Online for the 2024-2025 School Year
Teacher: Peter Moskaluk
Email: moskaluk@chemadvantage.com
Course Tuition: $895 (includes 1-Year Subscription to Cengage's WebAssign Online Learning Platform)
Course Schedule: My AP® Chemistry course begins on Monday, August 26, 2024, and ends on Tuesday, May 6, 2025 (AP Exam). My course calendar shows the dates that the class is in session as well as the 5 weeks of scheduled breaks. My 36-week schedule is designed to cover the College Board curriculum in a logical sequence including a comprehensive 4-week review before the AP Chemistry exam.
Eligibility Requirements: My class is open to 9th through 12th-grade students, ages 14 – 18, who have completed Algebra II or who are taking my class concurrently with their Algebra II course. A previous high school chemistry class, while helpful, is not required for my course. At the beginning of each chemistry unit, I assume no prior chemistry background and teach from the ground up so that students without previous chemistry instruction are not at a disadvantage. Students must be self-disciplined, well-organized, and able to schedule a minimum of 10 – 12 hours a week for the course, not including lab work.
How to Enroll: An application is not required for my course. If you meet the above eligibility requirements, you may enroll in the course by following the 2-step procedure outlined on my website. Then, you’ll be all set. I will send you the "getting started" instructions on Monday, August 26 (the first day of class).
Textbook: I will provide a digital version of each chapter in the textbook that focuses on the material relevant to the AP Chemistry exam. Students who would like a hard copy textbook can purchase Chemistry, 11th Edition, by Raymond Chang and Kenneth Goldsby, ISBN-13: 978-0077666958, or any version of Chang’s Chemistry textbook from the 9th through the 13th editions. The differences between hard copy editions are mostly cosmetic, so you may use pricing as your guide. You do not need to purchase supplemental materials such as CDs, study guides, workbooks, solutions manuals, or review books for this course.
School Supplies:
- Student Study Planner
- Two 3" 3-ringed binders
- One set of 20 blank divider tabs for filing course materials
- Spiral notebook for notetaking
- Graphing calculator
- Quality Science Labs Advanced MicroChem Kit **
- One 1 ½" 3-ringed binder for filing lab instructions
- Lab Notebook - One 100-sheet composition notebook with sewn binding
** Students who cannot obtain a lab kit will have the option to use my matching guided virtual labs.
Course Description:
My course has been audited and approved by the College Board for 17 consecutive years. Although my AP® Chemistry course prepares students to sit for the AP® Chemistry Exam, it is not just an exam prep course. It is the equivalent of a first-year college chemistry course, thus providing students with a solid foundation to support future advanced work in chemistry.
Each year, the College Board makes changes to AP Chemistry and, because of that, I update my materials every year. For example, for the 2024-2025 school year, the College Board has made significant changes to the AP Chemistry curriculum framework. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to look over my detailed course description at www.chemadvantage.net (a must read). If you click on the other links behind the "AP Chemistry" tab on the top navigation bar, you will find information about the lab program, school supplies, and technical requirements, as well as samples of my instructional videos.
Course Delivery:
My course is asynchronous in that all materials are available 24/7, so students never have to be logged in on any specific day or time. Students appreciate the flexibility of my class in that it doesn’t interfere with their other coursework or extracurricular activities. I do, however, have optional live sessions with my students during which I perform lab demonstrations that cannot be done at home. Because I have students across many time zones, I rotate the days and times to accommodate as many students as possible. I record the sessions for later viewing by students who cannot attend.
Cengage/WebAssign®:
Student learning is guided and assessed using Cengage’s online learning platform, WebAssign®. For over two decades, WebAssign® has been the technology choice for delivering online STEM education. I have been involved with WebAssign® since its inception and have written thousands of customized interactive questions to evaluate student learning. (The tuition includes the 1-year subscription to Cengage’s WebAssign online learning platform.)
Discussion Board:
You and your classmates will always be able to get personalized help using my Discussion Board, a virtual classroom, which is available 24/7. With its multi-media capabilities, I can use different tools including annotation, graphs, images, diagrams, videos, and links to other helpful resources to give students detailed answers to their questions. My TAs, all of whom achieved a “5” on the AP Exam, are a caring, supportive, and enthusiastic team committed to helping students do well in the course and on the AP® exam. My TAs and I monitor the Discussion Board throughout the day five days a week making sure that students get prompt and thorough answers to their questions.
Lab Experience:
I have developed a lab program with specially tailored labs for AP® Chemistry. Each experiment has complete instructions with sample data and calculations. Students use tools such as graphing programs and spreadsheets to analyze data. There is a corresponding assessment tool where students enter their data online to evaluate their results. Students must keep a lab notebook following standard protocols for a college-level chemistry lab notebook. For students who cannot obtain a lab kit, I have created equivalent guided virtual labs that satisfy the requirements for the lab component.
Teacher Qualifications:
I taught science, including Honors and AP® Chemistry, in one of the top school systems in the country for over 35 years and have been teaching AP® Chemistry to homeschoolers now for 17 years. I received a BS in Science and a Master of Science Education degree at Wayne State University. I have worked with numerous National Science Foundation teacher programs and, as part of my Master's program, I worked with the Fairleigh Dickinson University Lab in St Croix, monitoring coral reef oxygen respiration rates. I was sponsored by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow at Princeton. While working for the National Science Foundation's Project Seraphim, I led workshops for chemistry teachers around the country, developed computer software applications for chemistry education, and hosted an international Internet Conference, CHYMNET, for chemistry educators. I have completed the College Board Institute Program for teaching AP® Chemistry and am an active participant in the College Board's AP® Chemistry Teachers Community. I have written science questions for the Michigan Educational Assessment Test, the ACT Assessment® Test, and have served as a reviewer for Cengage’s WebAssign® chemistry question database. I have also edited articles for the Journal of Chemical Education. In 2003, I won the Presidential Scholars Teacher Recognition Award, and many of my students have been award winners in ACS Chemistry Olympiad competitions.
My Promise To You:
As a dedicated and caring teacher, I am committed to delivering an outstanding, comprehensive, first-year college-level chemistry course that prepares students to sit for the AP® Chemistry Exam. My commitment to my students does not end with the AP® Exam. I have written numerous recommendations for students and am proud that they have gone on to prestigious colleges and universities around the world. These include all the U.S. Military Academies, MIT, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford, Rutgers, Cornell, Oxford University, the National University of Singapore, and most of the top US State Colleges.
Even though my class is online, it is important to me that my students know they have a real teacher who cares about them and will provide the support they need to achieve a high score on the AP® Chemistry exam and to have a competitive edge in their college chemistry courses. I take immense pleasure in helping my students to not only master chemistry but also to experience the wonder and joy in chemistry.
I hope to see you in class this fall. It’s going to be a great year!
Mr. Moskaluk