Assessment

Day 121: Free Response, Practical, & Quiz

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

Today is the last day before spring break.

AP Physics: Free Response

We took some time to look at the free response problems from the tri 2 final exam. A lot of students ran out of time on the final, so we spent some time discussing strategies for time management and steps they can take even when they think they are lost on a problem. We didn’t talk about anything ground-breaking and even the physics seemed pretty clear once we got into it; I think the stress of finals got to students and made it tough to use skills they know.

Physics: Projectile Practical

Students wrapped up the horizontal projectile practical from yesterday. One of the advantages of doing projectiles after energy is I didn’t trip up any groups by switching out the marble for a lighter one. Usually, I get at least some groups that do some wild math to try and figure out what the mass changes, but this year’s students either pointed out the mass never showed up in their calculations or used conservation of energy to show it doesn’t matter.

Maker:S,Date:2017-10-21,Ver:6,Lens:Kan03,Act:Lar02,E-Y

Chemistry Essentials: Quiz

Students took a quiz on balancing and representing chemical reactions. I always have a few students in this course who have trouble staying quiet once they are finished; today, all of the conversations I shut down while students were testing were about problems on the quiz, which was pretty awesome. I felt a little bad telling them it wasn’t the right time for those conversations, especially with how passionate the conversations were.

Day 110: Final Exams

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

Today is day 1 of final exams.

AP Physics

Students took  the multiple choice portion of an AP practice exam. I left the rotation and circular motion questions in, even though we haven’t touched those topics yet, since students have a 1 in 4 chance of getting them right and it will give me some information on their existing ideas. I made sure to communicate this to students in advance, including that I will adjust my grading accordingly, which helped students approach those questions calmly.

Physics

About half of the period was spent on an individual exam that was pretty traditional and the other half was a lab practical that students completed in small groups. Due to limits on equipment and space, about half the class was doing each portion at a time, which made for a noisy testing environment than usual. If we take this approach again, I might see if another teacher could accommodate my students working on the individual portion. I also think the individual and lab practical portions of the final represent two very different purposes; I think that is a reflection of my counterpart and I both being stretched a little thin this year and not having many opportunities to talk about why we’re doing things a certain way.

Maker:S,Date:2017-10-21,Ver:6,Lens:Kan03,Act:Lar02,E-Y

Chemistry Essentials

Students took a pretty traditional final exam. No matter how long I make the test, it consistently takes students about an hour to finish; I think a lot of students simply reach a point where they can’t focus anymore, especially since this tends to be their last final (honestly, I usually have trouble concentrating by this point during finals). I decided to plan for an hour-long final and used the first 30 min of the block to whiteboard portions of the final review. I think that helped some students build confidence and it felt like a relief for many of them to have some collaborative time.

Day 109: Free Response & Review

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

Yesterday was a snow day and tomorrow is the start of final exams, so today was a little tricky.

AP Physics: Free Response

With the AP exam looming, I gave students most of a practice exam as their final. Today, they took the free response portion. I took out a few problems to make sure there was no rotation and to get it reasonable for a 55 minute class period.

Physics: Final Review

Students worked on a final review that asked them to apply several different models to the same scenario. A few groups opted to work on whiteboards, instead of on paper, which was just fine with me. A lot of students went back to drawing their free-body diagrams without sketching in context, like the surface of a hill or ramp, which lead to some mistakes, but most students were able to get on track once they added in that surface.

Chemistry Essentials: Final Review

Students worked on a pretty traditional final review. The particle diagrams finally seem to be clicking for a lot of my students, which is great to see. I am seeing some students check out since it is fairly set whether they will pass or fail; if I teach this course next year, I need to spend some time this summer thinking about how to make final exams meaningful to my students.

Day 95: Electric Potential Difference, Conservation of Energy, & Quiz

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

AP Physics: Electric Potential Difference

Students did a variation on the lab to map an electric field in a tray of water. Since I just wanted to define electric potential difference, they measured the voltage along a line with the multimeter’s ground probe in a few different positions (my article about this lab was in the January issue of The Physics Teacher). There was a lot of good discussion within lab groups about what negative voltages mean.

epd.jpg

Physics: Conservation of Energy

Before their quiz, students whiteboarded a couple of conservation of energy problems (which I spaced out on taking a picture of). For a lot of students, this reinforced the importance of the meaning-making steps and gave them a boost of confidence before starting the quiz. The downside is there are students who approach the pre-quiz problems as a chance to cram, rather than a warm-up. I’m trying to decide if I’m okay with that trade-off.

Chemistry Essentials: Quiz

Students took their quiz on atomic models and classifying matter. I’ve been working a lot on the class culture and finding ways to connect with students I’ve been clashing with, and it paid off today when, for the first time, I didn’t have to police students staying quiet after they finished their quiz.

Day 69: Quizzes Galore

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

Today is the last day before winter break.

AP Physics & Physics: Quiz & Mystery Tubes

AP quizzed over conservation of energy while regular quizzed on Newton’s Laws in 2D. Afterward, I got out the Mystery Tubes rather than starting a new topic. Students were a little fried since they had tests in just about every class, so I think they appreciated the chance to do something low-stakes after their quiz. My students were definitely loopier than usual, and that lead to some creative models of what’s inside the tubes. Next year, it might be worth putting a lab practical on this day instead of a typical quiz.

todd the bug.jpg

This bug’s name is Todd. He lives inside the tube and moves the ropes.

Chemistry Essentials: Mistakes Game & Quiz

There was only time for one group to present their board yesterday, so we continued the mistakes game today before students took a short quiz on density. The mistakes game was fairly chaotic, but there were also some really good questions. I need to put in some more time working on norms for discussion, but I’m hopeful they will be able to have some good whiteboard discussions.

Day 56: Final Exams

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

Final exams are today and tomorrow.

AP Physics: Mini AP Exam

Since I mostly give short, weekly assessments, finals are a good time to give my students something longer. The other AP Physics teacher and I modified a practice exam to cut the content we haven’t covered yet and get it down to 90 minutes. This is their first assessment with a time limit, so I’m curious to see how they do with pacing.

Physics: Two-Stage Exam

The other physics teacher and I agreed on a hybrid approach to the final. The first half, worth 75% of the exam grade, is a pretty traditional written final with some problems from throughout the trimester. The second half, worth 25% of the exam grade, is a lab practical that students are completing with a partner. During the lab portion, I overheard several groups talking about whether their answer is reasonable and how they know, which got me really excited since students have struggled to connect physical meaning to the math this year.

phys final.jpg

Chemistry Essentials: Written Exam

I’m giving a pretty traditional written exam. My students said they were hoping for multiple choice, but I stuck with short answer so the questions will read more like the other assessments they’ve taken. A few of my students are annoyed because they say multiple choice is easier, but I have never had it go well when I suddenly use multiple choice at the end.

Pretty consistently when I teach this course, all of my students finish with about 30 minutes left in the final block, regardless of the length of the test. As usual, I had a significant number of students who left large portions of the test blank. I think my finals in this course run short not because I don’t make them long enough, but because a lot of students have trouble focusing on a written test for 90 minutes (honestly, I have trouble focusing on a written test for 90 minutes). This reinforces that it is worth moving away from a traditional final in this course.

Day 53: Multiple Choice, Quiz, & Polyatomic Ions

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics: Multiple Choice

Students took their last quiz for the trimester, then we spent the rest of the hour using Plickers to practice multiple choice questions. Final exams are next week, so the multiple choice also served as a way to start reviewing for the exam. I continued my usual routine of having students answer individually, then talk to a classmate before answering again and both classes had some good conversations about the problems.

img_2398

Physics: Quiz

Students took their last quiz of the trimester over balanced force. A lot of students have been struggling to identify the direction of forces, and that is showing up on the quiz. When working on problems or labs, students were pretty successful when they went back to the language of the interaction stations we’d done, but the students who are struggling usually need prompting to think in those terms. I do some fairly general reflection in the course, but I’m thinking about how I can improve that next tri to help students recognize useful ways of thinking.

Chemistry Essentials: Polyatomic Ions

Students worked on writing formulas based on names that include polyatomic ions. Today, I added having students sketch particle diagrams for each compound, which helped them focus on the meaning of the various numbers. Yesterday’s activity with the Lewis dot beans also helped students think through today’s problems. Next tri, I think that will be my starting point for bonding.

Day 19: Plickers, Dueling Buggies, & Quiz

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics: Plickers

After a quiz, I introduced students to Plickers. One piece of feedback I got from students last year was that they would have liked to practice multiple choice earlier in the year so, this year, I’m planning to spend part of each Friday on that. I have students read the question silently and vote on an answer, then vote again after talking to their peers. My 4th hour had some great, spirited discussion and was actually disappointed when I told them it was time to put the cards away and head to lunch.

plicker

Physics: Dueling Buggies

We wrapped up the dueling buggies lab practical. For the rear end collision, most of my groups got a crash position behind where both of the buggies started, so I paused the class to look at what results would make sense. I’m debating whether its worth having that conversation sooner next year, or if it is better to wait until there is a need. This fits with a pattern I’ve noticed this year where more students than usual are struggling to connect their graphs and math to what is physically happening.

I couldn’t get a volunteer to release the second buggy or to film the collisions for me, so here’s a video from a couple years ago.

 

Chemistry Essentials: Quiz

Students spent most of the hour on their density quiz. While I haven’t graded them yet, there were some stark differences in how students did on the quiz. Several students immediately made a connection to some of the worksheets and labs we’d done and found the quiz extremely easy. Others thought the quiz was completely unfamiliar and really struggled. I need to keep working on helping students to make connections across different days, as well as supporting my students in developing as independent thinkers.

 

Day 14: Friction, Multiple Representations, & Density

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

Today is homecoming, so classes are shot and students are excited.

AP Physics: Friction

I decided not to take the time for a lab on friction, so I collected some data with a force sensor and motion detector and asked students for observations. I used the motion detector to help connect what the force was doing to what we know about momentum so far. Students pretty readily recognized the force of friction changed when the block when from being at rest to being in motion.

Afterwards, students took their second quiz. Last year, I had very few students complete retakes, so this year I’m giving them at least two in-class attempts at each learning target to try and normalize reassessment. So far, I’m hearing a lot of talk from students that suggests they are much more comfortable with reassessing than last year’s students.

friction take 1

Physics: Multiple Representations

Students worked on a Modeling worksheet to practice translating between position vs. time graphs, motion maps, and descriptions of motion. Overall, students did well and I think this helped reinforce the value of what came out of yesterday’s discussion. In the class where I see the most struggles with math skills, several groups chose to shuffle themselves today, and ended up needing much less support from me than usual. For the first time, however, I had some students who made graphs showing multiple positions for a single point in time. I need to probe their thinking a little more and think about how to address that when we go over the problems on Monday.

Chemistry Essentials: Density

Students worked on a Modeling worksheet connecting particle diagrams and density. I got a little nervous when a very large group gathered around the para who assists the class, but they had some good discussions. I do need to think about how that will impact whiteboarding on Monday when 1/3 of the class worked as part of the same group.

Day 4: Concept Inventories Galore!

/ Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

Today, all of my classes took some kind of concept inventory. Physics and AP Physics took the FCI while Chemistry Essentials took the CCI. The other Physics teacher and I talked about giving the FCI on day 1, but I’m glad we waited since it gave me a chance to start establishing a classroom culture before I gave students something I knew they’d get low scores on. Waiting also meant I could use the first few days to set the tone for what my classes should look like.

concept inventories.jpg

On a side note, I hid a line in my syllabus this year asking students to find or draw me a kitten picture once they’ve read it. As the pictures come in, I’m posting them in my room without comment. So far, I’m up to 5 kittens, which is a better response rate than last year!

kittens2