SOCS-I Arons chapter 4

Tonights reading made me feel pretty good about what I do.  I have a cut circular path; I use an overhead projector to project shadows of motion and "arrows," and I talk to the kids about the difference between motion with direction(rotations through angles) and vector displacement.  I am curious how I would make this a discovery/paradigm lab instead of a "sage on the stage" event.  I am excited to have the kids walk around in front of the overhead projector.  I am a huge proponent of using "modern" technology when it has pedagogical implications in the classroom.  I wonder if it will be any better if I make the shadows on a SMART board.

SOCS-P

The reading tonight was short and sweet.  Thank you Laura!  I needed a night off so that I could get some scheduling work done for...well... work.  Anyway, it makes me think so much about what the beginning of school should look like.  I have questions and interesting sayings posted up around my room.  My intention is to help get the kids engaged.  I ask them which ones make them curious and try to engage in discussions about them, but after the first day, the conversations kind of died.  I am hoping that I can keep them coming with the help of this new methodology.  I am SO excited to run my kids through the "Do you think there is a relationship between the mass of a stick and its length?" experiment.  Then I am excited to say, "Do you think this is something we can measure?"  "Is that vague enough for you?" and the like.  I am sure this year will be a happier, more productive, and more engaging year.  Thank you to the team for giving me the push I needed.

SOCS-I (Arons 3.16-3.24 ish)

I remember reading the entry on equal signs before (I have owned the Arons book for a few years now) and it struck me again how much the material that we find so simple can be so confusing to our students.  I have made a point to talk about the different meanings of the equal sign in my class, but taking this class has pointed out so many more places where I have to be careful not to gloss over material that can be totally confusing to my students.

SOCS-P

After reading the Hestenes article on modeling physics about Malcom Wells' successes in teaching high school physics, I feel challenged to beat his scores on the FCI test mixed with the "Baseline Test."  I am on board with trying the modeling method in my classroom, and I am fairly convinced that the change in method will help my students gain a better understanding.  However, the challenge that no teacher, that this paper has heard of, has overcome his results.  Perhaps this has changed since 1994, but consider the gauntlet thrown down!

PS.  I am not sure the exclamation point should be the punctuation mark of choice in an academic paper.