Category Archives: teaching

Comfortable Classroom

Leave a reply

When I first started teaching, I was greeted with a room without windows and bare walls. I wanted to do something to make it more personal, but I wasn’t sure how. I’m not a bulletin board designer type. I did have several posters from The Physics Teacher and found others stored in the room. I had them laminated and plastered the walls with posters.

The room was okay. Some students found the posters interesting, but the room was nothing special.

Over the past few years, my colleague and I have transformed our current room to a comfortable, student-personalized space. There are very few posters but lots of student-generated projects and art work.

Some of my favorite pieces are a former student’s AP Studio Art portfolio which was focused on physics.

AP Studio Art Project

The two pieces on the left are also part of her portfolio. We also highlight some bridges and towers that students have built. Sometimes inspiration strikes and a water bottle gets glued to the wall.

studnet projects

We also frame and hang photos from students who have entered the AAPT High School Photo Contest.

ferrofluid

We display photos from the clubs that we mentor, like Physics Club and FIRST Robotics, to inspire students to participate.

high-altitutde ballooning

The whole ceiling is covered with mobile projects (forces and torques in equilibrium). Almost every student leaves their project until next year’s class makes their own.

100 0935

My least favorite part of the room is now the individual desks. The plan is to get hand-me-down tables and chairs from an adjoining physics room and be able to arrange students in groups of four next year!

Peer Instruction with NearPod and iPads

Leave a reply

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 “flipped” classroom, I want to be clear that I’m not flipping anything. I’m using peer instruction as a formative assessment tool and an opportunity for students to refine their conceptual understanding through thought and debate.

The particular methodology that I’m trying is best described by Stephanie Chasteen in her post “FTEP Effective facilitation of clickers workshop. She referenced a paper either on her blog or her podcast which described how a specific peer instruction technique was the most effective. The key elements are:

  • students register their answer individually
  • instructor shows distribution of answers but not which answer is correct
  • students discuss, debate, and defend their answer; preferably with students who choose a different answer
  • students register their answer again
  • instruction show the distribution of answers and explains why that answer is correct

The research showed that this final step was critical.

In another post, Stephanie shared several resources for these types of questions for physics. I have found that Paul Hewitt’s Next-Time Questions also make excellent peer instruction questions as long as I post them in advance for students to consider outside of class with sufficient time for consideration.

I started the semester using Turning Technologies clickers, which I already use in some of my classes when administering exams. These worked fine. A colleague of mine showed me the NearPod app on the iPads, and I decided to try that for a change. While creating a presentation on the NearPod web site takes more effort on my part, I and my students have found using NearPod for peer instruction is better than the clickers. Because each student views the question on their own device, I can show more content-dense questions than I can when projecting on a screen in the classroom. In addition, NearPod allows me to create questions where students respond by drawing or annotating. This is perfect for graphical and diagrammatic answers. The only feature I miss when using NearPod is the lack of a countdown timer to remind students they need to submit their answers.

I have continuously been impressed with the level of engagement and the quality discussions that I observe during peer instruction. I’ve heard students devise novel and clear explanations when justifying their answer to other students. I’ve seen students leap into the air when they were in the minority but their answer is the correct one. I consistently receive very positive feedback about this element of class.

I hope to find a way to incorporate peer instruction into my Honors Physics class next year.

Confusion Is Ignorance Leaving the Brain

Leave a reply

Someone on Twitter passed along this great quote about students experiencing confusion in physics class:

Confusion is Ignorance Leaving the Brain.

(If you know who, please let me know so I can properly attribute it. Update: @jybuell first heard it from Kate Nowak (@k8nowak))

This quote really resonated with me. I’ve shared it with students who have expressed frustration with feeling confused as they are developing their understanding and refining their preconceptions. I made a note to make some posters featuring this quote, but my lack of design ability kept this task on the back burner. However, while browsing xkcd recently for Computer Science related comics, I found a couple of comics that fit this quote really well. I created a couple of posters that I will put up in class:

Summer Reading

Leave a reply

One of my goals this summer was to do more reading. I return to school is 21 days; so, I decided to capture what I’ve read so far since I probably won’t read too much more in the next few weeks.

I always fall behind on my magazines during the school year. So, every summer I skim the backlog and make notes for articles to reference later if they are relevant to a topic in class or a project to build. Over the years, I’ve reduced the number of magazines I faithfully read (or at least skim) to the three from which I learn the most: Scientific American, MAKE, and The Physics Teacher.

The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

I’ll read anything Hawking writes. After all, A Brief History of Time is what sparked my interested in physics and cosmology back in high school. I found The Grand Design interesting, enjoyable, and useful in unexpected ways. While the idea of M-Theory is interesting, I found the description of models and model-dependent realism excellent. In fact, I’m going to start AP Physics B with several quotes from the book on this topic as students really struggle to reconcile reality and models (“What is an electron, really?” “Are virtual particles actually present?” “How can light be both a wave and a particle?”). I also found their description of Feynman’s “sum over histories” particularly clear, and I hope that helps me teach quantum effects better next year.

Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays by Stephen Hawking

Not having my fill of Hawking, I remembered this much older book that my brother had given to me. It was enjoyable to read Hawking’s essays that were written over a period of decades and reminded me of what an amazing period of time it has been, and continues to be, for the field of cosmology.

Physics for Future Presidents by Richard A. Muller

While I had read selected chapters from Physics for Future Presidents, I hadn’t read the entire book. This book is incredible in that it makes such an authentic connection between physics and the greatest technological, society, and political challenges that we have in a manner that is digestible by high school students. We are fortunate to have a classroom set and I hope we find more ways to utilize this book next year.

Publishing with iBooks Author by Nellie McKesson and Adam Witwer

I downloaded this book for free from O’Reilly. I wanted a quick read to familiarize myself with iBooks Author as I was writing my AP Physics B review iBook. If you are familiar with the iWork apps, you can figure out iBooks Author, but this ebook sped me through a few of the the app’s rough edges.

Learning Java by Patrick Niemeyer and Jonathan Knudsen

I will be teaching AP Computer Science for the first time this fall. I haven’t written anything in Java in a very long time. Whenever I need to learn a technology quickly, I turn to O’Reilly. I admit that I only read the first twelve chapters. However, this book was perfect for refreshing my memory, filling in the missing pieces, and updating me on what has transpired over the past fifteen years.

Five Easy Lessons by Randall D. Knight

Dr. Knight was kind enough to send me a free copy of his book after a Global Physics Department meeting where he spoke. I started reading it shortly after receiving it, but it remained on the bedside table unopened as the semester became more hectic. There is so much wisdom and practical advice within its pages. I’ve made a note to remind myself when planning each unit next year to reference the appropriate chapter in Five Easy Lessons to see how I can improve my pedagogy. I still have a few more chapters to read before school starts.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris

While all of the above books were enjoyable to read, occasionally it is good to read something not directly related to science or technology. I had received Sedaris’ latest book as a gift. It is uniquely Sedaris and a wonderful read.

Marvel Comics: The Untold Story by Sean Howe

This book isn’t released until October 9th, but I’ve read some great reviews already. I hope to make time to read it during the fall semester. Sean and I grew up reading comic books together and I can’t wait to see what he has written!

What have you read worth sharing this summer? Let me know!

Preparing for New AP Physics B Course

1 Reply

I will spend a lot of time this summer preparing for a new AP Physics B course. For most of the past five years, I’ve taught an Advanced Physics course which was a third semester of physics after Honors Physics that covered fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, and modern physics topics. This class wasn’t officially an AP Physics B class, but many students took the AP exam and were well prepared.

However, this new course replaces Advanced Physics, will be a two-semester course, and is open to students who have completed either Physics or Honors Physics. So, the students will have covered different topics and approached physics from different perspectives. For example, the Honors Physics class covers a superset of topics but the Physics class emphasizes the development and understanding of Models. Due to this diversity, and now being an official AP course, I’m taking the opportunity to develop new class materials and try a few new approaches.

Topic Sequence

We will briefly review or cover all AP Physics B topics in this course. Topics that are review will be used as opportunities to perform more sophisticated labs and explore new representations such as computational models. In addition, there are certain topics that I believe should be part of a college physics class and that are of great interest to students but are not part of the AP Physics B curriculum. We will cover those as well.

Fall Semester

  • Special Relativity
  • Kinematics
  • Statics and Dynamics
  • Fluid Mechanics
  • Work, Energy, Power
  • Thermodynamics
  • Linear Momentum
  • Oscillations and Gravity
  • Waves
  • Capstone Project

Spring Semester

  • Electrostatics
  • Electric Circuits
  • Magnetic Fields
  • Electromagnetism
  • Geometric Optics
  • Physical Optics
  • Particle Physics
  • Atomic Physics and Quantum Effects
  • Nuclear Physics
  • Cosmology

Components of Each Unit

I’m going to try a few new ideas in most units. Some of these are driven by methodologies that I have wanted to try for a while (e.g., computational modeling and peer instruction). Others are driven by new technologies available to my students (e.g., Canvas and iPads).

Topic Summary

I’m currently writing an AP Physics B review guide as an iBook. I wanted a review guide tailored to my students’ experiences and the structure of the class. The review guide is organized by topic but focuses on the models applicable to each topic. In addition to a description of the relevant models, the graphical, mathematical, and diagrammatic representation of those models are included as appropriate. I want students to explore an additional representation of the models to reinforce their understanding and have been very impressed with John Burk’s use of computational modeling. So, computation models developed using physutil and VPython are also included. I hope to include the iBook (also as a PDF) as well as related videos and code snippets in an iTunesU course. I’ve been impressed with iBook Author so far and have exported the first chapter as a PDF.

AP Physics B

Labs and Lab Notebooks

Since all students have already had a year of physics, I’m looking forward to doing some more sophisticated labs. Students will be creating electronic lab notebooks as portfolios in our new learning management system, Canvas. In addition, since we will have a class set of iPads available, we will be evaluating Vernier’s new LabQuest 2 and the Connected Science System.

Quizzes and Peer Instruction

I have been wanting to explore peer instruction using clickers and I think the more conceptual questions would be a great fit and prepare students for the multiple choice portion of the AP exam. I found some wonderful existing clicker question at OSU and CU Boulder. I’m compiling quizzes from existing AP free-response questions and will use the scoring rubrics to provide formative feedback to prepare students for the free response portion of the AP exam.

Exams

Secure Pretty Good Physics (Secure PGP) is a great resource for AP Physics teachers. Other teachers have indexed questions by topic which makes creating new exams much easier. I’m compiling an exam and a reassessment exam for each unit based on existing AP multiple choice and free response questions. I plan to post these, along with the quizzes, to Secure PGP when I’m done.

Standards-Based Assessment and Reporting

I’m using a slightly modified version of the SBAR structure that we’ve been using in Honors Physics. The biggest change is that assessments will be scored on a five-point scale, like the AP exam itself. This is a small change for those students familiar with Physics’ four-point scale, but a more significant change for those students familiar with Honors Physics’ mastery system. Another significant change is the granularity of standards. Due to the integrated nature of the AP exam, standards will be very broad, usually one standard for each unit. All of the details of the SBAR structure are enumerated in the class syllabus.

AP Physics B Syllabus

I hope some of you who are also teaching AP Physics B find something here of use. I know that the work that other teachers have done is incredibly helpful as I prepare for this new course. I plan to share pretty much everything I compile either here or on Secure PGP; so, please stay tuned or ask if I forget to post something.

Honors Physics Reflection

2 Replies

I previously shared my end-of-semester reflection for my regular physics class. I wanted to do the same for my honors physics class which is significantly different from my regular physics class. We do not use Modeling Instruction, and it is a fast-paced, problem-solving focused, class. It is basically an AP Physics B class that covers all topics except for fluid mechanics, thermal physics, atomic physics and quantum effects, and nuclear physics. We actually cover some topics beyond the scope of the AP Physics B curriculum. That said, it does have many progressive elements. We are now in our third year of standards-based assessment and reporting. There are no points as it is a mastery-based system. Many labs are not scored but serve as discovery labs through guided inquiry. We leverage some aspects of Modeling Instruction such as whiteboarding and socratic dialog.

We move through units at a very fast pace. In the fall semester, we covered Giancoli Chapters 1-7 and 9. While the curriculum is “a mile wide,” it isn’t “an inch deep.” The mastery system requires our students to develop a significant understanding of these topics. That said, multiple representations are noticeably lacking. I’m always surprised when I see that graphical representations for kinematics is an optional section in Giancoli (but not in the class).

Since implementing SBAR, I’ve been pleased with the learning that occurs in honors physics despite its more traditional elements. To check if I’m completely misleading myself, I administer the FCI at the beginning and end of the fall semester. This year’s gain was 0.58 which was just a tad lower than the gain of 0.60 the previous two years.

My reflection regarding honors physics this fall has been focused on why the structure of the class seems to be working. Should I be satisfied with the degree to which students are replacing and refining their preconceptions about mechanics? Would I see a deeper level of understanding if I moved to Modeling Instruction? At what cost?

While musing on these questions, I thought back to my own experience in high school and college. As best I can recall, I learned physics in mostly traditional classrooms. How was it that I developed a decent understanding without many misconceptions in these environments?

The conclusion that I have arrived at is that I perform a mini-modeling discourse and modeling building with myself as I listen to a lecture or practice solving problems. I have an ongoing commentary in my head where I’m asking myself questions that connect one idea to the next, finding patterns, building models, testing models, refining models. I never was, and still am not, good at memorizing stuff; so, I had to construct and derive solutions on the fly.

I appreciate that not all of my students in honors physics do this, but I believe that many do. Whenever I hear that students cannot learn from lecture, I wince a bit since I believe that some students can. I think that those that can intrinsically do what many progressive pedagogies do explicitly with the entire class.

I don’t think that the current structure of honors physics is perfect by any means. While we are going to make some minor SBAR-related changes this semester (post coming soon), I don’t anticipate any major changes next year. Instead, I’m going to focus my efforts on preparing for a new AP Physics B class that I will be teaching. Furthermore, before I make any significant changes to honors physics, I want to see the new AP Physics B curriculum. I have a feeling that it will require significant changes to honors physics if not replace the course entirely. That will provide an opportunity to reassess all of these ideas.

If you think I’ve missed something major in my analysis, please don’t hesitate to call it out. Likewise, if you’ve come to a similar conclusion, I’d appreciate the reinforcement.

STEM Talk at NI

Leave a reply

Yesterday, I had the honor of presenting my experiences this past summer working on the Fermilab Holometer as well as my perspectives on STEM education at the high school level at National Instruments. Since my contribution to the Holometer project used National Instruments products and my family was vacationing in Austin, Texas, I offered to visit and share my experiences. I was a bit surprised when I was also asked to share my perspectives on STEM education in high school.

My presentation about the Holometer was pretty much the same as the one I gave the Global Physics Department. (I’ve written several posts about the Holometer.) I added more technical details on the NI products involved and how the signal analysis was performed to better match the audience.

At first, I didn’t feel qualified to address National Instruments employees, who work for a company that are amazing supporters of STEM in K-12 with their efforts with FIRST and LEGO. As a result, I started my presentation with disclaimers:

  • I do not have a master’s degree in STEM education
  • I am not a STEM education expert
  • I have not attended conferences and workshops in STEM education
  • I have taught at a one high school for five years

However, once I sat down and started thinking about what I would share, I realized that I, like most physics teachers, am qualified to at least share my perspective because:

every morning I get up and try to inspire students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics by leveraging my experience as an engineer, an interviewer, a supervisor, and a teacher.

In my case, I specifically left National Instruments and software development to become a physics teacher to make some small contribution by inspiring students to pursue studies and careers in STEM-related fields.

I structured my presentation around three high-level themes which I elaborated with photos, videos, and stories:

Inspire Students with Experiences

I shared that few students are inspired because of something they only read or hear or see; they are inspired by their experience doing it. I shared the experiences of my FIRST Robotics Team, Science Olympiad Team, and Physics Club. Physics Club is an after school, student-driven, low-commitment group that allows all students opportunities to play, inquire, create, share, and explore. I shared our past experiences with near-space ballooning and the ping pong ball cannon. The second theme is:

Inspire Younger Students with Older Students

The main ideas for this theme are that students respond best to other students and students can loose interest in science during middle school. To address this, Physics Club and the FIRST Robotics Team perform outreach activities where younger students see projects done by the older students and build their own smaller-scale projects with the assistance of older students. The third theme is:

Inspire the other 98% in the Classroom

I was somewhat disappointed when I realized that all my efforts with FIRST Robotics, Science Olympiad, and Physics Club only involve 2% of the students at my school. I shared that this is a significant challenge but the most important theme. Many changes to a traditional classroom are required to inspire students about STEM:

  • Change Perceptions
  • Change Mindset
  • Change Pedagogy
  • Change Culture

I shared the importance of bring professionals into the classroom to share their experience and helping students appreciate that science is an active process done by real people. Despite significant local press about standards-based assessment and reporting, I shared how critical it is in my classrooms. I talked about Modeling Instruction, guided inquiry, project-based learning, and Project Lead the Way.

At the end, I felt compelled to take advantage of this opportunity to encourage those in attendance to help inspire students about STEM. I charged them to:

  • Be Aware
  • Promote Reform
  • Provide Support

I was honestly surprised at the level of interest in my presentation based on the attendance and the number of positive comments afterward. So, for those of you like me who are career changers, if the opportunity presents itself, share your experiences as a teacher with your former colleagues. We may gain more allies in the challenges that we face everyday.