Mo Physics Mo Problems

As a part of the Innovator's Mindset MOOC, we've been challenged to implement a change with the goal of innovation. A couple of weeks ago, I had an idea that I want to put in place for my classroom. It's not huge, but it will require a significant step from me to implement and make it meaningful for students. Over the past years, I have been developing proficiency scales for each of the major unit objectives in my Physics courses.  I've modeled these scales I first learned about from Marzano Research. Find a great bank here and access with a free account. I try to have students look at the scale when we complete a formative quiz and rate themselves on that scale.  But, it's not until we approach the summative assessment where we really take the time to break down what each level looks like in depth.  They then create their own piece of media to demonstrate mastery. I'm looking to change up the way I present the proficiency scale a bit. I've decided ...

In the Innovators Mindset MOOC podcast this week, we are focusing on the final part of George Couros's book and moving forward with innovation measuring innovation beyond simple numbers. I just wanted to reflect a little on my journey with inclusion in my classroom and what I would like it to be. One of the first courses in my 2 year certification program at UW-Madison was Individuals with Disabilities. It was taught by the great Alice Udvari-Solner . The focus of the course was on the "why" of inclusion not simply from a legal perspective but a moral one.  The primary focus of the course was providing future educators strategies to design instruction to reach all learners.  By the end of the course, we realized was that the way we approach instruction for students with disabilities is the way we should approach instruction for all students. She forced us to confront how sometimes labels hide abilities and good grades can hide challenges. That was 18 years...

Today marks the end of 6 weeks of the school year.  It might be a bold statement, but I can't imagine a better day than the one I just had. If I don't sit back to capture some thoughts on why it was able to happen and not simply what happened, I feel that I'll miss the point. That includes not time to proofread.  This is all off the top of my head.  Errors just add to the flavor at least that sounds like a good excuse.  A perfect day doesn't just happen.  A perfect day is one you make happen.  And if today is any proof, it never happens because you did it alone. There were a couple of distinct phases to my day.  The first half of the school day involved a collaboration between one of my physics classes and Kate Sommerville and Angela Patterson's 5th grade class at Swanson Elementary school.  It was a collaboration planned during the summer days when the thought of frost was far from our minds. that day we sat down and mapped out all of our...

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...

This week marks the opening of Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven . It is a remake of the 1960 film of the same name which was a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai .  It may be a matter of subjective opinion, but neither of these remake’s provide an improvement on the original masterpiece. As defined by George Couros, neither are "innovative".  In chapter 1 of The Innovator’s Mindset, Couros defines innovation as “ as a way of thinking that creates something new and better.” So while these “Magnificent” films might be newer, they are not by definition innovative (in my opinion).  Even the very good Japanese remake 13 Assassins can’t top the original masterpiece. Some innovations require time to tell the tale.  Will be getting rid of the headphone jack on the iPhone 7 prove to be better?  Time has not judged “New” Coke or Crystal Pepsi kindly. I didn’t need much time to determine that one of my favorite classroom tools I discovered last year was...

I had earlier talked about my new design for student portfolios in my class. After finishing out first unit I had students finish up the first unit entry.  For this first unit I pulled back a bit on my full outline I planned for each unit. It is my hope that this first unit page will serve as a toe dipping and in our second unit I can add more elements that I had intended to add originally.  I felt that getting students comfortable in the Google Sites environment the first go around and giving them some feedback was more important than having them start out with my full blown vision. So, this go around our unit page was divided into 3 sections. Objectives For our first go around, I simply had students add the unit objectives to this section.  In our next unit, I plan to have them write them in their own words as well. Narrative The intention of this section is for students to reflect of their performance on formative quizzes.  In the first unit we had ...

This post picks up where the last one left off. That post discussed how I'm trying to make outcomes more clear to students .  This post will focus on the feedback from students. In a great blog post, George Couros states that “Empathy is where innovation begins.” By empathy, Couros means that we are able to see our the learning experience from the perspective of our learners. There are many ways to do this, but I have found the easiest and most powerful way to gain insight into the learner experience to ask for it. As Bowie says about the youth, “They’re quite aware of what they’re going through.” I have found three keys to getting good constructive feedback of their classroom experience from students Make it anonymous. Give them write in their own words don’t stop at questions that are simply “agree”/“disagree” or a Likert Scale. The most important key is to act on the feedback. If you want students to express meaningful feedback, show them their feedback is mea...