Day 78: Bouncy Balls, Kinetic Energy, & Board Meetings

January 9, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

AP Physics 1: Bouncy Balls

My article on this lab is in the Jan 2018 issue of The Science Teacher.

Students wrapped up their video analysis of a bouncy ball’s motion and started working on CER statements to answer what interaction dissipates the energy. I ended up doing more coaching than I usually do; I usually manage to squeeze this in before winter break, so I think it was just too long since students had been using free-body diagrams or velocity vs. time graphs. Nevertheless, students got to an answer today which was my goal.

Physics: Kinetic Energy

We had a pre-lab discussion and students collected data to work on a relationship between kinetic energy and speed. I found that a lot of students were confused about how to figure out the kinetic energy of the cart once they got into their lab groups. We went through the calculation during the whole class discussion, but I’m wondering if it would have been worthwhile to get students sketching some diagrams on whiteboards with their lab groups to figure out how they could find kinetic energy to get everyone wresting with those ideas, rather than just the students who spoke up.

Chemistry Essentials: Board Meeting

We held the board meeting for both of the gas laws labs students completed on Pivot Interactives this week. This trimester, my co-teacher and I have been trying to ramp up the graph interpretation we ask students to do, and today was a nice opportunity to see it pay off. Students were very successful at attaching conceptual meaning to the slopes of their graphs and, with a few questions to nudge them along, were also able to connect the intercept of the pressure vs. time graph to absolute zero.

Day 77: Bouncy Balls, Mistakes Whiteboarding, & Gas Laws

January 8, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

I dropped the ball and didn’t take any pictures today.

AP Physics 1: Bouncy Balls

A large percentage of my students were on a field trip today. I had the students who were here work on the video analysis of a bouncy ball’s motion.

Physics: Mistakes Whiteboarding

Students did mistakes whiteboarding with energy bar charts.

Chemistry Essentials: Gas Laws

I am as part of Pivot Interactive’s Chemistry Fellows program.

Students used Pivot Interactives to collect data for a relationship between pressure and volume for a bubble in a vacuum chamber.

Day 76: Bouncy Balls, Bar Charts, & Quantitative Gas Laws

January 7, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Bouncy Balls

Students started a lab to determine what interaction is dissipating a bouncy ball’s energy (my article on this lab appears in the Jan, 2018 issue of The Science Teacher). Today was all about figuring out what kind of evidence might be useful, so students worked on sketching representations for the bouncy ball’s motion. I could tell I’ve been slipping on spiraling back to earlier concepts; students had a tougher time than I’d hoped sketching the velocity vs. time graph.

Physics: Bar Charts

Before diving in to some problems sketching energy bar charts, we did a quick round of representations jeopardy. Each group came up with a scenario, then sketched a set of energy pie charts and a matching set of energy bar charts to describe that scenario on a whiteobard. Then, they gave their whiteboard to another group who had to come up with a scenario that fit with the representations on the whiteboard they got.

Chemistry Essentials: Quantitative Gas Laws

I am as part of Pivot Interactive’s Chemistry Fellows program.

Students used Pivot Interactives to collect data for a relationship between the temperature of a gas and its pressure. This is a great example of the kind of lab I really like Pivot Interactives for; it makes a nice graph, but we just don’t have the equipment to try this lab. Its not as visually interesting as some of the other labs on Pivot, but it is still clearly an actual lab and not idealized, simulated data. Students made some nice connections to their qualitative observations made using syringes last week.

Day 75: Free Response, Mistakes Whiteboarding, & Vacuum Chamber

January 4, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Free Response

Students worked on a released free response problem, then used a scoring guide to review their work. The problem calls for sketching an energy vs. position graph, which we haven’t used, but a lot of students immediately started sketching energy bar charts and were able to reason out what the new representation should look like based on their work, which was a lot of fun to see.

Physics: Mistakes Whiteboarding

Students did mistakes whiteboarding with yesterday’s problems using energy pie charts. Yesterday, they were very successful at solving the problems and today their confidence started to match.

Chemistry Essentials: Vacuum Chamber

To practice connecting particle diagrams to observations, students sketched particle diagrams and made predictions for various scenarios related to pressure and gas laws, many in a vacuum chamber, then we tested each out and discussed the predictions.

Day 74: Mistakes Whiteboarding, Pie Charts, & Particle Diagrams

January 3, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Mistakes Whiteboarding

Students did mistakes whiteboarding with yesterday’s problems. Energy is clicking nicely for a lot of students, which is great to see. One challenge I’m running into is I’ve got some students who have been struggling to connect variables to physical quantities, and are having trouble making sense of all the different quantities that show up in energy problems. I need to give some thought to how to help these students work on doing more sense making, as well as how I might prevent a similar situation next year.

Physics: Pie Charts

Students worked on some problems sketching energy pie charts. They were pretty successful at identifying the main types of mechanical energy, but placing dissipated energy in the pie charts got tricky. I think my students have a good sense for what the mechanical energy forms are, but not a clear sense of what dissipated energy is. I need to think about how I can help them clarify that idea.

Chemistry Essentials: Particle Diagrams

A lot of my students have been struggling to use particle diagrams in their thinking, so we spent some time today sketching particle diagrams to use the qualitative gas laws we have so far to make predictions about a variety of situations. We also spent some time in whole-class discussion using PhET’s gas properties simulation to define pressure and temperature in terms of particle behavior, which seemed to help.

Day 73: Problems, Work, & Gas Laws

January 2, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

Today was our first day back from break.

AP Physics 1: Problems

Students worked on some conservation of energy problems. I had to do some prodding to remind students to start with an LOL diagram, but they got into the swing of things fairly quickly.

Physics: Work

Students sketched force vs. distance graphs for raising a cart to the same height using different ramps in order to introduce the idea of work. Results were a little messier than usual, but I think I didn’t introduce the lab as clearly as usual and my students weren’t as focused as usual thanks to it being the first day back from break. But, we were still able to get the ideas we needed.

Chemistry Essentials: Gas Laws

Students made some observations with capped syringes to get a conceptual understanding of gas laws. After a hot glue fail last tri, I glued the caps on with super glue, and the lab worked very nicely. It was really tough for a lot of students to connect their observations to particle diagrams, so I think it would have been worth spending a little more time before the lab revisiting what particle diagrams show.

Day 72: Tests

December 21, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

Today was our last day of class before winter break. In all three of my classes, we wrapped up a topic by taking an assessment.

AP Physics 1: Energy Bar Charts & Unbalanced Forces

I’ve been giving students at least two in-class opportunities on every learning target this year, so this assessment covered energy bar charts and revisited unbalanced forces. Almost everyone improved on unbalanced forces, which is exactly what I want to see!

Physics: Conservation of Momentum

Students took their conservation of momentum test. Students have been saying the bar charts make the math very intuitive, and it definitely shows on the work I’ve graded so far. This is definitely the easiest time I’ve seen students have with momentum.

Chemistry Essentials: Density

This assessment was more hit or miss than my other classes. I had some students who did great, but a few were surprised to see some representations, like particle diagrams and a mass vs. volume graph, that were significant components of our daily work. I’m thinking about doing some individual conferences with students after break to try to get a better understanding of what’s behind that.

Day 70: Systems and Bar Charts, Conservation of Momentum Problems, & Pivot Interactives

December 19, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Systems and Bar Charts

Students worked on whiteboarding some problems switching between different systems for energy bar charts. Students were doing a nice job of switching smoothly between different systems.

ap bar chart

Physics: Conservation of Momentum Problems

Students worked on calculations with conservation of momentum. This is the first year I’ve really used momentum bar charts, and its also the first time I’ve had students call conservation of momentum easy. The best part was I overheard a lot of students talking about whether their answer was reasonable based on their bar charts. When one of my AP sections came in, I still had some bar charts on the whiteboard and my AP students asked why I didn’t teach them momentum bar charts since it made the problem seem much easier. I’m sold and will be bringing bar charts into AP next year.

Chemistry Essentials: Pivot Interactives Density

I am as part of Pivot Interactive’s Chemistry Fellows program.

Students worked on an activity in Pivot Interactives to identify materials based on their density. I ended up giving students a handout to record their work, rather than having them answer in Pivot’s interface, since something about writing on paper seems to feel more comfortable for a lot of my students. I was really excited about how many students on their own tried to decide between multiple materials with similar densities by paying attention to what they could see about the material. It was also nice to be able to easily split up the class to look at different liquids so we can have some conversation tomorrow about who should have similar answers and who should have different answers, and why.

pivot density.PNG

Day 69: Mistakes Whiteboarding & Card Sort

December 18, 2018December 18, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

AP Physics 1: Energy Bar Chart Mistakes Whiteboarding

Students did mistakes whiteboarding with energy bar charts. There was some good discussion about what differences matter in energy bar charts at this point and what differences, like the exact number of boxes, are irrelevant.

Physics: Momentum Card Sort

Students worked on a momentum transfer model card sort I got from Kelly O’Shea. I was (pleasantly) surprised by how easy it was for students to work out which equation went with each problem. The force-time graphs in the card sort were tough; part of the trick is those graphs are more similar across different problems than some of the other graphs and we haven’t made enough use of force-time graphs in other contexts for students to focus on the subtle details that distinguished the different graphs here.

Chemistry Essentials: Density Mistakes Whiteboarding

This class also did mistakes whiteboarding, but on a worksheet using different representations for density. There was some great discussion and some signs this group is starting to build an identity as a class, which is great.

Day 68: Energy Bar Charts, Momentum Bar Charts, & Density Problems

December 17, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Energy Bar Charts

I introduced students to LOL diagrams and had them start working on some energy bar charts. Things seemed to go very smoothly. I have one section that is very small this tri, and I need to be conscious of how quick I am to jump in when students are stuck or have a question. In a larger class, I have an easier time leaving more space for students to think and discuss with each other since I hear less of the conversation and feel more pressure to move between groups.

Physics: Momentum Bar Charts

Students did some whiteboarding to wrap up momentum bar charts before taking a quiz. In my larger class, I tried representation jeopardy. This hour didn’t like it as much as my small class; students said they would prefer something that is structured more similar to the types of problems that show up on assessments. I’m not overly surprised, since many of my students are still much more comfortable with answer-getting than meaning-making, but I need to keep thinking about how my moves in the classroom place value on each approach to physics and how I can shift what I’m doing to place more explicit value on meaning-making.

Chemistry Essentials: Density Problems

Students worked on a worksheet connecting particle diagrams to density. I gave less instruction than I typically do, which lead to more student-to-student conversation and more student success than I’ve seen on this worksheet before. I get frustrated and push back when someone says “those kids” can’t handle reform-based science instruction, I’m still susceptible to that line of thinking and sometimes over-scaffold. When I give them space, the students I have in Chemistry Essentials can rise to the occasion just as well as the students I get in other courses.