AP Physics: Plickers

After a quiz, we used Plickers for some multiple choice practice. We happened to do several that involved the slope or area of different graph types, and it was clear from the conversations that a lot of students were having trouble keeping them all straight, so we spent some time looking at how to work backwards from the formula sheet to get what a slope or area represents.

Physics: Explosions

Students took a quiz on impulse, then worked on analyzing their data for the cart explosion lab. Linearization has been a struggle in this course this year, but it seems to be clicking for a lot of students, which is good since plotting ratios means there’s a lot to think through.

One class brought up their anxieties about a drill we’re planning in conjunction with the local police department, which lead into a discussion about their fears about school shootings in general. With the drill already making students nervous, I’m going to need to carefully monitor the mood in my classes and make a concerted effort to make students feel as safe as possible.

Chemistry Essentials: Quiz

Today’s formula writing quiz took the full hour, which was much longer than I expected. I had a lot of students come up to me during the quiz to ask questions that indicated they were struggling to differentiate the different types of diagrams as well as the meaning of subscripts and superscripts on atomic symbols. I need to think about what kinds of scaffolds I can provide to help students develop those skills; one option may be to have students help name the diagram types, rather than using a standard name.