After a recent Global Physics Department meeting about Standards-Based Grading (SBG), I got to thinking about how I would adapt my grading scheme if I taught more than 40 or 50 students per year (which many of the teachers at the meeting were/are doing). One idea that I had was about doing more of the… Read More Choose Your Test Flavor
Disclaimer: I most certainly did not come up with this type of diagram, though the name (IF charts) is probably unique to my classes since it’s based on the way one of my first Modeling Physics students drew her bar charts. This post is meant to be a how-to and a why-to guide for the… Read More Momentum Bar Charts (IF Charts, IFF Charts)
Hey guys, bring a pencil and a whiteboard next door. I want to show you something cool. [Wave them over to the lab. At the front table, there are two tracks set up to make one long track (half of which is a ramp). Two carts and some extra masses (blocks) are at the ready.]… Read More Building the Momentum Transfer Model
Hey guys, I want to show you something cool. Bring your new packet and a pencil and come next door. Make sure the stools are out of the way or someone’s going to get themselves killed in this experiment. Stand on the other side of the table. Don’t stand at the end there; you’re going… Read More Building the Unbalanced Force Particle Model
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
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