There is nothing like an end of the year report to remind you of the past. In this case it reminded me to the Top 10 lists that I said would be semi-regular contributions to BITeS. It started with a list of the Top 10 Lit Discussions and was followed up with the Top 10 Problem Sets. It seems that I then forgot about this feature for a while, but the combination of an annual report and not wanting to grade have motivated me to bring you this list of Top 10 In-Class Acitvities as decided by you, our loyal VIPEr users, and how many times these have been adopted and favorited. I must admit, I went into this thinking the numbers would be low; I was very happy to be proven wrong. Without further ado, here we go...
8) Yes, once again we have a three-way tie to make it on to the list.
Symmetry Scavenger Hunt - Lori Watson sends students around campus to take pictures of objects with different point groups.
Generating LGOs (SALCs) - Adam Johnson has students construct Ligand Group Orbitals (LGOs) and use them to develop MO diagrams for small molecules.
The 18 Electron Guideline: A Primer - Nancy Williams has students work on counting to 18 in the context of organometallic compounds.
7) The Iron that Keeps and Kills Us - No, Kathy Franz is not suggesting discipulicide. In this activity students apply their knoweldge of chemistry to an article written for non-scientists.
6) First Day Review of Atomic Orbitals - Maggie Geselbracht has her students review what they remember about atomic orbitals early in the semester.
5) Athletic Periodic Trends - Lori Watson gets your blood pumping and your brain working as students need to organize themselves in the proper order for a variety of periodic trends.
4) Periodically Periodic - You might sense a trend here. This time Barb Reisner gets her students thinking about periodic trends.
3) The Nature of Science - I'll admit, this LO from Lori is a personal favorite. I started using it four years ago and I now have seniors that have seen me on campus and asked 'What's in the bag?'.
2) Introducing Inorganic Chemistry - First Day Activities - Honestly, I would have bet money that this one would be at the top of the list when I first started looking into it. Barb asks her students to define inorganic chemistry at the very start of the semester.
And the most adopted/favorited In-Class activity is...
1) IC Top 10 first day activity - In this LO from Sheila Smith, students look at the most read articles in Inorganic Chemistry to get a feel for the breadth of our field.
And there you have it. Hopefully it won't be quite as long until I come up with the next top 10 list, perhaps it will be the top 10 biggest spoilers I can give away for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which I am beyond excited to see the evening this BITeS goes live.