Foldables in Science

While I have used foldables for some time now as a science teacher, I am more familiar with using foldables to help students understand concepts. However, this year I have used foldables to help students decide which formula to use in chemistry.

For example, this week my students learned about the mole and calculations involving the mole.  My students made 4-tab matchbooks which they could paste into their interactive notebooks.  The titles of the tabs were "Calculating Molar Mass," "Calculating Mass from Moles," "Calculating Moles from Mass" and "Calculating Particles from Moles."  Behind each tab, students wrote the corresponding formula.  I allowed the students to use the foldable on their exam.

The class average on this exam exceeded class averages on previous exams.  While I can't go so far as to state statistical significance for this instructional tool, there seems to be some evidence that foldables help students learn difficult concepts in chemistry.