r/ScienceTeachers

I teach chemistry at a community college. I have a few students right now with the same disability, I have seen this type of student many times in the past and I will probably see in the future and I always struggle with this student. The student has accommodations because of a processing disability. The student works extremely well independently, is well aware of their disability, works 10 times harder than any other student in the class to get past the disability. Student demonstrates the ability to solve multi step problems independently on assignments, but the second the student is asked to repeat all steps in order in the same exact type of problem, perhaps even exactly the same examples with the same numbers and elements, the student cannot get past the first step to solve the problem and they get confused by later steps in the solution.

Student continues to practice, repeat exercises, independently, with me, and with a tutor, but on an exam, the student cannot get past even writing down the variables or the formula necessary to solve the problem.

How can I better help this student? They have already demonstrated the ability to be able to work through each multi step problem, but it is like a new problem every time they see it again. Student works harder than any other student in the class. It is so upsetting to me. I have never been trained on working with students with disabilities and I feel like a puppy lost in the woods. I welcome any suggestions, tactics, courses that I can take to improve my skills with this type of student, books, anything that can help!

Thank you!

Sorry this is so long. Trying to summarize 20 years of teaching is hard.

I moved to a rural Oregon town as a lifestyle choice 20yrs ago. Had 2 years of teaching middle school science under my belt in the Portland area. I instantly got a job in my new town after subbing for 6 months.

I was handed an entire middle school science program. 6, 7, 8th grade. No other science teacher. Just a one man program. No real budget, no curriculum, just an outdated textbook. I spent countless hours year after year developing curriculum from scratch. The end result was that I became a pretty darn good middle school science teacher; valued by my community and the kids. Tons of work, but it felt worth it.

As our district got smaller, admin decided to combine the middle school with the high school. I was working at a K-8, now I'm at a 7-12. I was resistant to this move because I had a good thing going. I also saw the writing on the wall: they want all the secondary teachers in one building so they can spread us thin...and that is exactly what is happening.

The last 3 years my job duties have expanded. Admin keeps adding electives they want me to teach at the expense of my core classes. My first year they added an additional 7th grade tech elective and requested I teach a science elective for HS, so I developed a Forensics course because it sounded fun. The next year admin instructed me to renovate the old greenhouse and create a horticulture elective for HS kids. I did it and knocked it out of the park. At the end of last year I was asked if I could take over the 8th grade tech elective. I wasn't happy about it, but worked with admin to make some compromises I could live with. So I spent the summer developing an elective around the Arduino platform.

This brings me to the beginning of this year. I show up and the schedule has been changed. My principal has consolidated my core science classes to free up a period for yet another elective (yet to be named). So in addition to the new electives I've been tasked with in the past, I now have TWO new electives to teach this year. Not only that, it makes the student numbers in my core classes skyrocket.

So now I teach the following courses: 7/8th grade Life Science, 7/8th grade physical science, HS Forensics, HS Horticulture, 7th grade tech, 8th grade tech, and HS (yet to be defined a week before school).

Worth noting that my classroom facilities are old and crappy. I am never provided with curriculum. I simply have to figure it out. No additional prep time, no additional compensation. Fairly low paying district. Low morale. Leadership is not great. I've always just pushed through for the love of my community and the kids. I'm a very popular teacher and I've always scratched and bled to find success despite the challenges. I'm tired, boss.

I think I have to quit. Please tell me I'm not crazy. I feel like no reasonable person would accept this job.

Disclosure up front: I work at the company that built this, in partnership with a shared electron microscopy facility at an Indian institute. Not selling anything, no links unless someone asks for them. I've spent months on this problem and think it's an interesting one to discuss.

The facility runs a TEM that researchers from any institution can book. Instrument hours are scarce and supervised. For a lot of users, the first session on the instrument is also the first time they've touched the controls, which is an expensive way to learn.

So we built a simulator of that specific instrument. The controls behave the way they do on the real one, and a learner can run the full procedure before booking anything.

What surprised us:

1. The genuine curiosity from professors, researchers and students for high-end skill development using virtual environments

2. The visual scalability for more complex equipment including optical spectroscopy systems electron probe, atom probe, surface probe, etc,.

3. [where the facility staff and the students wanted different things]

What I'm still unsure about: How would you measure the effective impact of such a solution?

If you supervise instrument time, what do you currently do to get first-timers ready, and what would you actually want from a tool like this?