Day 41: Mistakes & Bohr Model

November 5, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Mistakes Whiteboarding

We wrapped up discussing the whiteboards students made on Friday for some mistakes whiteboarding. Students seem to be pretty solid on the graphs and motion maps, so we should be ready to start doing some problems tomorrow.

Physics: Mistakes Whiteboarding

We finished discussing the whiteboards students had prepped for some mistakes whiteboarding. Students seem to be getting the hang of balanced forces and are managing to connect the trig to the problems they have.

Chemistry Essentials: Bohr Model

Friday was not the most productive day, so students had some time to finish working on the PhET simulation, then started a worksheet connecting the Bohr model to the information on our periodic table. Students were either really on the ball today or pretty checked out; this is something I usually see toward the end of the trimester in this course, but its happening earlier than usual and I need to give some thought to how I’m going to keep my students engaged through finals.

Day 40: Mistakes Whiteboarding & Build an Atom

November 2, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

Today was one of those days, and I did not manage to take any pictures.

AP Physics 1: CAPM Mistakes Whiteboarding

We spent some time discussing the graphs for a set of problems about marbles on ramps. The one with a marble that goes up a ramp, then comes back down, lead to some good discussion. Afterward, students started prepping whiteboards for some mistakes whiteboarding with stacks of kinematic graphs.

Physics: Mistakes Whiteboarding

Students did some mistakes whiteboarding for balanced force problems. They are having some trouble connecting the trig to the problems, but are making progress.

Chemistry Essentials: Build an Atom

We had a short quiz today and I had students work on PhET’s Build an Atom simulation to start connecting the Bohr model to the periodic table. The students who worked on it were very successful at getting the ideas I was after, but it was very tough to get students to work on the simulation after their quiz.

Day 39: Graph Stacks, Vector Addition Diagrams, & Review

November 1, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Graph Stacks

Students worked on sketching stacks of kinematic graphs. I had a sub during my 2nd hour, so I’m not sure yet how it went, but my 4th hour had some great discussions. I’m looking forward to whiteboarding these problems tomorrow.

Physics: Vector Addition Diagrams

Students worked on some problems using vector addition diagrams. I had a sub during my 1st hour, so only got to see things in my 6th hour. A lot of students had trouble with the idea that the arrows on the vector addition diagram need to have the same orientation as the arrows on the free-body diagram, but I think they made progress on the idea.

Chemistry Essentials: Review

After some wrap-up on yesterday’s lab, we did some whiteboarding to review the key ideas that will be on tomorrow’s quiz, including the main atomic models we talked about and key trends on the periodic table.

Day 38: Card Sort, Vector Addition Diagrams, & Rutherford

October 31, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Card Sort

Students worked on Kelly O’Shea’s CAPM card sort. First, they did the most basic sort they could using just the graphs. Next, they did a sort using their physics knowledge with just the graphs. Once groups had a physics-y sort they were happy with, I gave them the word cards for a third round. I liked how the progression went and there was a lot of good discussion along the way.

Physics: Vector Addition Diagrams

Students worked through an activity from Casey Rutherford using pipe cleaners to make manipulative vectors and rearrange free-body diagrams into vector addition diagrams. I really like the way this activity drives home that forces can be balanced even if they are not equal, but it is a pain in the neck to get the pipe cleaners nice. I might try to make a version using Brian Frank’s vector manipulatives for next year.

Chemistry Essentials: Rutherford

Students simulated Rutherford’s experiment by rolling a marble towards a set of hidden marbles and tallying how many times they hit something. In the past, I’ve had students calculate the diameter of their target marble, but the math is always kind of a black box. This year, I’m having students do the lab once with big marbles as the target and once with small marbles as the target in the hopes of keeping the focus on the key ideas.

Day 37: Linearization, Force Representations, & Millikan Experiment

October 30, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Linearization

Students linearized their data from yesterday’s ramp lab and used the mean value theorem to make a velocity vs. time graph, then prepped whiteboards.

Physics: Force Representations

Before taking a quiz, students whiteboarded some diagrams based on yesterday’s problems. I really pushed labeling the vector addition diagrams, which seemed to help things click for a lot of students.

We’ve been including a short collaboration reflection at the end of each packet, and I was really pleased when a student working on that said it really makes her think about what she did leading up to the assessment and how it affected her learning, which was great to hear!

Chemistry Essentials: Millikan Experiment

I borrowed an idea from Frank Noschese and had students find the mass of a penny by weighing a whole lot of film canisters with different numbers of pennies inside. Reasoning from the graph was tricky for a lot of students, but they were able to make sense of the stair step graph and reason out the mass of a single penny with some coaching.

Day 35: Assessment, Board Meeting, & Two Truths and a Lie

October 25, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Assessment

After wrapping up yesterday’s whiteboards, students took their quiz on impulse and momentum conservation in collisions. One of the things I love about giving this assessment is a lot of students felt much more confident than on the assessment on impulse of a single object, in spite of it being the same material in a more complex situation. Its a great opportunity for students to see their growth so far.

Physics: Board Meeting

We had the board meeting for the spring force lab. I’ve been hitting “for every” statements about the slope much harder and more consistently this year than in the past, and I’m seeing students with a much stronger conceptual understanding of what their slopes represent, which is fantastic.

spring wb

Chemistry Essentials: Two Truths & a Lie

After going over some key periodic trends and how to read a periodic table, I used a variation on a community-building activity that we frequently use in homeroom called “Two Truths and a Lie”. Each group came up with two accurate statements, and one wrong statement. Groups then traded whiteboards and had to correct the wrong statement. A lot of groups had some good discussion and seemed to get more comfortable reading their periodic table, which was the goal.

w truths

Day 34: Mistakes Whiteboarding, Spring Force, & Card Sort

October 24, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Mistakes Whiteboarding

Students did mistakes whiteboarding using yesterday’s problems. To keep us from getting bogged down in algebra, I had students put their mistake in the diagrams or annotations, then we focused the discussion on getting those parts right and I posted final answers to the class website. Dropping a negative sign was a very popular mistake today, but a lot of students have been making that error, so it was a good one to work on.

ap mistake.jpg

Physics: Spring Force

Students finished data collection for the spring force lab. I like to have students collect data for the spring both when it is vertical and when it is horizontal to get the idea that the orientation of the spring does not affect its spring constant.

horiz spring.jpg

Chemistry Essentials: Card Sort

Students worked on a card sort based on how Mendeleev worked out his periodic table. I skipped having students do a gallery walk of how other groups sorted their cards before seeing a periodic table, and I wish I’d taken the time to do so since I think it would have gotten students thinking about other ways to sort.

chem card sort.jpg

Day 33: Problems, Board Meeting, & Assessment

October 23, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

AP Physics 1: Problems

Students worked on some conservation of momentum problems, including Michael Lerner‘s watermelon on wheels, that require them to be flexible about the system they are using. A lot of groups went straight for a whiteboard once the work time started, which lead to some great discussion and collaboration on the problems.

Physics: Board Meeting

We had a board meeting for yesterday’s force of gravity lab. This was actually the first traditional formula students got from a lab this year. During the discussion, I could tell my students are getting much better at making “for every” statements about the slope and describing the meaning of the intercept.

Chemistry Essentials: Assessment

Students took their quiz on phase changes. One problem talked about a generic chemical, rather than something specific, which threw several students off. It was a good reminder to keep problems firmly rooted in real situations. Afterward, we revisited the mystery tubes from the first day of class as preparation to start talking about the periodic table and atomic models.

Day 32: Board Meetings, Gravity, Invented Problems

October 22, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics: Board Meetings

Students whiteboarded their results for the collisions lab and the center of mass video analysis from last week. Between the two labs, I think students started to see why it might be useful to switch between systems when thinking about momentum.

com wb.jpg

Physics: Force of Gravity

Students worked on a lab finding the relationship between mass and the force of gravity. Whiteboards are ready and looking good for a board meeting tomorrow!

gravity lab

Chemistry Essentials: Invented Problems

To review phase changes, I had students write their own problems and exchange whiteboards with another group. There were a few groups that had some good conversation as they were writing their problems and there was some good cross-group conversation when comparing answers after working another group’s problem.

chem wb.jpg

Day 30: Center of Mass, Whiteboarding, & Energy Bar Charts

October 16, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

AP Physics 1: Center of Mass

Students worked on a video analysis of two air pucks attached by a rod from the article by Taylor Kaar, Linda Pollack, Michael Lerner, and Robert Engles in The Physics Teacher. In the past, I’ve used LoggerPro, but there have been delays on getting it installed on student computers, so I took advantage of the video upload feature in Pivot Interactives. Pivot has a ruler with an adjustable length to get measurements to scale, but it was tricky to find a nice alignment, so students ended up skipping scaling the ruler and coming up with a conversion factor, instead.

Physics: Whiteboarding

Students whiteboarded some problems on drawing free body diagrams. In my 1st hour, we did mistakes whiteboarding; I was a little disappointed that no groups put a forward force on the objects moving forward, but not a lot of students made that mistake while they were working on the problems in the first place. My 6th hour is a little behind, so they mostly worked on the problems today and will do some abbreviated whiteboarding tomorrow.

Chemistry Essentials: Energy Bar Charts

Students worked on some LOL diagrams for energy transformations during phase changes. They had some trouble with the system flow part of the diagram, mostly because they are getting tripped up by the idea that it needs to list specific objects.