Mo Physics Mo Problems

Well, I was planning on just dealing with 2 stages of the LAUNCH Cycle in this post, but I burned through the rest of the book yesterday.  The book itself is a very engaging read.  My post may reflect the nuts and bolts of the cycle, but the book is filled with practical applications and stories from the authors lives that show what the LAUNCH Cycle looks like.  That is the power of their work. It is based on experience and data. Step 4: Navigating Ideas So, this is a step that I have always shortchanged. When I initially looked at the cycle without knowing about it, I figured I knew what it was about.  I thought it would just be a stage of organizing information.  I was wrong. Much like generating questions is a bridge between awareness and research, navigating ideas is a bridge between research and creation.  It is the a step for creating a plan for creation.  Juliani and Spencer call this process ideating . Ideating is not simply plan...

I have dived into reading the next 3 chapters (Chapters 4 - 6) of LAUNCH by John Spencer and A. J. Juliani which cover the first three steps of the LAUNCH Cycle. The book does a great job going into depth about what each step entails and what it looks like with specific examples.  I would be doing the work of the authors a great disservice trying to create a Cliff’s Notes version of their text, because what resonates with me for my classroom practice may not resonate with others.  Also, the text is so rich that it needs to be read.  It’d just be retyping the book. I think that’s plagiarism. In lieu of that, I hope to provide some of my highlights below. Step 1: Look, Listen, Learn I love the way that this step is framed.  It’s the why of the process.  But, it’s clear that the “why” is not an extrinsic motivation.  The desire to create comes from the student.  So, this first step is seen as raising interest or awareness . The authors go o...

Over the weekend, I finished George Couros’s Innovator’s Mindset .  I highly recommend reading it to understand why we should foster a culture of innovation in our schools and where to start.  A culture of innovation makes everyone a creator in our schools, unleashing the creativity that is in all of us. The Innovator’s Mindset frames the steps to create that culture of innovation in a school and it gives some powerful examples of creation in the classroom.  That’s where the new book by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani picks up.  The book LAUNCH is focused on the importance of a clear framework for the creative process.  I’ll dig into that process in later posts as I get deeper into the book.  But, let’s start with the why of creation in the classroom. Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Learning Domains Complex Creating ↑ Evaluating Analyzing Applying Understanding Simple Remembering Looking at Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of le...

As students continue to work on their projects many of them are choosing to do some if not all of their work in Explain Everything because of its rich multimedia abilities in the iOS environment. I just wanted to give a quick overview of why I think Explain Everything provides endless possibilities for students to demonstrate mastery of objectives and ISTE standards . The video is about 12 minutes, so I'll leave it there.

In my class, we are 1:1 with iPads.  Students are creating their project videos on iPads.  iMovie for iOS is a powerful video editing software tool for iOS.  The user interface is very intuitive, but there are still many little features that students and teachers may not be aware of.  It can do a lot, but after working with iMovie on a Mac, the iOS version leaves a lot to be desired.  Students know the difference. It seems like every time we use iMovie on the iPads, we discover a new way it can't do something that the desktop version can do.  This usually leads to frustration and requires us to find workarounds. I just thought I'd give a quick tour of iMovie for iOS and highlight some features that are good and frustrating commissions. Adding Media is Easy On the right side of the screen, you can see the ability to sort from video, photo, and music libraries to decide what media to add to your project.  When a video is added it is easy to ...

As teachers, we tend to be told to introduce the rubric on day one of an assignment.  This allows students to know exactly how they will be graded.  But today was the day that we shared the product rubric with the students. The rubric can be seen below: I built this rubric using pieces from rubrics at bie.org . In my opinion, it doesn't seem logical to hand something like this the first week of the term before students have decided what their area of focus will be.  This seems like a specific document that will make more sense to students as they synthesize their data pieces to present. This rubric is the group rubric and that how the final project is graded.  Remember there have been individual summative pieces as the units have been completed to determine individual mastery of content.  The data from these pieces will provide the evidence for the final product. Today we had a bit of an issue during our class period.  The access the to the inte...

One of my most formative video gaming experiences from childhood was playing one-on-one with my friends.  I don't mean outside on the court, I mean on a computer.  Yes, for those of you who aren't familiar with it one of the classic basketball games from the early 80's was a one-on-one game that pitted Larry Bird vs. Michael Jordan.  I honestly don't have any great insight here tying the game to my classroom, just had to mention the game. This week, my student in physics are putting together their final video project which is the culmination of the last 8 weeks of study.  All the data has been collected and the concepts have been covered, but they need to create a text which will summarize their work. Today was a day in which I spoke with groups about which concepts they would address in their video.  A day like today is one in which I hate the phrase "guide on the side."  I don't mind the idea of guide because in each of my conversations today,...

As a part of my educational philosophy, I am trying to incorporate opportunities to explicitly practice and assess critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity within my classroom.   But, there has always been a fear that I would have to sacrifice content in order to achieve this goal.  A recent experience made me realize that this does not have to be the case. In my physics class, we have been studying Newton’s laws of motion.  Part of our summative assessment involved students being tasked with a problem.  They would be given a set of three carts and they had to design an evidence based strategy to give one cart the greatest displacement.  There were rules like no touching the ground and all carts had to start together.  But, outside of those rules, students were given creative freedom.   Now, the goal of the problem itself is not an authentic scientific experience at all.  But, there are many more important goal...