Happy Friday

I had a great day today.  In one of my classes, we had a great discussion about why scientists might try to fit a mathematical model of best fit to a set of data.  It was a great "what do scientists do?" conversation, and I think it may have had a profound effect on my students' thinking about physics class in high school.  It totally jazzed me up.

Also, I had a "moment" in my honors class.  We were discussion the meaning of different quantities in the mathematical models we arrived at during our measurement labs.  We moved from a lab on the relationship between the mass of a cup filled with dice and the number of dice in the cup.  It is very clear in that linear model what the meaning of the "y-intercept" and the slope are.  So we moved to a different experiment, where we determined the relationship between the mass needed to balance a see saw with a set mass on one side to the distance the mass has to be placed from the fulcrum.  This ends up plotting a function like D=A/m  where D is the distance from the fulcrum, A is a constant and m is the mass.  I asked if the kids could come up with some meaning for the "A" term.  I did not have an idea what it was, but I wanted to hear what they had to say.  After two different kids made two different statements, it dawned on me what that term was.  It is the product of the set mass and its distance from the fulcrum on the other side of the see saw.  How fun is that to have figured something out with the kids during a white board discussion.  We even went a little long in class on the last period of the day on Friday.  The kids were so into the conversation.  It was great.

This modeling is going well, I think, but it is interesting how up and down my year has been.  I clearly have good days and bad ones.  Before I was trying to model, I mostly just had days.  Now, I get disappointed when the kids are opting out of participating and it can dampen my mood.  On the other hand, I have days like Friday where I walk away totally energized.  It was a great day!

The first full week... It's Hump DAY!

We spent a bit too much time on the measurement lab with stick-length and their mass.  I was surprised at how hard it was to get my students to discuss the physical implications of things like the so-called "y-intercept."  I said things like, "Oh, I wasn't aware we were measuring "y."  and they were completely thrown off guard.  Then I asked them to talk about the possible meaning of the "y-intercept."  All they had to share was that it was where it crossed the "y-axis."  No matter which kid engaged, that was as far as we were getting.  The knee jerk reaction to the "slope-intercept" form is strong with my kids, and it is clear that causing them to reflect on where the equation came from and what the meaning of the formula is will be essential to the process and to their learning.  After two days of discussion on those boards, we have moved on to more measurement labs.  They seem to be going better, but things are taking longer than anticipated.  I need longer class periods, I guess.

On another note, I am shocked at how much difficulty I am having getting certain classes to "circle up."  After my first request to circle up, I have one group that will not shift in their seat, not even a bit.  After my second request, they move their chair closer to the circle that is slowly forming.  Only after asking them how a game of "duck, duck, goose" would work with this type of circle did they actually move.  Then we still had issues because everyone was hiding behind some board or some other student.  In one class we spent easily 5 minutes just getting into a circle.  I am hoping that this is just the "beginning of school blues" but man, it certainly can take the wind out of your sails from a teacher standpoint.

All in all, modeling seems to be working well so far, but I am very concerned about the amount of time things are taking.  My wacky schedule doesn't help anything either.  I miss my honors class twice this week.  I clearly need more white boards.  30 is not enough because my honors class just used 2 for each group (that is 16) and I won't see them again until Friday.  That means my other classes have 14 boards to use for the next two days, and that clearly will not be enough.

White board stands revisited

I just wanted to report that my 2"x4" white boards stands function in portrait mode, but not in landscape mode, they fall over.  I bought a 2"x6" last night and will be making more holders tonight.  The 2x4 worked with some 2x4 pieces and some boards, but given the inconsistency of the densities of each piece, they did not all work interchangeably.  Also, while they "worked" in landscape mode, they were in what we physics teachers might call neutral equilibrium.  If pushed one way, nothing would change, if pushed the other way, they would tip.  I am hoping that moving the COM of the base back by an inch or so, and lower by quite a bit (the 2x6 has more mass than the 2x4)  I am hopeful that this will be my last work on the holders.  I have more important things to do, but I need these holders in place.  Particularly because my room is not set up for this "circling up."  Between boards and kids, there is almost no way to follow the rules of circling up.  If I can place the boards on my tables, then there can be an inner circle of boards and an outer circle of students.  I think this will work, and given that the tables are low enough, the students can all see every board and won't be hiding.  I will keep you posted and post pictures when they are complete.  I should get a white board home for my testing, but they are a bit cumbersome to haul around, and I always have a 4 and a 6 YO in tow when I am coming to and from school.

Measurement Day

Today my plan for each class was to go through a "measurement" lab so that they can get the hang of white boarding, using excel, and "circling up."  I had dowels cut to different lengths and I asked the kids to determine if there was a relationship between the length of the rod and its mass.  We took data, made data tables and graphs.  Again, the different approaches, the difference in confidence and the speed/precision of how they worked was interesting to observe.  In LSW after a 70 minute block we had graphs, we knew there was a correlation, and we were just getting to the fact that it might be a direct relationship.  In honors, the conversation took a different turn and we had to talk about circle etiquette and being careful not to be an explainer.  In the Calc-based class, the students worked through the lab quickly and were a bit frustrated by how much I was pushing them on the meaning of each of the terms in the "linear" model that they were using.  Throughout the day, I had to stop the kids several times by saying, "OK, I see that you understand that that number is the 'y-intercept' but I was not aware we were measuring 'y' and I am not sure we clearly understand the physical meaning of the 'y-intercept' in this case."  Many of the most advanced kids were struggling to be able to explain the meaning in terms of our exercise.  I found that very interesting.  I also found it interesting that one of my students hopped right out with a "for every" statement all by himself.  Good times!

In any case, the day left me feeling inspired and happy.  It also left my mind reeling about how to debrief the lab group sorting exercise some more and what I wanted to talk about with each group tomorrow.  I have to say, if I can keep this pace up and keep the kids engaged like this, I am going to have a great year!  Now I need to cut some floor tiles, make some graph paper copies and get ready for measurement day part duex.

Not only did this day leave me more energized, but it left me buzzing about my great day, and it gave me the strength to get more work done when I got home.  Maybe I am just still riding on the summer energy high, but I would like to think that there is more to it than that.  I would like to think that, instead of teaching sapping me of all of my energy, I am actually absorbing some from the energy of the students.  I tell you, it was a great day to be sure!

The First Day

On the first day, I planned on grouping kids for the group work we are going to be doing right out of the gate.  At my school we only have 20 minute blocks of time with each class on "orientation" day.  I find this time to be cumbersome because it is not enough time to get much meaningful work done, but it is not a short enough time to merely have a little face to face time and figure out where the classroom is.

Given the 20 minute block of time, I figured an ice breaker/grouping exercise seemed to be in order.  I was grateful that the night before school Gary Abud tweeted something about Frank Noschese's subversive grouping method.  This was perfect timing and a wonderful game.  I made the cards and edited some of the groupings to include road names near us and some others to get to the number of groups/students I needed.

I teach three levels of physics, "Light, Sound and Waves" a semester-long algebra-based entry level course, Honors Physics, an algebra-based course, and "Calculus-based Mechanics", a semester-long calculus based second-year elective.  The two sections of LSW finished the exercise in 5 minutes with very little discussion.  Given the number of car/president names, one class ended up with 6 presidents and a car all by herself and the other ended up with 6 cars and a president all by himself.  Once I noted that this might be an odd way for me to intentionally set up groups, they all looked at each other and switched seats, and voila, the appropriate number of three-student groups appeared.  In reflection on this, I found it intriguing that they were able to accomplish this task without really speaking a word.  Now, I should let you all know that many of my students have known each other since they were 4.  Liggett is a PK-12 school where 1/3 of any grade has been together since PK.  Perhaps they used telepathy:)

The Honors class took the entire 20 minute period and barely finished on time.  The students were much ruder to one another, and they were completely unwilling to change their mind.  "I have Washington, and Washington was a president, and I am with the presidents!" I remember hearing as another class member pointed out that Washington was also a state.  Leaders only emerged when the time pressure became clear.  Then the leaders decided that they should put all the cards on a table and sort the groups out.  At this point the 4 leaders, all girls btw, sorted out the groups correctly.  Some other students watched, and several completely disengaged from the activity.  I was surprised by how differently the activity went with the honors kids.

The Calculus based class took a bit longer than the LSW kids, but still finished pretty quickly.  There are only 11 of them though, so that might add to the speed.  There were fewer groups.  They did not argue much, but they are a really close knit group of students, so it made sense.  My honors course has 24 kids (my largest group ever) and that might be why that class took longer.

In any case, I don't know if I debriefed this exercise correctly, but It was odd to me to have honors kids disengaging in a 20 minute ACTIVITY on the first day of school.  Herumf!  One of my LSW kids commented that if this is what the first day looked like, she was going to be in for a long year.  I found that disheartening, as I am here trying to do something engaging, fun and useful, and her response was to be completely overwhelmed.

Lastly, I spoke with one of the mothers of one of my students after the second day of school, and she shared with me that when she asked her daughter what she thought her favorite class was going to be this year, she responded physics.  This was a shock to mom, and it makes it all worth it for me.  To have a student who is not necessarily predisposed to physics tell her mom that she thought it was going to be her favorite class encourages me to continue my journey as a modeler.

Could I be ready for the first day of school?

I did it, I got myself ready for the first day, I think.  I went to Lowes..... and then Home Depot because Lowes did not have enough white board material.  I purchased 5 sheets of 1/8" melamine type white board material and had the guys cut it for me.  The first cut was 2' off the 8' side making a 2'x 4' board and a 4' x 6' piece.  Then cut the board to two feet by cutting the 4' side in half.  Then stack all the two foot wide pieces up and cut a 3' length.  You end up with 5 white boards and a little 2'x1' piece left over for your daughters to play with.  So, I now have 25 white boards of this style and 5 magnetic wonderful ones from Costco.  30 white boards ought to be enough for me to have each class be able to keep a white board in action until the next class day.

Now to the holders.  I used a 12' length of 2"x 4" and cut it into 1.5' lengths.  Then I cut 3/4 depth slits to fit the whiteboards in.  I cut across the short way at one end and then along the long side.  I am hoping that these will hold up a whiteboard in either portrait or landscape style.  I will also be using my whiteboards as privacy boards during tests, since my classroom has tables and not desks.

I am going to attempt to import pictures here:  Please note that I am using one of the left over 2' x 1' pieces to model here.

Lastly, I purchased, and cut to various lengths, dowels and rods and the like.  I tried to make sure that the lengths I cut were doubled and quadrupled.  The plan is to ask the kids if there is any relationship between the length of the rod and its mass.  Then I will have them measure those things to see if there is in fact a relationship.  Once they have data, they can enter it into excel, or logger pro and get a fit for it.  Given that the relationship should be linear, the doubling and quadrupling should make it easy to see this pattern.  For fun, some of the dowels are oak and some are poplar.  The dimensions are exactly the same, and I cut the lengths the same.  This way, when the groups compare notes, they will have to notice that the slope difference goes beyond mere dimensions.  This should get me through until next week when my constant velocity cars arrive :)

Now, how will I learn the students names?

Here Goes!

Today we had our final "beginning of the year" meeting.  I have had very little time in my classroom, and with the challenges of  small children who need childcare, I have not been preparing in the way I would have liked to.  I am fully intending on modeling this year, but I am particularly worried about applying this new method of instruction to my second year physics students and my Light, Sound and Waves elective.  The former already have a strong foundation in this material, and the latter have none.  How do I model wave motion with students who don't already know the concepts of force, velocity, energy, etc.?  At the same time, how do I model with students who already "know all the answers?"  In any case, it looks like Labor day weekend will be spent laboring.  That seems counter to the cause for the holiday, but as a teacher, I guess this is just par for the course.  I guess I am just a bit upset that the summer has drawn to a close and the whirlwind of the school year is about to begin.  I will try to keep blogging to journal my escapades as a new modeler.  The more you read and comment, the more likely I will be to stick with this method of reflection.

Of course, there is a part of me that can't wait to say, "Does this seem like something we can measure?  Does that sound like a lab?  Great, get started!"  And of course, "To make this easy, I will make it multiple choice."

I look forward to interacting with you all in cyberspace!