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Thank You for 20 Years.

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After 20 years of teaching at Brookfield Central, I am saying goodbye. Although I spent the majority of that time in the physics classroom alongside my learners. That changed for my last 18 weeks. I ended up in a place similar to where I started, teaching chemistry and biology. So, rather than dealing with juniors and seniors at the end of their high school careers, I was in classrooms with freshmen and sophomores still trying to find their place. At the same time, I was learning and teaching a set curriculum I hadn't taught in over a decade. So, we were learning. But, of course, I already knew the content.  The point of this post is to take a step back, take in, and share the gratitude from the last students I had in my 20 years at Brookfield Central High School through the cards and notes they made for me on my last day with them.  I don't take many yay me moments. But after 20 years, I think I'll soak this one in.
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Passion + Physics + PBL = Personalization

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As our first term of the year comes to an end, we have wrapped up our term long project.  There will be a lot more reflection to come.  I haven't gotten very far into the grading but had to take a moment to share one of the videos (I'll be sure to share others in future posts.) When I saw this one I had to share it out because it really struck me that it did more than we had intended for the project to do.

Our driving question was "How can I use physics to hack sports?"  So the intention was for students to make a connect between physics and a sport of their choice.  When given voice in the topic that they would cover, students gravitated to sports which played a major role in their lives, sports they were passionate about.

The result is a product which doesn't simply tie physics to sport.  It ties physics to something the student is passionate about.  So, although the video tells us about physics and sport, it tells us just as much about the student.  It's a beautiful realization I never thought I'd see, but it is powerful.

As a science teacher, the traditional approach to a lab report creates a distance between the author and the data.  A product like this does just the opposite.  It shows how we live in a world governed by natural laws and why we need to understand them.  The student who created this video is Danyell Chupp.  If you enjoy her video, I'd encourage giving her a shout out on Twitter @danyellchupp.





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