Whiteboarding

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 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.

 

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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Day 32: Board Meetings, Gravity, Invented Problems

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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.

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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.

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Day 31: Collisions & Whiteboarding

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AP Physics 1: Collisions

I’m doing things a little out of sequence to work around computer access, so we went back to the collisions lab from Monday. Today the data collection went a lot faster than Monday, which is not surprising since Monday was their first time using photogates.

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Physics: Whiteboarding

We wrapped up going over some free-body diagram problems. My 1st hour had enough time to start yesterday, so they did mistakes whiteboarding. My 6th hour was a little more crunched, so I picked some of the trickiest problems and assigned two groups to each one. Then, the pairs of group met up to come to a consensus on the answer before we moved into a gallery walk of all the assigned problems.

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Chemistry Essentials: Mistakes Whiteboarding

Students did mistakes whiteboarding for yesterday’s phase change bar chart problems. This class is still pretty quiet, but they are gradually getting better at speaking up during this activity.

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

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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.

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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.

Day 26: Problems, Bowling Balls, & Assessment

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AP Physics 1: Problems

Students worked on a mix of problems on impulse and on using formulas for types of forces. During the second part of class, students whiteboarded problems for a gallery walk.

ap wb

Physics: Bowling Balls

Today was bowling ball day! Students worked through Frank Noschese’s bowling ball and mallet activity.  After getting a class rule so far for taps and bowling ball motion, a few students commented it reminded them a lot of Newton’s 1st Law from 9th grade physical science. Imagine that!

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Chemistry Essentials: Assessment

Students took their gas laws quiz today. Last year, I was pretty good about planning some kind of activity for after the assessment. About half my students take the assessments in a pull-out setting and many of them need more time than the students who stay in the classroom, so I did a lot of nature of science-type activities with students in the classroom while pull out students finished their assessments. I’ve been dropping the ball on that and need to get back into that routine. The students who stayed in the classroom weren’t getting into trouble when they finished, but I’d prefer to have something worthwhile for them to do.

Day 24: Friction, Mistakes Whiteboarding, & Gas Law Problems

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AP Physics: Friction

Students worked on collecting data for variables that affect the force of friction. I have some friction blocks with a fuzzy side and a plain wood side, and asked students to make a graph of friction force vs. mass for each side, then prepare a CER for whether surface area and speed matter. A few groups opted to add a graph of friction force vs. mass for the narrow side of the block to answer whether surface area matters, and got beautiful results where the slope matched for both sides covered in the same material.

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Physics: Mistakes Whiteboarding

We did mistakes whiteboarding with Thursday’s problems. I dropped the ball on taking pictures, but there were some fantastic mistakes, especially on problems where neither the final nor the initial velocity is zero. I’m also seeing some great things emerge in the way my students approach discussion; in my 1st hour, there is one student who tends to be one of the most vocal, but both he and the rest of the class were very conscious of finding opportunities for other students to speak up.

Chemistry Essentials: Gas Law Problems

Students worked on some problems doing calculations with the gas laws. Since a lot of my students have very weak algebra skills, we are doing these problems proportionally. While my students worked, my co-teacher and I conferenced with each student about their grade and their progress so far.