Mo Physics Mo Problems

This blog owes a lot of inspiration from this post by George Couros . Sometimes as a teacher I have to deliver content to a large group.  Today, in AP Physics 2 was a good example.  We are covering magnetic force.   I can predict the force and motions experienced by an object when acted on by a magnetic field. This is a very complicated topic that students can't experiment with at the atomic level. I can set up a demonstration that shows what happens at a macroscopic level but it doesn't help students understand what is happening at the subatomic level. The biggest difficulty is not mathematics. It is spacial reasoning and conceptualizing what is happening. It is a process which involves "right-hand rules" which provide simple models for how charges behave in a magnetic field. Here is a sample question students learned today from scratch. Ok, enough with the physics talk. What is my point? I feel that as educators, the current wisdom

At a recent school PD session, it was announced that we will be revisiting grading practices in an effort to come to agreement on common practices as a staff.  I admire our administration for taking on this issue.  Grading practices are something that most staff don’t like having open conversations about, myself included.  I feel like I always need to be able to defend my position and I should be.  So, the point of this post is to help me frame my beliefs as it comes to opportunities for students to receive feedback and act on that feedback. This diagram below is an attempt to summarize the process I allow students in my classroom when it comes to a particular learning outcome. I recently revised my objective rubrics to follow a 0-4 scale based on Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs. 4 Synthesize multiple pieces 3 Analyze unique information 2 Apply understanding 1 Explain basics The key to this process is providing students feedback and giving them the opp

I experimented with doing this blog post via a hashtag and storifying it. [ View the story "Leveling Up My Rubrics" on Storify ]

No, its not Mr. Chips, Mr. Keating, Mr. Holland, or even Mr. Shoop (Summer School anyone?). The greatest teacher in cinema history has to be the piano teacher from Groundhog's Day as played by  Peggy Roeder. (Forgive me if I'm stealing this argument from another person, I did a cursory search of the internet and didn't find anyone mentioning this.) If you forgot her already, maybe this short clip will jog your memory. For those of you who haven't seen Groundhog's Day (I doubt you are out there), let me give the one sentence premise. A superficial man, Phil Conners, lives the same day over and over until he is able to learn to better himself by providing service to those in the community around him.  In the clip above, Phil hears a piece of music and is driven to learn how to play the piano.  Each day, Phil goes to see the same piano teacher and by the end of the movie he has mastered piano playing. So what makes her the greatest teacher in cinema histo