Mo Physics Mo Problems

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

Managing student work is difficult in any classroom. In a project based classroom, it can get quite out of control.  Each group is doing something different.  Within each group, there are individual pieces of the project as well as group components.  It's up to the teacher to manage all of these different pieces.  If not managed correctly, it could be a beauricratical nightmare. I think this clip from Terry Gilliam's masterpiece Brazil says it all. (Film Geek Note: the director's cut is the masterpiece not the "Love Conquers All" cut) The one tool that can prevent the paper trail becoming the focus of the classroom Is a powerful learning management system or LMS.  In Elmbrook schools we have found that in Canvas an LMS deigned and managed by Instructure. Why Is Canvas such a great LMS for facilitating a PBL classroom?  There are many reason. To do lists are great for students and teachers.  Any assignment you create with a due date wil

As we were beginning class today, I felt like Indiana Jones in this classic scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as he attempts to retrieve the Holy Grail to save his father's life. Every time we try something new in class, we are taking a leap of faith.  We must trust in and ultimately rely on our students to support us.  This term I have more faith in my students than I have in my lesson plans.  Having an open dialogue with my students about what we do in class and why we do it has gone a long way. In fact, just today a student brought up my last blog post about the piano teacher and I was able to expand about why I thought that teacher was so great.  I was shocked to hear that one of my students had read my blog. So today, I explained to my students the philosophy behind introducing a project based model into our classroom and what it will look like for them.  I framed it in terms of our current momentum unit. Below is the introductory document for the uni

Citizen Kane is artistically the most influential film of all time.  If you have never seen it, you should stop reading this blog and go watch it. I don't ever care if you don't come back and read the rest of this post. It is more important to the world at large that you experience the wonder that is this film. Sit yourself down and watch it on a screen bigger than a mobile device. In fact, make sure you put your mobile device away, there is to be no second screen experience with this one. Make sure you turn of the lights or close the curtains for the optimal viewing experience. If you haven't seen it in a while, you owe it to yourself to see the beautiful 70th anniversary restoration. So to give a little context to you who have forgotten the story, rich recluse Charles Foster Kane utters the word "rosebud" with his dying breath.  The movie follows a reporter as he attempts to uncover the mystery of what rosebud is.  The film closes with the following cl

As we at Brookfield Central finish up our 1st term final exams, I want to tell you a story that helped push me to a realization. A student came up to me the other day to talk about her test in AP Physics.  She said that she would have done so much better were it not for her stupid mistakes.  She went on to show me not how she made math errors in the free response portion of the test, but how she had the correct answer circled in the multiple choice section of the test but then second guessed herself and changed the answer. She went on to show me that all of the 5 multiple choice questions she got wrong, out of 10, were ones where she had first circled the correct answer only to switch it to a different answer. Now, it's important to point out that this student wasn't looking to get points back by showing me this. She was just looking for some sympathy.  She wanted to show me that she knew the material despite her poor grade.  It was frustrating  for me to see that this test h