I think my students and I are getting into routines and things are starting to run smoother.

AP Physics 1: Central Net Force

Students worked on central net force and universal gravitation this week. We moved through the content fairly quickly since the AP exam is looming. On the summative assessment, a lot of students talked about a force pushing outward on objects moving along a circular path, which is a common preconception. It’s frustrating to know exactly what questions and discussion moves I would use to address this in a face-to-face classroom, but to feel like my options are limited in an asynchronous setting. With the remaining topics, I need to think about how I can proactively get students thinking in ways that challenge preconceptions rather than relying on my ability to react in the moment.

Physics: Pendulum Representations

Students did some video analysis of a pendulum to start thinking about the motion graphs for a pendulum. In the discussion board where students shared their graphs, I also had students respond to some questions about similarities and differences between the posted graphs. This seemed to help students get past the superficial differences in graphs and focus on the major concepts shown by the graphs.

Chemistry Essentials: Formula Writing

This week wrapped up formula writing. On the summative assessment, a few students included a comment along the lines that they’d never learned to draw particle diagrams. Checking in with those kids, they are relying on the Schoology calendar, which shows assignments that are due, rather than visiting the course page where I’ve posted some instructional videos and other resources. I’m not interested in using an assignment to verify students use those resources, so need to think about other ways I can make sure students are aware of materials on the course page. In my email for Monday morning, I added a reminder to use the resources in the folder for each topic. I’ve been putting together an overview of all the tasks for each learning target, and may start including that in the weekly email.