In my previous school district, I was the only teacher teaching a physics course with set, district-wide learning outcomes. These same outcomes were also taught in physics classrooms at the other high school in our district. But at our school, I was one of the 2 physics teachers. The other teacher taught the AP-level physics courses. So, in many ways, I had opportunities to incorporate strategies I believed were best for learners and that I found worked best for them without being seen as out of alignment with anyone in our building. My amazing friend and one of my teaching philosophy goddesses, Katie Novak, stated the following misconception about alignment: All teachers must deliver instruction in the exact same way. True alignment, she says, is about shared goals, rigor, and outcomes. Thank you, Katie! Katie has taught me to truly believe that learner variability is the rule, not the exception. I encourage you to take 10 minutes to listen to Katie Novak explain it in the ...
Every teacher has that activity that they look forward to. The activity they know will not simply get students engaged in what’s going on but take risks in their learning. Some teachers have more than one activity. But if you think of the one experience that is really out of the norm, you can usually pinpoint it. This activity for our physics class is marble coasters. It’s the type of activity that disrupts my whole classroom space. It causes students from other classes to peek in as they walk by and wonder what is going on. It causes my AP Physics students to be jealous of my Physics students. In marble coaster construction, students use pipe insulation and other materials to construct a rollercoaster for a marble that must have a minimum number of required obstacles. The 2 major requirements are the number of obstacles and that the marble travel the track successfully. What is interesting is that with minimal instruction, students are in groups and off and running. There are m...