Mole Conversions

I've been tutoring a lot of kids lately. One thing they've been having a little trouble with is mole conversions. I'm not talking about stoichiometry, I'm saving that beast for another post, but just the conversions between moles, grams, and particles.

I've found that a good approach is having a visual diagram with arrows. The more you leave the kids to figure things out and practice, the better they'll remember things. Here's my chart:

Students should go to their starting points and follow the arrows for their procedure. So, if I have a mass to particles conversion, according to my handy chart I'm going to divide by the molar mass to get to moles, than I will multiply by Avogadro's number.

Students need plenty of practice. They get this chart, practice problems, and a few example problems to show them how to use the chart.

With diagrams, I find that the best approach is to be minimalistic so that they're as straight forward as possible. The arrows help too.

Let me know how this works out for you! :)