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
Well, I was planning on just dealing with 2 stages of the LAUNCH Cycle in this post, but I burned through the rest of the book yesterday. The book itself is a very engaging read. My post may reflect the nuts and bolts of the cycle, but the book is filled with practical applications and stories from the authors lives that show what the LAUNCH Cycle looks like. That is the power of their work. It is based on experience and data. Step 4: Navigating Ideas So, this is a step that I have always shortchanged. When I initially looked at the cycle without knowing about it, I figured I knew what it was about. I thought it would just be a stage of organizing information. I was wrong. Much like generating questions is a bridge between awareness and research, navigating ideas is a bridge between research and creation. It is the a step for creating a plan for creation. Juliani and Spencer call this process ideating . Ideating is not simply planning the creation process. An ess