Mo Physics Mo Problems

Yesterday I saw the movie "Whiplash", and it is probably the best film I've seen this year.  We'll get to why it was probably right up my alley a little later.  The film tells the story of a student's attempt to achieve perfection at a prestigious musical conservatory, and the teacher who sees the potential for greatness within the 19 year old drummer boy.  But, this is not the heartwarming tale of the only teacher who would nurture the brilliance out of the student that no one would take a chance on.  "Whiplash" is the tale of how a teacher who believes he can push his pupils to greatness through intimidation and fear.  The following clip says it all: I am a teacher but while watching the movie, the lead character of Andrew (played with brutal honesty by Miles Teller) connected with me on a deep level.  Many of our students are seeking affirmation from their teachers and will put themselves through the wringer until they get it.  That was me as

Our classrooms are not just about helping students gain content knowledge.  We are also responsible for imparting a set of skills that are important in our chosen discipline.  In addition, we should be teaching other skills that can be carried into any field of study such as literacy and the 4 C’s (communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration). Every time we ask students to learn a new skill, we are asking them to take a risk.  They are making themselves vulnerable and open to failure.  This failure is necessary to learn from, but failing is not easy. But what type of push can we provide to get them to take that risk.  It can’t be motivated by fear like in the case of Butch and Sundance. My current crop of students in AP have spent most of their schooling not being asked to take risks in the classroom.  They have learned how to play the “game” of school and have been very successful at it.  Outside of the classroom, though, these students are involved in

The teacher's role in a personalized learning environment is a dynamic one.  The mantra that the teacher should be the guide on the side is a fallacy and simplification that we must fight against! Here's a snapshot of a teacher in a truly personalized learning environment. In our current unit, my students could be working on many different assignments. They could be working on one of three different content acquisition labs, one of four different practice problem sets, or the overarching group project. So, the different students in my class could be working on one of eight different instructional pieces. This creates a unique situation for the teacher because in each interaction the teacher has to be ready to differentiate the instructional pieces in a way that meets the needs of the student. For years, I've heard the adage that a teacher needs to move from the sage on the stage the the guide on the side. I understand the sentiment and it's a cute tur

With one seemingly minor update, Google has made iMovie a truly collaborative app which will change the way students create and collaborate on video projects. The following clip is the best example of bravura editing I can think of.  It  is from my favorite director, Martin Scorsese.  Thelma Schoonmaker, his longtime editor, won her first of 3 Oscars for editing Ranging Bull. In the beginning of the 2013-14 school year when I received my class set of iPads. I dreamed of all the different collaborative projects my students would be involved in.  One product that I was very excited about was the ability to use iMovie on our iPads to create videos as a group.  Well, that didn't turn out to be nearly the collaborative experienced I dreamed.  After shooting all the necessary video on one iPad, only one student would be in control of the more labor intensive process of editing those clips together into a final product.  Sure there would stil be collaboration in recording t

All projects are not designed equally.  The goal of a project in project based learning is learning not simply engagement.  Yes, engagement is important, but it is not the sole focus of design. I think every teacher has had a day where s/he just wants to make it to the final bell.   So, we design an activity that we know will engage the students even if we know it is not addressing our course objectives.   But, in designing long-term projects, we can't just choose one that the students like or one that always goes smoothly.   The message to teachers who are thinking about going the way of PBL or are currently practicing PBL is simple, "We cannot be feeding our students chocolate cake for projects!"  In the end, our projects should be engaging to all students, but that is not where we start. We want student choice and voice, but we want them to have choice among options that are educationally sound and relevant.  We want creativity and collaboration, but it needs to b

If you've read any of my previous posts you know how I feel about the current state of student assessment. For those of you who are not caught up, simply put, this is how I feel. In my last post, I ended with the question "What makes a good assessment?"  I have come to realize very quickly, and this is not an original idea, that the best assessment is one that the teacher doesn't write. At the end of last term, I gave my AP physics students the option of taking a traditional paper and pencil test as we had been doing all term or completing something I've termed an Objective Mastery Defense.  Turns out the students like it and some said that it was the best innovation I have brought to the classroom.  What is it and why did they love it?  I'll save myself some typing and let my students explain it all.  I took all the video today and cut it on my phone during 4th block. So, please forgive the uneven audio levels.  It's my hope to have a more compl

Testing is one of the most debated topic in education today. So, doing a post on it may seem a little bit overwhelming.   But, to make it more manageable, I just want to bite off a small piece of the issue and express my opinion.  I'll be sure to take many more bites in the future of this blog. When I began to thinking about the way I view testing and the learning process, this clip from "The Right Stuff" is the first that came to mind. In any classroom environment, every student starts at a different level of understanding when introduced to a new learning objective.  Every student makes progress towards learning objectives at a different pace.  I don't think there is much debate about this point.  Yet, in many classrooms, all students are given a summative assessment on these objectives on the same date.  As teachers, we have the ability to determine when tests will be administered.  The only real firm date we have at my high school are the ends of the ter

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