At GrowNextGen, we get to work with amazing leaders. When we see one, we sign them up as a GrowNextGen Teacher Leader. One teacher leader we are extremely proud to work with is not just a teacher but a teacher of teachers. We think you’ll like him, too…
Don Storer grew up on a farm right out of “Old MacDonald’s” nursery rhyme: “We had pigs, cows, chickens—it was a far cry from today’s sophisticated agricultural operations,” he said. Storer, a chemistry professor at Southern State Community College, has previous work experience in industry and as a high school chemistry teacher. For the past three years, Storer has “flipped” his college classroom. The flipped classroom model, a form of “blended” or “hybrid” learning that involves moving some instruction online for students to explore on their own time, has become very popular in the past decade. Flipped classroom instructors then use in-class time to engage students one on one or in small groups in application and practice.
Storer sees how the flipped classroom model positively impacts student learning. He is so passionate about it that he has used his position at Southern State to reach out to many of the high school chemistry teachers in the Appalachian region of Ohio to encourage more of them to flip their classrooms. He is keenly aware, though, that it is a lot of work to create online lessons, and that barrier keeps teachers from trying the flipped classroom. “I realize that in many schools, there is only one chemistry teacher … so how can the teacher find class time to add anything more to their curriculum?” Storer said.
As a solution to this barrier, Storer has collaborated with Andrea Harpen, a chemistry teacher from Blanchester High School who is also a GrowNextGen teacher leader, to bring more resources for chemistry teachers to the GrowNextGen website. “Andrea and I both worked for a number of years in industry, and we bring that mindset to resources that have great relevance to industry.”
Storer and Harpen created a series of videos to accompany all of the GrowNextGen high-oleic oil content here. The videos detail valence shell electron pair repulsion and how it can be used to explain the properties of high-oleic soybean oil. Whether you’re already an experienced classroom flipper or trying it for the first time, these resources are a must-have for your chemistry classroom.
(photo courtesy of whizz.com)
