Help students apply the right concepts in chemistry

Even when students can answer questions on a newly-taught topic successfully in class, they often can’t repeat that success when answering synoptic questions. The problem is they don’t pick the right techniques to solve problems, even though they can solve the problems when told explicitly which techniques to use. This is especially common when teaching on amount of substance and acids and bases in chemistry lessons. This article describes how students can use decision trees to find the right technique to answer a question independently.