Tonight is our annual Relay for Life, so students were not at their most focused today.

AP Physics: Whiteboarding

The students who will be taking the AP Physics 1 exam next week whiteboarded problems from this year’s free response. Students needed more hints than I hoped to get started, but I think that was more to do with excitement over Relay than physics skills getting overly rusty. I still think it will be worth taking some time next week to revisit strategies for breaking down a problem.

Physics: Refraction

After a quiz on ray diagrams, students did a qualitative lab on refraction, making observations of various objects in a clear cup of water and laser beams in a fish tank. Since the fish tank was out anyway, I also left one of my favorite critical angle demos set up.

Chemistry Essentials: Quiz

Students took their quiz on using an activity series to predict whether a single replacement reaction is likely. I also gave each student a printed copy of their current grade and we had some discussion about ways they can improve, especially retakes. My hope was students would work on preparing for retakes after they finished the quiz, but it didn’t pan out. I think a lot of it was simply because this was last hour on a beautiful spring Friday, with only a few hours to go until Relay for Life, but a few students expressed a lack of self-efficacy when it comes to their grade in this class; I need to keep working on how I can give students a sense of control over their learning in here.