On Friday, I was so pleased to be able to return to one of my favorite days of the year, High-Interest Day at Brookfield Elementary School. This is a day where I have been able to bring the concepts of physics to k-5 graders. You may be asking yourself, "Elementary students doing physics?" YES! Not just experimenting, but understanding the concepts behind the physics of electricity and sound. This is a very special day I have had the opportunity to be involved in since 2017. So, how are we able to bring the concepts of electricity and sound traditionally taught to high school 11th and 12th graders to the elementary level? There are a few keys 1) make it a hands-on experience 2) remove the mathematical calculations and make it practical. In the past, I had the luck of bringing a handful of my physics students with me to guide the elementary students through the concepts that they had learned over the course of the year. But in my new role as a Teaching and Learning Speciali
As I embark on the National Board Teacher Certification process, I am using this space to post some of my work and thoughts. Component 2 of the process is a portfolio documenting Differentiation in Instruction. This portfolio is intended to demonstrate how instruction is differentiated in unit. There are multiple pieces to the portfolio to document the process and the results including Instructional Context, Planning of Instruction with Activity Samples, Analysis of Student Work with Samples, and Description of the Summative Assessment. In this post, I'd like to focus on the Planning of Instruction. Before I do that, though, here is a little snippet from the instructional context. The class that is being featured is a general physics course with 25 students. The students are in grades 10 and 11. Their ages range from 16 to 18 years. Twenty one of the students were in-person learners and 4 were attending virtually. This is a general algebra based introductory physics course. The