This commentary briefly describes the creation and organizational structure of a new American Association of Chemistry Teachers, as well as the member benefits.Keywords: Elementary/Middle School Science; General Public; High School/Introductory Chemistry;

This study examined the understanding of chemical equations developed by three students with blindness who were enrolled in the same secondary-school chemistry class. The students were interviewed while interpreting and balancing chemical equations. During the course of these interviews, the students produced diagrams using Braille symbols that provided insight into how they visualized the various components of the equations used to represent chemical reactions. The results of this study suggested that these students all possessed views of the symbolic representations of chemical reactions that differed from those of practicing chemists. The alternative views the students had of these symbols, however, did not differ significantly from the results of previous studies conducted with students with sight. The results of this study suggest that current pedagogical practices should be revised to enhance the conceptual understanding that all students develop of the symbolic representations used to describe chemical reactions.

Both research on learning across a wide range of disciplines and common theories of learning recognize the importance of learning through making connections between new concepts to which one is exposed and existing cognitive structures or schemata. This paper considers examples of underappreciated cognitive connections that our experience has shown can facilitate students‘ learning of chemistry in the introductory course. The first deals with the question of whether the ‘common-ion effect’ is limited to discussions of solubility product equilibrium, as many textbooks seem to indicate. The second example questions why certain traditional approaches to teaching the chemistry of conjugate oxidizing agents and reducing agents are not applied to discussions of the chemistry of conjugate Brønsted acids and bases. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2007, 8 (1), 93-100]