Physics: CAPM Problems

This week was mostly about working problems using the constant acceleration model, which I have students do almost entirely from velocity vs. time graphs. We started with some problems I got from Kelly O’Shea where students are given some velocity vs. time graphs they annotate and write area equations for. Next, we shifted to word problems. I was blown away by how easy these problems were for students. Doing calculations with the constant velocity model had been very challenging for a lot of students, but something really clicked this week. Students were even including units on all of their work with almost no prompting and showing their work really clearly. I’m not sure what it was, but it was nice to have a week where students were nailing what I gave them!

AP Physics: Force Equations

We did labs to find the equations for the force of gravity and for spring force. Most years, my students are most comfortable with mathematical representations and it’s a challenge to get them comfortable with other representations, but this year my students are defaulting to other representations in some really cool ways. At this point in the year, when I have groups make a graph on a whiteboard, they usually default to including an equation for the line of best fit whether or not I ask for it. Instead, my students this year have been writing “for every” statements about their slope unprompted. For example, on the force of gravity lab, every group wrote some variation of “The force goes up 10 N for every 1 kg” on their own. That tells me that my students find the “for every” statements useful and intuitive, which is a great place to be developing physics knowledge from.