On Friday, I was so pleased to be able to return to one of my favorite days of the year, High-Interest Day at Brookfield Elementary School. This is a day where I have been able to bring the concepts of physics to k-5 graders. You may be asking yourself, "Elementary students doing physics?" YES! Not just experimenting, but understanding the concepts behind the physics of electricity and sound. This is a very special day I have had the opportunity to be involved in since 2017. So, how are we able to bring the concepts of electricity and sound traditionally taught to high school 11th and 12th graders to the elementary level? There are a few keys 1) make it a hands-on experience 2) remove the mathematical calculations and make it practical. In the past, I had the luck of bringing a handful of my physics students with me to guide the elementary students through the concepts that they had learned over the course of the year. But in my new role as a Teaching and Learning Speciali
To quote George Couros from the Innovator's Mindset: The three most important words in education are: relationships, relationships, relationships. Without them, we have nothing." I think by using technology to help give all students a voice in my classroom, I'm starting to make some headway in that area. At the end of our unit on linear motion, I again had students complete a Google form for feedback in several areas. I asked them to focus on what was helping them learn, what was not helping, and what they would like me to try in the next unit to help them learn. I then took the feedback and put it into a Pear Deck slide and had them choose the number one factor for them. Below are the results for the what helped learning. Pear Deck and options for summative assessments I expected to be pretty well liked. I was surprised to see so many students favor hard copy notes. This is when I print off the Pear Deck slides ahead of time so that they can write down