AP Physics: Plickers

I finally graded the first full-length test over the weekend and wanted to go over some of the questions students struggled with. I put the multiple choice questions that students got wrong most often into Plickers and had students vote individually, then discuss with other students, then vote again. There was a lot of great discussion along the way. In my 4th hour, I tried showing them the graph of responses after individual voting. That class came to a correct consensus less often than my 2nd hour where I kept the graph of individual responses hidden, but they also had much deeper conversations. I can’t decide how much of the difference I’d chalk up to the personality of each class and how much I think is a result of running the voting differently; I’ll probably experiment some more next time.

Earth Science: Ice Core Data

Students used a graph of temperature changes, CH₄ concentration, and CO₂ concentration to look for patterns. It was clearly tricky for them to make sense of multiple data sets on the same set of axes, especially since there are three different vertical scales. The first question helped orient them to the horizontal axis, so I think I will add some scaffolding to explicitly focus them on the vertical axes before looking for patterns.