Peary Good Questions

With our new physics curriculum this year, we start each new unit with an anchor phenomenon. This is basically another form of a hook to build student engagement but drives students to begin making observations and asking questions. Before you say, “I don’t teach science. What does this have to do with me.” Take a lesson from Dave Burgess and realize the power of hooking your students on day 1 of instruction. It helps them not only understand the why of the unit. It has the potential to allow them to determine their own why.

An anchor phenomenon could be anything that makes students curious, leads them to ask questions, and start trying to propose their own answer before digging deeper through the course of the instructional unit. This could be a hands-on experience, an article to read, an online video from the news or maybe something that has gone viral, or a piece of artwork. There are so many possibilities for different anchors to tie instruction to in order to root it and help it sink in (yes it’s called an anchor for a reason)

In our first unit on forces and motion, I introduced student to a cartesian diver. Students were divided into small groups. Then, I gave them a fluid filled 2 liter bottle with an eye dropper in it and told them to make observations. Then, I told them to squeeze the bottle and the dynamic in the room changed as the dropper seemed to move magically. 

Using Pear Deck to Elicit Responses

In the past, I may have called on students or used whiteboards to record group ideas, but Pear Deck has presented a better way for me to allow students to record their ideas to be shared. The Pear Deck Add-on for Google Slides has a new series of Critical Thinking slide templates that can help guide an Anchor Phenomenon activity. There is a great variety of slides to prompt responses and discussions as you can see below.

I added slides for Observing and Questioning using the Add on. If you’ve never used it before it is very simple:

As students observed the Cartesian Diver, they shared observations, and one member of the group recorded these. I was then able to project those responses and was able to share them out to the class. In addition, all responses were saved digitally so that we can go back and see how we have grown at our ability to make observations as the year progresses.

The next slide students responded to was the “I Wonder” slide. This is where they posed questions they had about the phenomenon. I was afraid that the questions wouldn't be the type that could drive the instruction in the unit. But I was pleased to see the great responses my students had.

Some of these questions we were able to address right away like the fact that the bottles were filled with water. But others will be key in driving the learning for the unit. The fact that the students were the ones to frame the questions that would drive the unit will make the purpose behind the learning even more powerful. Since these were recorded in Pear Deck, I don’t have to worry about losing that piece of paper where all the questions were recorded or erasing that whiteboard. We can come back to these questions at the end of the unit to be sure we have answered all of them.

Using Google Slides

It is good practice to provide a pre assessment to gauge where learners are at before instruction in a unit. In our new curriculum design, that requires students explaining what they believe is happening in the anchor phenomenon using their prior knowledge. To do this, they create a conceptual model. To allow them the most flexibility in creating this conceptual (not physical) model, I have them use Google Slide. That way they can use text, drawings, images, audio, or video to explain their thinking.

As this was our first time creating models, I told students to stick to text and images/drawings. I was then able to look at these and see where learners were at in their understanding of the phenomenon. It also helped me identify key vocabulary we need to address that I hadn’t initially intended to.

The great thing about having these in slides was that I was able to take some exemplars and create a presentation of those. This is something that I will allow to play during work time as a model of our current ideas of the process. Since designing models is a standard for our class, this presentation will serve as rich examples of student created conceptual models that we are looking for.



As we progress through the unit, students will add a new slide and revise their model. This way each student will have their own series of slides showing how their model/thinking progressed throughout the unit.

This is only the end of week one for the year. I hope to share out more of how the process is going and how we are revising it to make it even better.