Part 5: The Results are In…

Well, Week 2 went much like week 1. Now that the initial unit is complete, it is time for another self-refection.

Things we thought we well:

  • Students were engaged and worked diligently.
  • Overall student learning increased. Most students improved their assessment scores; although, it did take some students more attempts than others.
  • Students seemed to take more ownership of their learning.
  • We were able to spend more time with individual students.

Things that didn’t go so well:

  • As usual, there were some technology glitches, but we seemed to have worked these out.
  • We need more equipment for some activities. It seemed like everyone wanted to do those activities at the same time.
  • Some students still needed some help staying on task and struggled with independent work.

Things that surprised me:

  • I didn’t expect to have so much free time during class.
  • I didn’t expect it to be so quick and easy to get assignments graded during class.
  • I was surprised at how long certain activities took compared to others.
  • I was pleasantly surprised at how well they adapted to the changes overall.

So what did the students think? Glad you asked. We did a survey using Google Forms to hear what they had to say. Here are the results:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DW9wPnjy7gqxq3KdJfCuxzG2y7cQTo1G5iMJWXhmRG8/edit?usp=sharing

So I guess you could say they liked it, so here goes Round 2…

Part 4: Are we ready for this???

Teacher’s Log Day 1: The kids seemed excited about the new changes. As expected, there were A LOT of questions, so the discussion took a lot longer than expected. I don’t know that the kids accomplished much on their assignments today, but it seemed to have gone well.

Note to Self: Student’s need earphones or earbuds for watching videos.

Teacher’s Log Day 2: Everyone came in and got started. They were ready to work. We did field a few more questions about the directions for the unit, but overall, it was a pretty productive day. I was even able to talk to most kids individually as they worked on their assignments.

Teacher’s Log Day 3: I noticed that many students had completed some of their assignments but had not turned them in on Schoology, so at the beginning of class, we discussed why it was important to turn in assignments as they were completed. Do not procrastinate and wait until the deadline. I need to keep reinforcing time-management skills.

It was also interesting that student’s grouped themselves according to the assignments that they were working on at the time instead of sitting with friends. This is new.

I also noticed that some students were breezing through assignments while others were lagging behind. I used my class time to focus on the students who were struggling and prod them along. I also was able to grade assignments as they were being submitted.

Teacher’s Log Day 4: All assignments are due by midnight tonight. Some students did not get a perfect score on their Momentum & Impulse HW even after 2 attempts. I spent today in small groups with those that were unsuccessful going over what they struggled with on the assignment.

Some students were already finished with all of the required assignments and were just working on the optional assignments today. A few overachievers were already finished with all of their assignments, so they either helped other students or worked on homework for another class. Overall, today was really productive.

Teacher’s Log Day 5: Today is quiz day. I created a timed, online quiz on Schoology using Question Banks so each quiz is different. This quiz is open-note. Students have 2 attempts to take the quiz. They must make at least a 75, or they will be required to do remediation.

I handed out the assignment sheet for Part 2: Impulse for them to work on when they were finished with the quiz.

Fingers crossed, it appears to be going well, but we will have to wait for the final results….

Part 3: Creating the Plan

We started by looking at our objectives for the unit and identifying possible assignments for the student’s to complete during the unit. Since this was a two week unit on Momentum & Impulse, it was split up into a Part 1: Momentum and Part 2: Impulse.

Since we wanted our student’s to have some choice in their assignments, we created required assignments that everyone must complete and a list of optional assignments.

***Disclaimer: Implementing this plan, requires an astronomical amount of front-loading for the teacher. All assignments for the unit have to be created, copied, and ready to go BEFORE you introduce the new unit in class.***

The plan for class on the first day of the unit:

  1. Give each student a copy of the assignment sheet.
  2. Have a class discussion explaining why some class changed are necessary, how the unit is structured, and our expectations. We had never done anything like this before, so we expected a lot of questions.
  3. Give the students the rest of the week to complete these assignments during class.
  4. Take the Part 1 Quiz on Friday.

We’ll see how it goes…

Part 2: An Idea is Born

This spring, we decided to try something different for our students to aid in their learning. After a little self-reflection, we knew we needed to make some changes to our classrooms. We needed something that would be able to incorporate the following:

  • Differentiation
  • Flexible
  • Engaging
  • Challenging
  • Student-Centered
  • Allow for Student Choice
  • Incorporate Technology
  • Time-Management Skills

Our solution was to create a flexible-paced, blended learning classroom for our students. That’s a mouthful, but what is it?

Now we just need a plan…

Part 1: It’s Time for a Change

Flexible-Paced Learning Classrooms Series

Reflection

At the end of the fall semester, we sat down and reflected on the previous semester. We had both taught Physics using a traditional approach and incorporating some technology. This was Becky’s second year to have 1:1 Chromebooks and Staci’s first year with a class set of iPads. While the first semester went well, we each had some concerns that we felt needed to be addressed before the start of the second semester.

  1. How could we differentiate for all students?

Becky taught multiple levels of physics, but students had not always chosen the right level for their abilities or work ethic. For example, several students chose to take Honors Physics but lacked the prerequisite math skills for this class. Staci taught all levels of students (from SpEd to the valedictorian) in the same class period. How could we accommodate all of these students?

2. What do we do about students who miss class?

In our schools, the spring is filled with numerous activities, which means that since many of our students are involved in these extracurricular activities, they will also be missing class. We knew from previous years, that students felt overwhelmed and seemed to struggle when they missed numerous days of classes.

3. How can we improve our student’s time-management skills?

The other concern was the absolute lack of time-management skills our students exhibited. They have no idea how to balance their schedule. Typically the junior year has been more difficult than previous years. By the time they are juniors, teachers expect the students to be more self-sufficient and more responsible for their own learning. Many students have more out of class responsibilities with jobs, extracurricular activities, and childcare for younger siblings. With less parental oversight, our students were struggling to balance these responsibilities and manage their workload at school. As a result, their grades were suffering.

How could we address all of these concerns before the beginning of the spring semester? It was time to make a change…

Entire Year of Physics Vocabulary Bundles

Save time and money with our Entire Year of Physics Vocabulary Bundles. In this bundle, we included our 16 units of vocabulary covered in our Physics classes. We have two separate vocabulary bundles. In each product you will find vocabulary terms with pictures and working definitions. One product contains all 16 units of our physics vocabulary interactive word walls. The other product contains all 16 units of our physics vocabulary for interactive notebooks.

The following units are included in either product:
• Graphing
• Graphing Motion
• 1D Kinematics
• Newton’s Laws of Motion
• Safety Symbols
• 2D Motion
• Universal Gravitation
• Energy
• Momentum
• Thermodynamics
• Electrostatics
• Circuits and Electricity
• Magnets and Electromagnetism
• Mechanical Wave Properties
• Electromagnetic Waves
• Sound

Continue reading Entire Year of Physics Vocabulary Bundles

TpT 2 Day Sale

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Look for the 2 Day Sale on February 7th and 8th on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Save 28% off in our store when you use the promo code LoveTpT.  Click on the picture above to start shopping.

Our current products include Vocabulary for Interactive Notebooks, Vocabulary Word Walls, and Vocabulary Flash Cards for the following topics:

  • Graphing
  • Graphing Motion
  • 1D Kinematics
  • Newton’s Laws of Motion
  • Safety Symbols
  • 1st Day String Activity
  • 2D Motion
  • Metric System Number Line Classroom Décor
  • Universal Gravitation
  • Energy

Check out our NEW items:

  • Momentum
  • Thermodynamics
  • Electrostatics
  • Circuits and Electricity
  • Additional units will be added soon.

Want to save even more?  You can also purchase a unit bundle of any of these products.  Our bundles are already 20% off every day. Purchase these during the this sale and you can save an additional 28%!

Cyber Sale on November 28th and 29th

sale_1080_1080

Look for the Cyber Sale on November 28th and 29th on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Save 28% off in our store when you use the promo code CYBER2016.  Click on the picture above to start shopping.

Our current products include Vocabulary for Interactive Notebooks, Vocabulary Word Walls, and Vocabulary Flash Cards for the following topics:

  • Graphing
  • Graphing Motion
  • 1D Kinematics
  • Newton’s Laws of Motion
  • Safety Symbols
  • 1st Day String Activity
  • 2D Motion
  • Metric System Number Line Classroom Décor

Check out our NEW items:

  • Universal Gravitation
  • Energy
  • Additional units will be added soon.

Want to save even more?  You can also purchase a unit bundle of any of these products.  Our bundles are already 20% off every day.  Purchase these during the Cyber Sale and you can save an additional 28%!

Things to Say Instead of “I Don’t Know”…

Teaching students to specify what they need help with is one of our goals through out the school year. You would think that by the time a students reaches high school that this would not be an issue, but it is.

As a teacher, it is extremely difficult to help students when they don’t specify which part of the process they need help with.  By teaching students to ask for specific help, we are better able to help them and also enable their learning in the process. For instance, when students gets confused on a certain step in a math problem that we are solving in class,   many students will answer ‘I don’t know’ to every question we ever ask and think nothing of it. At that point, we don’t know which part they don’t understand.  Is it putting in the calculator, how to set it up, the algebra, or something else.  We need our students to think on their own and be accountable for their thinking and ultimately their learning.  So what is the solution?

keep-calm

Our students can no longer say, “I don’t know.” It’s fine if they don’t know, but they now have to follow that with one of these phrases to pinpoint where they are struggling

Here are some phrases that we have used that seem to work well with our students.

What to Say Instead of I DON’T KNOW:

  • “May I have more information?”
  • “I know how to do _________, but I don’t understand ________.
  •  “Could you please repeat/rephrase the question?”
  •  “May I have more time to think?”
  •  “Where can I find more information?”
  •  “I remember that __, but I am confused as to what they question is asking can you rephrase it?

While we are always willing to help our students, we believe they need to learn to help themselves first.  To encourage them to be responsible for their own learning, we expect them to have tried one or more of the following options before they ask us for help.

  • Search in your notebook for any references to the topic.
  • Work with another student at your table.
  • Search the Physics Classroom website for a different explanation.
  • Go to Schoology (or your class webpage) and look for any tutorial videos or notes that have been provided already.
  • Look in your textbook.
  • Google a tutorial video.
  • Come to tutorials.

We are not going to lie. At the beginning of the year, this process is a struggle! However, as the year progresses, it really is amazing to see our students really start to take ownership of their learning.  Over time, they become less dependent on us and isn’t that our ultimate goal to get students to become independent thinkers and learners.

 

Mass versus Weight

Our students seems to struggle with the concepts of mass and weight.  In general, people often use the words “mass” and “weight” interchangeably, but these words have different meanings.

Mass refers to the amount of matter in an object, and it does not dependent on gravity; your mass on Earth would be the same on the any other planet or anywhere else in the universe.

Weight is a measurement of the  “heaviness” of an object, or the strength of gravitational pull on that object. Your weight would change between the Earth and any other planet because the gravity is different in these places.  My students are required to memorize the acceleration due to gravity on Earth, 9.8 meters per second squared.

We have several class discussions to help students understand the differences between mass and weight, including units of measurement for each quantity.  My students also liked the explanations on the following website.

https://www.mathsisfun.com/measure/weight-mass.html