This post describes a project that follows the Energy… Part 2 unit. If you haven’t read about that (new!) unit yet, this post will probably be confusing. This project was created in collaboration with Allie Boyd at the Energy & Equity summer workshop (link takes you to the portal; find the current workshop info through links on… Read More Your Own Energy Story Mini Project
It is impossible to separate science from the sociopolitical. As I think about updating my courses this summer, this idea is one that I keep coming back to and wanting to find additional ways to make explicit in my classes. Last summer, I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in the Energy & Equity summer… Read More Energy… Part 2 — Science is Sociopolitical
One new change to my intro physics class this past school year was to replace the set of FBD practice problems with a card sort that would be done in groups. The card sort gives students a chance to practice FBDs with some scaffolding (especially choosing between options rather than creating everything from scratch), and… Read More Force Diagrams — A Card Sort
In my Physics 10 update/upgrades, I built a new paradigm investigation for the Constant Acceleration Particle Model. The activity described here gets at the same things as my older activity, but it allows groups to do the investigation rather than the entire class together, and it gives more structure and space to the discussion. The… Read More Building the Constant Acceleration Particle Model (New Paradigm Investigation)
I’ve been making major updates and changes to my materials in the intro physics course this year. It is the first year we are teaching a yearlong physics class to everyone (10th graders) in my school as the result of a big curriculum redesign in science, and the first time back to teaching a course… Read More Stacks of Kinematics Curves as a Card Sort
I am leading two workshops this summer. Both workshops are on teaching graphical solutions in physics. Why are graphical solutions so great in physics classes? Graphical solutions put sense-making at the center of problem solving. They work for all levels of students. They make more challenging problems accessible to students with less math confidence/experience and they… Read More July 2015 Workshops and Graphical Solutions for Physics
I gave a workshop with Mike Pustie in NYC in June and with Casey Rutherford in Minneapolis in July on using a graphical approach to solve kinematics and force problems. I wrote a bit about the content involved in my preview post, and I wanted to follow that up here by making the slides and… Read More Graphical Solutions for Forces and Kinematics (Workshop Recap)
NOTE: This post was from 2014. This workshop already happened. Keep reading if you want to know a bit more about graphical solutions in physics. Graphical Solutions for Forces and Kinematics On the Sunday of the AAPT summer meeting (July 27th), Casey Rutherford and I are offering a free, unofficial1 workshop on using velocity graphs and… Read More Free, Unofficial Workshop during AAPT in July
During our PLC chat this week, we talked at one point about how long it takes for students to become completely consistent in drawing motion graphs. My experience has been that students become confident relatively quickly in drawing the velocity-vs-time graphs (having switched their brain into thinking through v-t graphs), but still sometimes struggle to draw… Read More Drawing accelerated position-time graphs
The stage is set. We started building the energy transfer model (ETM), and we’ve talked about the flavors of energy. We are ready for a new representation to help us start thinking about energy storage in a system. In a day or two, we’ll be using energy bar charts, but first, we’ll get used to… Read More Energy Pie Charts
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