Mo Physics Mo Problems

I recently posted about the collaboration Megan Peschke and I have created a shared Flipgrid grid between her kindergartners and my high school physics students. We conducted introductions which took on a life of their own. We have moved on from hellos to address to science content. My students are currently in a unit on sound and waves. Flipgrid was a great way to share learning during our energy unit. So, my students are sharing their learning with me and the kindergartners. The one major online interactive hub for exploring sound that is easily accessible across devices and different age levels is Chrome Music Lab . If you are not familiar with it. It is a free set of interactive labs created by Google exploring different aspects of sound.  This exploration and sharing took place over a couple of different activities. In our physics class, these activities were part of a series of applications of concepts students had learned during flipped interactive lectures conducted in P...

I have been lucky to do many collaborations with Elementary School teachers with my physics classes. I’ve had great collaborations with Jessica Ebert , Kate Sommerville & Angela Patterson , and Katie Spadoni . Our transition to Virtual Learning has put a halt to any ability to have a face-to-face collaboration. But, my experience with Flipgrid and a new friend has allowed me to start a new collaboration between High School Physics students and a class of kindergartners. It all started when  I had this Twitter conversation with someone in my district. Now, I’ve only met Megan Peschke face to face twice. (And, I only remember one of them. I’ll leave it to her to tell the story of that one.) Well, the idea was launched in that conversation of using Flipgrid as a place to create a connection between the two classrooms: My 2 sections of Physics and her Kindergartners. I’ve been using Flipgrid with great success with my Physics students all year and it has really taken off during o...

In this new landscape of Virtual Learning, I've lost many of my favorite activities and labs. But thanks to ideas from my Professional Learning Network and the support of my administration, I feel like I've been given the freedom to think differently. To not simply retrofit activities and assessments into a virtual model, but to try something different and leverage the change in instruction and environments. In a recent podcast, Kasey Bell presented 12 practical tips for remote learning that forced me to rethink what I was trying to do . It was a fantastic episode that moved me to question my current practice and try something different. So, I took a tip from another one of her episodes on Choice Boards . As we finish our energy unit, I wanted to create a more unique opportunity for learners to demonstrate mastery. So, I created an Energy Bingo Board. I would not consider this a true choice board for a couple of reasons. But, I'd like to discuss the design of the ass...

As we find ourselves outside of the classroom attempting to find ways to utilize the digital tools and ask learners to demonstrate mastery on new or past content, I continue to see the power of student portfolios for this task. The portfolio could be used for different purposes, but Google Sites can work as a powerful platform to house this product. Many districts have students create a portfolio that covers multiple years and courses. But in these times, the ability to coordinate this type of project might not be feasible. So, I’ll focus on the use of a portfolio in one course. These purposes center around providing artifacts that could be used to highlight Mastery of Unit Outcomes Mastery of State or National Standards Habits of Mind Learner Strengths or Growth Over Time We’ll get to how this decision of purpose will drive organization. But let’s start with how students can create a new google site. Create sites In the video below, you can see how you can create a new ...

I was thrilled when I learned all about a distance learning hack for Pear Deck's Flashcard Factory from Stacey Roshan. If you're not sure what Flashcard Factory is, it is a free platform for students collaboratively to build digital flashcards that include text and visual representations. These flashcards can then be printed, saved as a pdf, or exported to the online quiz game Gimkit. You can learn all about Flashcard Factory from the Pear Deck Website here. As we are all involved in distanced learning right now, students can't work on Flashcard Factory in real time. This hack from Stacey will allow all learners in the class to work on creating a set of cards that can be used by the whole class. The main difference is that instead of students working in pairs, they are working on their own. Be sure to set a firm deadline. After the deadline you can go in and approve or reject cards. Then, share the PDF with the class, or launch a Gimkit with them. Don...

Summative assessment can be a bit tricky in distance learning when relying on traditional pencil and paper test. One of the assessment options I have allowed students to use in the past was an evidence presentation in which they created a 1 on 1 presentation demonstrating their mastery of the unit standards by presenting artifacts from the unit. I'm trying something similar with my students as we wrap up our momentum unit. This unit was done completely via distance learning. We had several different activities and I made sure that students had opportunities to cover our main 4 science skill outcomes as they related to momentum. I can plan and carry out investigations I can analyze and interpret data I can use mathematics and computational thinking I can construct explanations The goal for the summative assessment is for them to provide evidence for each of these 4 outcomes. I didn't want the technology to be the barrier. So, I choose Flipgrid which is a very simpl...

This week my building principal gave me the opportunity to provide virtual PD for our district on 3 tools that I think are great for supporting virtual learning: Pear Deck, Scientifically, and Flipgrid. I created informational slide decks and recorded one of the webinars I did for each of the three tools. I won't go one much more, but wanted to make these resources available to all. If you have any questions about the tools feel free to reach out to me on twitter @mo_physics or email at mohammam@elmbrookschools.org Please note that these webinar videos were the first presentations I've ever done using Google Hangouts Meet so please forgive the informal nature of the presentations. They are the raw video from the session. I could easily have spent hours making them perfect, but I figured the true purpose was not aesthetic perfection but timelessness of the information. Pear Deck Use Student Paced mode to provide asynchronous instruction or formative assessment in ...