National Board Certification Post 2: Analysis of Instruction and Student Work

 

As a part of Component 2 of the National Board Certification process is a portfolio documenting Differentiation in Instruction. This portfolio is intended to demonstrate how instruction is differentiated in unit. In the last post I documented how I designed instruction in a unit to meet the needs of different learners. In this post, I'll focus on analyzing that instruction including student examples. I have removed student names to preserve their anonymity.

Analysis of Instruction and Student Work

The major outcome that carries across all three of these activities is being able to conduct investigations and analyze data related to the law of conservation of energy. In all 3 activities students are looking at phenomena and relating it to the law of conservation of energy. In order to do this, students are asked to identify the forms of energy present at different points during a process. 

In activity 1, students are working with only gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy. Energy data is represented in a pie chart form. Students are able to visualize how the amount of gravitational and potential energy changes as the skater travels on a track. After looking at the relationship qualitatively, students are also asked to calculate gravitational potential energy using formulas presented in lecture. Students apply the law of conservation of energy in determining the amount of kinetic energy at each point.

Activity 2 builds on activity 1 by adding a new form of energy, elastic potential energy. Students investigate how the amount of elastic energy changes as a mass oscillates on a spring. In addition, they also look at how gravitational potential and kinetic energy change as the mass oscillates. These observations are qualitative and are represented in a bar graph format.  

While activity 1 and 2 are digital simulations, activity 3 asks students to conduct a hands-on experiment and collect data in the real world. This activity includes some dissipated energy which was eliminated from the online simulations. While activity 1 and 2 provide specific energy measurements to learners, by activity 3 students are ready to apply the energy formulas in order to calculate the amount of energy at each location. There is no visual representation of the amount of energy at each location, so it is up to learners to apply their understanding of the forms of energy to determine what forms of energy are present at different points when the eye popper pops.

Many students in my classes enjoy roller coaster rides. Activity 1 plays off of this as students create a skate track for a rider. The freedom in the creation helped recruit student engagement. The key to the activities is making the phenomena visual. The simulation in activity 1 is very engaging but it also has a pie graph feature which allows the user to see how energy changes as the skater goes through the track. In addition, students are able to pull in prior experience of going down hills whether that be on a bike, sledding, skating, or going down a rollercoaster to understand that their velocity increases as they go down and the higher the hill the greater their velocity is by the end. 

Activity 3 was also highly engaging as it ties to a toy many students have played with in their youth. They are forced to think of it in an energy framework and apply terms to better explain what is happening as the popper pops. The steps required to measure and calculate the data asks them to realize that physics/science is a part of their everyday life and the concepts we are studying are applicable to phenomena that they have been dealing with since they were kids.

Teaching during the pandemic limited the sorts of activities we could do in the classroom. So, many of our hands-on group activities became either solo or utilized online simulations. Leveraging the online simulations from PhET Interactive Simulations were essential to activities 1 and 2. The simulations allowed learners to change variables, measure data, and visualize changes in energy. The simulations provided high engagement due to the amount of autonomy students had. The ability to collect data in the simulations in activity 1 created a controlled environment to determine gravitational potential energy before students were asked to take measurements to determine gravitational potential energy in the real world in activity 3.   A video procedure is provided for students in most lab activities. It is embedded in the slide template. The ability to provide video procedures is a powerful resource for all learners. They provide the opportunity for students to review the procedure as they are working on it. Students can pause and rewind if needed. The use of Google Slides as a template allows for breaking up the lab into discrete slides. This chunking of information per slide can help reduce the cognitive load.  For some students this helps them focus on one idea at a time. And when asked to refer back to a different part of the lab, it is easier to find as it can be referred to by slide number. 

Student 1 A and Student 2 J were chosen for several reasons. First, they provide a contrast in terms of the template of the lab they received.  Student 2 has an identified learning disability related to written work so he receives scaffolds to assist in his writing. Student 1 is a high performer within the classroom and has no identified learning disabilities. Student 1 also shows a progression of understanding of the concepts within the unit that mirrored the majority of the students in the class making her work a good sample to view. 

Looking at Activity 1 A and J both designed a skate track. A is the kind of student who works to get the assignment done so we can see her track is fairly basic. On the other hand, J took a little more time to design a fun track. There were no rules for the track that needed to be designed so both met the requirements of the activity. In J's lab template, sentences were structured for him to choose the correct word in order to accommodate struggles with writing and focus on his ability to interpret the data given. A has no issues with more complex calculations. So, her lab includes an additional slide for calculating velocity based on kinetic energy. This slide was not a part of the template for those students who struggle with complex mathematics. J was able to pull out the major relationships between energy, height, and velocity based on his answers. A was able to compare her calculated velocities to those measured in the simulation citing specific data. I regret not including some of the general questions relating energy, height, and velocity in this version of the write-up.  

Student 1 A's Activity 1 Lab Report - any teacher comments are in red at the bottom corner of the slide

Student 2 J's Activity 1 Lab Report- any teacher comments are in red at the bottom corner of the slide

In constructing activity 2, there were many scaffolds and accommodations to make it easier for J to navigate the activity. The standard template given to the majority of the students like A required a lot of back and forth between the simulation and the lab write-up. Lots of monitoring of graphs, pausing, recording data, taking screenshots, and pasting them into the lab. While students like A may be able to navigate these workflows without getting lost, these steps may get in the way of the learning for a student like J. For this reason, many of these steps were altered in this form of the template. 

Student 1 A's Activity 2 Lab Report - any teacher comments are in red at the bottom corner of the slide

Student 2 J's Activity 2 Lab Report - any teacher comments are in red at the bottom corner of the slide

In terms of their understanding in this lab, J struggled with pulling out the major changes in energy that occur with the different forms of energy during the oscillation. He could still pull out the basics of how kinetic energy relates to velocity and gravitational potential energy relates to height. But, keeping track of all 3 forms of energy and total energy during this activity seemed like a bit much. So when it came to the later activities, we attempted to sort this out more for him. A showed a general understanding of maximums and minimums and the ability to express the fact that some energies, like kinetic energy, show increases and decreases while in motion. Her only misunderstandings came with the new form of energy, elastic potential. After a lecture on elastic potential energy, these misunderstandings were cleared up for A. 

In activity 3, both students were in-person and therefore got to collect real data to put into their lab. While both students completed 3 trials with 2 different poppers and collected heights, A and a majority of the students were asked to apply the kinetic energy formula to determine the velocity of the popper. Because of struggles with more complex calculations, this computation was removed for J. 

Student 1 A's Activity 3 Lab Report - any teacher comments are in red at the bottom corner of the slide

Student 2 J's Activity 3 Lab Report - any teacher comments are in red at the bottom corner of the slide

Although he was able to complete many of the energy calculations, J showed difficulty identifying the forms of energy present during the popper’s flight. Although we observed the motion of the popper with our eyes, it was very fast. Perhaps, a slow motion visual would have been helpful. He failed to realize that it could have more than 1 form of energy at the same time. This is a situation where a 1:1 interaction going through the slide proved beneficial after the fact. His issues in the table on slide 4 can also be seen in the sentence formation on slide 5. In many situations, he failed to identify the form of energy present or identified it incorrectly. For A, the only real issue in Activity 3 arised in her calculations for popper 1.  It is a matter of using the correct form of mass in her calculations, kg vs g.

While both students demonstrated that total energy in a system remains constant throughout a transformation, they differed in their ability to track the forms of energy present. By the end of the unit, A had little difficulty determining the forms of energy at different points in a transformation. J struggled with the idea that multiple forms of energy could be present at a specific point once we moved away from the simulation. A was able to step away from a simulation which told her which types of energies were present and apply it to a situation in the classroom. J struggled to make this transition to the application level of the concept. 

Each activity was assessed using a specific set of overarching learning outcomes for the course. Each outcome was assessed using a rubric with a 4 point scale. A 3.2 on the 4 point rubric indicates demonstration of mastery. A 4 on the scale indicates exceeded expectations. A 1 on the scale indicates learning is in progress. A 0 on the scale indicates no progress towards mastery. The 2 outcomes assessed in energy skate park were Analyzing Data and Using Mathematics. Analysis includes looking at trends seen in the energy data collected. Using mathematics includes applying the formulas to determine energy at different points on the track. The outcome assessed in mass and springs was Carrying Out Investigations. In assessing this assignment, the ability for students to collect and present data was the focus. The outcomes assessed in the popper lab were Using Mathematics and Constructing Explanations. Using mathematics related to the ability of students to calculate the amount of energy present in the popper’s flight. Constructing explanations assesses the ability of students to explain the different forms of energy present during the transformation.

Students submit labs digitally via our learning management system, Canvas. In providing feedback, I provide a score on the rubric but also digital comments in the Google Slides file. The comments allow students to pinpoint areas for growth in terms of progressing towards mastery. The comments in the Google file are a good place for the conversation to start as students address areas for growth and resubmit. When students resubmit work, it will be reassessed using the same rubric. Feedback in the comments will range from pointing out a minor error in calculations or posing a question to drive deeper thinking or address an error in thinking. 

In the next post, I'll be focusing on the summative assessment for the unit and a reflection on the work for this component.