This past year, as my AP Physics 2 cases piloted Chromebooks, we used a couple of formative assessment tools frequently in class. For Peer Instruction, we used InfuseLearning. InfuseLearning’s stand-out feature was their support for draw-response questions. Having students sketch graphs and draw diagrams is very valuable as a formative assessment in physics class. Throughout […]
This year with my AP Physics B class, I’m trying a number of new ideas. One is peer instruction. This appealed to me because historically my AP Physics students have struggled on the more conceptual questions and peer instruction addresses these types of questions. While peer instruction is often associated with some sort of a […]
On the eve of the first day of school, I felt that I better capture my thoughts on AP Physics 2 last year. My perspective may be different than other’s (at least different than the vocal minority(?) on the AP Teacher Community). I started last year eagerly anticipating the new AP Physics 2 course. For […]
This fall, my AP Physics 2 classes will be using Chromebooks as part of my school district’s 1:1 pilot. Chromebooks were new to me; so, it took some time this summer to find the apps to support the workflow I want for this class. While I’m sure the toolchain will change throughout the semester, and […]
Before I start planning for the new AP Physics 2 class in detail, I first reviewed the end-of-year feedback from my AP Physics B students. I made very few changes in this course last year since two years ago went well and this is the last year for the course. In the following charts, a […]
A colleague of mine will be the department chair at a 1:1 iPad school next year. While we don’t have a 1:1 program (yet), I have piloted iPads in my classroom. I wanted to share the apps that worked well in a science classroom and general deployment tips. To start, there are some general apps […]
This past school year, my colleagues and I restructured our Honors Physics course to unofficially pilot the AP Physics 1 course. This was motivated by several factors. We wanted to get a jump on the new AP Physics 1 course so that this summer we would only have to revise the course since we also […]
This fall, our school district adopted a new model for how professional development affects teacher salary. The new model provides various opportunities for educators to participate in professional development activates aligned to their personal career path. These activities may result in immediate compensation or “points” that can accumulate and move teachers across the traditional salary […]
Last year, I was a member of my high school’s Technology Field Test Team, a group of teachers, Technology Integration Specialists, and administrators who were piloting various technology initiatives (e.g., one-to-one iPads, BYOD, iPad carts, etc.). This year, that team is morphing into a team focused on technology integration building-wide rather than additional pilots. Along […]
Several factors combined into a perfect storm that set the stage to make major changes to our Honors Physics course. One, last year was rough and several aspects of class were disappointing. I’m not going to dwell on those here. Two, we have an extra section of Honors Physics this upcoming year and another physics […]