Hey guys, I want to show you something cool. [As they came in, you discussed the uber-important catching the cart with the student sitting near the end of the ramp.] Whoa, that was pretty cool, huh? Want to see it again? Of course you do. [Let the cart go down the ramp again.] Cool. Okay, so… Read More Building the Constant Acceleration Model
Students are applying for extra tests (given on Sundays) by filling out the form on our class website during the week. That process is going well, and it lets me prepare tests for them ahead of time instead of scrambling to hand out problems while lots of other students wait around and get anxious/annoyed/etc. Another… Read More Managing extra tests
Hey guys! [Turn on hover disc. Wait a moment. Turn it off.] Something new! Let’s look at it! I want to show you something cool. Let’s all sit on the floor right here. [Get everyone sitting in a circle in the middle of the room on the tile floor. Turn the hover disc back on.… Read More Building the Balanced Force Particle Model
Now that we are out of September, my students have enough work to do outside of class that I don’t need to assign any specific homework. Still, this view of in-class and out-of-class work is a huge paradigm shift for my students. Do they still have physics homework if there’s never anything “due” or that… Read More Effort vs Luck
Last spring, a large number of students at my school observed a day of silence. Since so many of my students wouldn’t be speaking in class, and since I don’t find it very productive for me to do the talking in class, I decided to come up with an alternate plan. I decided to have… Read More Monk Whiteboarding
Sometimes when I talk about the way that I grade (or actually, sort of don’t grade) to other adults, they scoff at the lack of points. They say things like, “If I were taking a quiz that I knew didn’t affect my grade, I wouldn’t take it seriously. I would just write Monkey Monkey Monkey… Read More Monkey Monkey Monkey
Today was my first day of whiteboarding with one of my Honors Physics classes. My plan was to use The Mistake Game from the very beginning this year. I suspected it would help set the tone of normalizing mistakes and make students more comfortable. Brief interlude about the general structure of whiteboarding in my class.… Read More Whiteboarding with Mistakes
I’ve always had my students do test corrections. When I used to award points, I would give some out (or “back”) for doing good corrections. I asked my students to complete them without consulting peers (though they could use their notes and could talk to me). They also had to make a statement for each… Read More Usefulness of Test Corrections
One of the handouts that comes in the binders that I give to students is some advice from past students. These bits of wisdom come from the course evaluations over the past few years. It’s really fascinating to see what they say (and for me to see how what they advise changes as my class… Read More Advice from former Honors Physics students
We don’t use a textbook in my class. So my students’ binders are their key physics possession. When I first started teaching, I foolishly just assumed that when I told them to get and keep a binder for my class, that they would know how to do that (and would do it). During that first… Read More Delicious Physics Binders
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