complaints about our schools—the same set of complaints you would hear from any group of teachers.

We meet again at 1:00pm in the lab where we spent the afternoon doing experiments. During the four afternoons we performed 10 experiments, sometimes 3 different labs running at once. We were dismissed at about 3:45 each afternoon. Dinner was served at 5:00pm, but instead of taking a break after lab each afternoon, we usually stayed in the science building working on our lab reports and homework until the cafeteria opened.

After dinner we reported back to class for another two hours of work before being dismissed for the day after 8:00pm. The other subject areas were usually dismissed after dinner to work in their rooms on individual projects. After the evening session I would spend 1-2 hours in my dorm room working on problems. The other subject areas took Thursday evening off and went out to have dinner together at some local restaurant, while we had a sandwich and meet in the study room of the dorm to work on a multiple choice exam we were assigned for the next morning.



Friday was our last day, and we got up early to clear out of our room, pack the car, and eat breakfast. Our class meet at 8:00 and worked until 11:00 when we were finally dismissed for the week. I was exhausted, and welcomed the solitude of the 4 hour drive home.

All-in-all, I got a lot out of the weeks work. I came home with a number of new ideas and activities that should work with my students. The insights I discovered during the week will, hopefully, help improve my student’s scores on the AP exam. But I might have come away with much more if the work had not been so severe. The old saying “a mile wide and an inch deep” comes to mind when I think about the curriculum that week, especially lab. I feel I might have gotten more out of the experience if work had been tempered to enhance depth and understanding. But I would recommend something like this for someone else even if I would have done it differently myself.