APPENDIX 3

CASE STUDY

To show you how CLM works with a real school subject, I’ve chosen a chemistry topic. I chose chemistry because I’m a chemistry professor but also because students typically find chemistry difficult and I wanted to do a case study on a “difficult” subject.

This material is taken from Chapter 2, section 2.1 of Mark Bishop’s Introduction to Chemistry and has been reprinted and formatted for the purposes of this case study with the author’s permission. Visit http://preparatorychemistry.com for free access to this great book.

A3.1 Applying CLM to the Chemistry Example

Don’t read the entire chemistry section now (A3.2). Instead, skim it as directed in Phase 1 of CLM.

After every phase (P), as discussed in Chapter 3:

  • Go through the inputs, the 4 repeating steps, and the outputs that are described in each phase.
  • For each phase, try to develop your own visual map of the chemistry chapter as you would if you were really taking the class.
  • Compare your visual map to the visual map that I developed. The visual maps won’t be identical, but the key concepts should have been captured completely in both instances.