Forces

Day 47: Card Sort, Mistakes Whiteboarding, & Formula Writing

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AP Physics 1: Card Sort

Students whiteboarded two of the items from yesterday’s card sort that they found trickiest. Not surprisingly, the item with an air hockey puck that glides at a constant speed was a very popular choice. I didn’t tell students anything about what the vector addition diagrams represent and there was a great moment during one section’s discussion where a student said the new diagram really reminded him of vector addition in math.

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Physics: Mistakes Whiteboarding

We did some mistakes whiteboarding with representations of objects with unbalanced forces. There was a lot of good discussion. I regretted not pushing students to draw acceleration arrows on motion maps, because this is a time when it would have really paid off.

On a side note, there were several problems about a passenger on an elevator. While the problem did not include any gendered language, about half the students who whiteboarded that problem changed passenger to “guy” or “man” while the other half stuck with something gender-neutral.

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Chemistry Essentials: Formula Writing

We did a gallery walk of yesterday’s formula writing problems. Most students seem to be making sense of what the charges on their ion sheet represent and figuring out how to write the formulas. At the end of the hour, we spent some time going over the different representations we have and what the purpose of each is.

Day 46: Card Sort, Board Meeting & Formula Writing

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

AP Physics 1: Card Sort

Students worked on Kelly O’Shea’s balanced forces card sort. Since they haven’t seen vector addition diagrams yet, I tried holding those back until they’d sorted everything else, which worked really nicely. I was also much stricter than I was in my regular physics that students needed to sketch the interaction diagrams, and that seemed to really help students think through each scenario.

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Physics: Board Meeting

Students whiteboarded their results from Thursday’s lab on Newton’s 2nd Law. My 1st hour got pretty nice results, including slopes that came out very close to the masses of their carts, but my 6th hour had much messier data. I ended up telling students to focus on a few specific whiteboards when we were talking about some key points, which seemed to work out fine.

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Chemistry Essentials: Formula Writing

We started working on writing chemical formulas. I had students sketch simplified Lewis dot structures on whiteboards, then use beans as manipulatives to figure out the correct chemical formula. The students who took the time to sketch and use the diagrams were very successful at thinking through the formulas I threw their way.

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Day 45: Quiz, Force Representations, & Bonding Intro

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I had a sub today, so no pictures. I’ll find out Monday how things went.

AP Physics 1: Quiz

Today’s quiz was maybe closer to test length. I included the notorious bumpy ramp problem (which I really love); my students are still uncomfortable with problems that don’t reflect something they’ve already seen, so I think this will be a great one to have some discussion on how students approached it.

Physics: Force Representations

Students worked on some problems extending the representations we’ve been using for forces to unbalanced forces. I’m hoping this will be a relatively small leap. It occurred to me this worksheet could have been a nice card sort, but I didn’t think of that far enough in advance to get copies run and cut, plus I’d prefer to be in the classroom myself the first time my students complete a new card sort.

Chemistry Essentials: Introduction to Bonding

Students worked on a worksheet designed to bridge what they know about the Bohr Model to bonding. Students also took a quiz and, since students had a really tough time working on something new after last week’s quiz, the para, my co-teacher, and I all agreed to try putting the quiz at the end of the hour this time.

Day 44: Whiteboarding, 2nd Law, & Whiteboarding

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AP Physics 1: Whiteboarding

Students whiteboarded some constant acceleration problems for a gallery walk. These problems are coming very easily to most of my students, which is great to see.

ap wb

Physics: Second Law Lab

Students collected data for a paradigm lab on Newton’s 2nd Law. Some students were a little thrown off by recording values from a graph in a data table, then making a new graph from the data table, but that’s fairly common.

f a

Chemistry Essentials: Bohr Model Whiteboarding

We whiteboarded and discussed some key information from the periodic table and Bohr model for several different elements. Students lit up at the end when I had them leave off the name and the number of protons, then have another group try to figure out which element they’d answered the rest of the questions for.

bohr wb

Day 42: Problems, Practical, & Bohr Model

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AP Physics 1: Problems

Students took the plunge to solving problems for objects with a constant acceleration. There was a great moment in one class where a group was struggling with a problem, and a student said “I’m gonna be [calculus teacher]!” He then proceeded to walk the graph while describing his motion to the rest of the group, which was just what they needed to figure out the problem. Thanks, Ms. Hyers!

Physics: Practical

Students did a lab practical where they needed to calculate how much mass to hang off a string in order to balance the forces on a cart on a ramp. Students tested their calculations using mass sets that went down to 10 g, which got them close enough to be satisfying.

practical

Chemistry Essentials: Bohr Model

Students whiteboarded yesterday’s problems connecting the Bohr model of the atom to the periodic table. I remembered today that I want to re-work the problems I have to make the periodic trend in valence electrons pop out. The students who were checked in were feeling very confident by the end of the hour today. The trouble is I’m seeing more and more students check out; I’m wondering if another round of one-on-one conferences might help some students get more engaged by making it clear that they can still improve their grade.

bohr models

Day 41: Mistakes & Bohr Model

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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.

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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.

build an atom

Day 40: Mistakes Whiteboarding & Build an Atom

/ 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.

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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.

build an atom.PNG

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

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Day 37: Linearization, Force Representations, & Millikan Experiment

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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!

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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.