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!

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.