Why today I was an amazing teacher.

Picture this.

It is the first day back after a long holiday break. The students are not happy to be back at all. The teachers are not much more so. I am already hopelessly behind where I need to be right now. I need to find something to attract their attention and refocus them on what we learned.

Time for the slinky demo.

Standing on a tall table I held the uncoiled slinky from the ceiling. It was hanging stationary (relatively speaking) and then the magic happened. Before I said anything; not even one question was asked. A student made a comment that the slinky coils were further apart at the top than at the bottom. I said nothing. Another student made a comment that the forces must be different throughout the slinky. I said nothing. This led to a 10 minute debate about the properties of a slinky and where forces would be greater. Students got up and drew pictures on the board. They broke out into little groups truly working through the problems. I said nothing. Finally one of my students said "Wait a minute. Mr. B hasn't even asked us a question." As they all turned to me I had the largest grin I think I've ever worn in the classroom. I was so proud and excited for them. They were engaged. All of them. Without asking a question. Without prompting anything more than holding up a slinky.

I told them "You guys are amazing. That was a brilliant discussion. I have never been prouder of you!"

I then went on to wow them with the slinky discrepant event. They made force diagrams for everything. It was like we had not taken a single day off.

If I wasn't convinced that modeling works at this point there would be no way to deny it after today. It is amazing what students can accomplish when we teachers get out of their way.

Unit II is in the books.

I tested on Unit 2 today. I should be grading but the pull of the internet is so alluring. I thought I should post a reflection on how the unit went. So here goes..

My success as a modeler: C-/D+

Why not higher?: I think I missed the point a lot. What I thought was obvious from the discussions I have learned was not. I need to be better with having a wrap-up after discussions. I need to be better about getting ALL kids involved in the discussions. I need to develop ways to get those kids who are off in la-la land back into what is going on. I need to figure out how to put a gag over my mouth and just let things happen. I need to be more precise with my language. I still spout out speed and velocity willy nilly. To me they are the same thing because I understand the difference. My students do not and it has led to confusion. I hope they all did well on the test, but of course I fear the worst.

Why not lower then?: I think my kids learned WAY more than they did from how I taught the topic last year. That being said, constant motion was about 2 days last year instead of 3 weeks like this year. But still I love that my students are actually engaged in intelligent conversation about physics.

Best moments (or why I'm never going back to the old way)?: When I had a sub for PSAT testing and my students continued with our whiteboard discussion without me and actually learned something. (My sub was blown away!) The fact that my students are actually willing to discuss physics even when I haven't specifically asked them to. (I have even caught them in lunch continuing a discussion from the morning class.) One student (who is retaking the class because he failed last year) told me that, "this way is WAY BETTER than last year. It makes so much more sense."

Reflections: I know I'm getting better as time goes on. I know that this is the right thing for the kids. I am worried that whiteboarding will get old for them. Too much of anything can become bad. So I need to find other ways to assess the work without using the whiteboards all the time. Also I need to resolve the fact that the rest of my department gives mostly multiple choice tests. We are meeting to create a district-wide test used by all physics classes. I am hoping my kids will do great on it but I am nervous since the style tests I'm giving do not match that style of question.

Despite all of this I truly am glad I went to that workshop. It was one of the best decisions I have made during my teaching profession.

Grading

Is anyone else having the difficulties I am with grading. Tonight was open house and as of yet I have virtually no grades for my physics kids. While I have done quite a few labs and discussions to this point, I really don't have anything to grade them on. Maybe participation in the talks? I am giving the first graphing deployment activity tomorrow, but even that I question taking for a grade. What have you guys taken for grades yet? How are you going to handle discussions with respect to grading?

A new era has dawned

I began modeling today.... in my Biology class. Broke out the whiteboards already. I began in Physics as well, but no whiteboarding until probably Thursday.

FCI tomorrow at the beginning and then the spaghetti bridge lab from Mark Schober's site. We pre-labed (pre-labbed? Pre-lab-ed?) today and I thought I did a fairly decent job of letting the kids go in whatever direction they wanted. I just set up a strand of spaghetti with the cup and the marbles and let them come up with questions. Eventually they pulled out the ideas I had thought of and two of my classes had ideas that I hadn't thought of at all! It will be interesting to see what they choose to do tomorrow. My first hour struggled to share ideas at first and so I broke them into smaller groups to talk about it first and then came back to the whole group discussion. That made them more comfortable and then they really got going. The other hours were great.