Mo Physics Mo Problems

As a physics teacher, I am constantly looking for new ways for my students to conceptualize their knowledge and experiment with it. For this reason, I am always on the hunt for great new simulations. PhET Interactive Simulations have been a fantastic resource for my classroom. They are a great way for students to manipulate variables and see the effect instantaneously. These simulations aren't the only place they would see digital representations of physics. Every platform game has some form of a physics engine in it that students get to interact with. In my classroom, one of the games students analyze is Angry Birds. As I think more about this process on using simulations, I feel that there is something missing. Yesterday at the Wisconsin ASCD conference, I was able to hear Agnieszka (Aggie) Salter speak about the passion her elementary students have for coding in the classroom.  I honestly know very little about coding.  In fact, I dropped a Java course i...

Learners in my classroom are very comfortable doing what they are assigned to do. They aim to complete the task at hand as defined by me. Many do not question the why of the learning because of an understanding that this is what it means to “do school”. When given an assignment, it is a task to completed. The learners in my classes are very compliant in that way. When given hands-on tasks that ask them to create a product, they are highly engaged. Some take the opportunity to unleash their creativity and go beyond the norm to own the process while the majority create within safer prescribed paths. I want to provide more opportunities for students to  own their choices on a daily basis in our classroom. For a few years now, I have been working with freedom of choice in forms of summative assessments in my classroom.  But, the day to day practice work in my class has really fallen into the compliant practice question mode. The practice work my students do has several...

My goal in the class is not only mastery of course outcomes.  I really want learners to find some connection to physics. When they hear the word physics, it won’t not something unattainable. It is directly connected to who they are. If I plan to help students make these connections, it is not enough for me to just learn my students names and faces. As the content expert, I bring something essential to the table. I know what physics is beyond a narrow or incomprehensible definition one might find online. Students on the other hand have topics they are passionate about.  If they are going to find a connection to physics, I can’t expect all learners to find that attraction on their own. I am the one who needs to show them that physics can be connected to their passions. I am the matchmaker between the student and physics. In all of my teaching career when first getting to know students, I basically looked at a their faces on the roster and their names and played a li...

In spring of this year, I posted about a plan for personalizing practice in my classroom by creating physical and digital learning zones within the classroom . Well, a lot of physical and curricular changes occurred in my learning environment over the summer. So, I’m ready to start putting that plan into action. In terms of the curricular space of my learning space, I have 2 collaborators to thank. My co-teacher Andelee Espinosa and I are working to reach all learners in our classroom. The needs of our learners in physics encompasses a broader spectrum than ever before. We teach in a fully inclusive classroom in which over ⅓ of our physics students have an identified learning disability for which they receive accommodations. We firmly hold the belief that all of our learners can do physics. They may not all reach the same endpoint, but we can help all learners make gains in their ability to “do physics”. It is one thing to say that we want to reach all learners, but it...

I'm getting to the point where when I open up my Twitter feed and scroll for about 8 minutes, I realize I've only made it about 20 minutes into the timeline. It begs the question, "What am I missing?" I understand that sometimes when I go to Twitter, I just want to drift with the current. Other times, though, I want to be purposeful with my stream. It could be getting specific news, ideas, or connecting with a community. In the name of feeding my specific needs, I've decided to use Twitter Lists a bit more intentionally. A Twitter list is a feed that consists solely of a specific list of user accounts.  You don't need to follow these users for them to be a part of a list.  You can create your own lists or subscribe to a list created by a different user. I first realized the power of a Twitter list when I discovered my district superintendent had created a Twitter list that consisted of the accounts of our schools and staff that are using Twitter for pr...

Ever since Google Docs came into my world, I've used it to create many templates for my learners. From labs to reflection documents, I've used it as my default go to. As I've tried to allow learners more choice in their demonstration of mastery of outcomes, I haven't changed my use of docs as a lab template. I hope to change that this year. To do that, I've decided to design all lab templates as slides.  The hope is that this simple change will allow them more how they choose to present their learning. How does this simple change do that? Clarifies organization of the document by putting separate ideas on different slides Create a blank canvas for student creation on each slide Use speaker notes for instructions/prompts without disrupting flow of student ideas or as a space for more detailed explanation of student thoughts Allows students to more easily add multiple forms of media Create drawings Images Tables Videos from Drive or YouTube Easily...

One of the main tasks before teachers as we begin the school year, is setting up our digital gradebooks. This year, I’m making a major change in the way I setup my gradebook based on the fact that I am moving from an outcomes that are contained within a unit of instruction to outcomes that carry over from unit to unit. Now, I am a science teacher.  So, I hope you don’t quickly tune out if you are not. I think as we move towards skills based outcomes, we need to work together to find systems of assessment and communication that work for all.  I would love to hear what others are doing.  I don’t have the answers. This is just my iteration of an idea. Hopefully we can innovate together. We work with Infinite Campus online gradebook. Our gradebook has weighted categories. A couple of years ago, I set these categories as tests, labs, and practice work.  Then, I moved to create a category for each unit outcome I created.  This became a little overwhelmin...