Day 23: Board Meeting, Annotating Graphs, & Gas Laws

October 4, 2018October 4, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

Today was students’ last day before a 3-day weekend and our homecoming pepfest, so classes were short and students were more energetic than usual.

AP Physics: Board Meeting

We had a board meeting for the spring force lab. Students initiated some good discussion about the intercepts in both sections, but I had to do a little coaxing to get them thinking about the values of the slopes. One of the challenges was a lot of groups hadn’t distinguished between mass and force of gravity, which tells me I should have done a little more pre-lab discussion, especially since that distinction was just introduced earlier this week.

Physics: Annotating Graphs

Students whiteboarded yesterday’s problems for a short gallery walk before trying some calculations. I think this is the first year where I didn’t have any students opt to use the formula for the area of a trapezoid on any of their graphs; it just felt more natural to most of my students to split the graph into a triangle and rectangle (which is what I usually do). When students started working with numbers, I had a lot of students independently start talking about specific times and velocities as coordinate pairs, which I haven’t seen students do before and was pretty great.

Chemistry Essentials: Gas Laws

Students sketched their graphs from the past few days for a simplified board meeting. One of the things I really appreciate about this group is I have some students who are really willing to speak up when they are confused about something; one of my students was struggling to see how the graphs fit with the qualitative relationships we found earlier this week and didn’t hesitate to say so, which lead to some valuable discussion about how to read a graph.

Day 21: Board Meeting, Quiz, & Quantitative Gas Laws

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

AP Physics 1: Board Meeting

Students finished up their whiteboards for yesterday’s lab and we had our board meeting. Both classes got really nice results and had good discussions. I’m thinking about moving balanced forces to right after constant velocity next year since it gives some really good opportunities for students to be successful on experimental design.

Physics: Quiz

Today was our quiz on representations for constant acceleration. The quiz was pretty short, but I’ve been giving a few minutes before each quiz for students to do a reflection on their collaboration over the past few days. I also spent a few minutes talking with my students about today’s Nobel Prize announcement, and my students had a lot of questions about both this year’s prize and the Nobel Prize in general.

Chemistry Essentials: Quantitative Gas Laws

I am being compensated by Pivot Interactives for participating in a pilot of their chemistry materials.

Students used Pivot Interactives to collect data for a relationship between pressure and temperature. There were some minor issues with the computers, but once students got logged in they were pretty successful. We only have one gas pressure sensor in the school, so this particular activity makes it possible to do a quantitative lab we otherwise wouldn’t be able to and is more firmly rooted in reality than a simulation. The activity included some questions I really like the temperature when the pressure is zero; I overestimated how well my students understand the intercept of a graph, so I’ll need to make sure I allow time to discuss those questions tomorrow.

Day 20: Force of Gravity, Graph Stacks, & Gas Laws

October 1, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 3 Comments

AP Physics 1: Force of Gravity

Students collected data to find a relationship between the force of gravity on an object and its mass. Not surprisingly, data is coming out pretty nicely. This is also giving students a chance to have some good conversations about uncertainty since their cognitive load on the rest of the lab is a little lighter.

Physics: Graph Stacks

Students whiteboarded some problems from the Modeling Instruction curriculum sketching kinematic graph stacks for a cart on a ramp, a few of which we tested using a ramp with a motion encoder cart. I also got out Brian Frank’s magnetic vectors for the first time, which made it much easier to discuss the motion maps. For the problems we couldn’t test, I had students whiteboard a problem, then get with a group that did the same problem to come to a consensus, which lead to some great conversations between groups that disagreed.

Chemistry Essentials: Gas Laws

I got out some sealed syringes to do a qualitative exploration of ideal gas laws. Students made some great observations, and developed a nice, kinesthetic understanding of what pressure is.

Day 17: Free Body Diagrams, Whiteboard Prep, & Describing Substances

September 26, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Free Body Diagrams

Students started working on some free body diagrams by diving straight into some mistakes whiteboarding. There was a lot of great conversation about the problems where an object was moving with a constant velocity as students did the expected wrestling with how an object is moving forward without a force in that direction. One of my classes also had some surprisingly good conversation about systems with a problem about an object at rest.

Physics: Whiteboard Prep

Students worked on their graphs and prepped whiteboards to discuss the ramp lab. With this being their first experience linearizing and their first time using Desmos, it took some time to get the boards ready. I think next year I’d like to introduce Desmos with the buggy lab so there is a little less new material going on in the ramp lab.

Chemistry Essentials: Describing Substances

Students did a worksheet to practice with yesterday’s vocabulary, then I had them prep whiteboards and do a gallery walk to check their work.

Day 15: SOS Diagrams, Ramp Lab, & Density Representations

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

AP Physics 1: SOS Diagrams

I took a few minutes to introduce SOS diagrams for momentum and impulse, then had students whiteboard some problems. The biggest challenge was thinking through what are useful snapshots to use but, once students wrapped their heads around that, things seemed to go very smoothly.

Physics: Ramp Lab

Students started collecting data to make position vs. time graphs for a cart on a ramp. This was their first time using the tracks and their first time using LabQuests, so it was a lot to take in. Several groups commented the first data point was the hardest to get, but, once they knew what they were doing, the data collection was quick and easy.

ramp lab.jpg

Chemistry Essentials: Density Representations

Today was the density quiz, so we started by using whiteboards to review some different ways to represent density. Most students seem pretty solid on the particle diagrams, but mass vs. volume graphs are challenging for a lot of them. In general, graphs have been challenging for a lot of my chemistry students this year, largely because I overestimated their prior knowledge and haven’t adapted as well as I’d like.

density particle.jpg

Day 14: Board Meeting, Dueling Buggies, & Density Challenge

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

AP Physics 1: Board Meeting

We had a board meeting on the impulse lab students have been working on. There were a few groups with really nice results, but this is a very tough one to get consistently accurate slopes, which made the discussion tough, even though my students did a nice job. It was a little tricky getting to the formula we’ll be using for impulse since the lab had a non-constant force, but the equation assumes a constant one. Next year, I might switch to the half-Atwood machine, rather than saving it for unbalanced forces.

Physics: Dueling Buggies

Students finished up the dueling buggies lab practical. I saw a much wider range of approaches than in my AP classes this year; most of my AP students are in the same math classes, which I think encourages them to think about problems in similar ways. My regular classes, meanwhile, have a much wider range of students, so there was a lot of great discussion about different ways to think about this problem.

Chemistry Essentials: Density Challenge

I am receiving access to Pivot Interactives this year in exchange for piloting some of their chemistry activities.

Students used Pivot Interactives to make mass vs. volume graphs to identify unknown liquids by their density. A lot of students had some trouble getting started, but, once I pointed out the similarities to the density of water lab we’d done, they were very successful. The videos don’t zero the balance so that the graph will end up with an intercept; this was the first graph with a non-zero intercept they’ve seen in this class, so it was challenging, but we were able to work through it. I think just about every group picked gallium as their unknown liquid, which is fitting, since it would be the hardest to do in the classroom.

Day 13: Impulse, Dueling Buggies, & Mistakes Whiteboarding

September 20, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Impulse

Students finished up their data collection for the impulse lab. Some groups have really nice looking data, while other groups have graphs where the pattern is much less clear. I need to spend some time trouble-shooting this lab to see about getting more consistent results. Most of the groups did a nice job of taking turns operating the LabQuest, even without me explicitly directing them to.

Physics: Dueling Buggies

Students wrapped up yesterday’s mistakes whiteboarding, then started work predicting where two buggies would collide. My classes, especially my 1st hour, are taking very quickly to mistakes whiteboarding, so the conversations were much better than I usually expect at this time of year.

Chemistry: Density Mistakes Whiteboarding

We only got through one problem yesterday, so we finished doing mistakes whiteboarding for some density problems. Yesterday, it was very tough to get students to speak up, so today I had students spend a minute or two talking to a neighbor about each whiteboard before we shifted to whole class discussion, which helped a little. The biggest factor was a few students who were gone yesterday were very eager to participate and, once they asked some questions, other students seemed more comfortable speaking up.

Day 12: Impulse & Mistakes Whiteboarding

September 19, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 2 Comments

AP Physics 1: Impulse

We started by discussing the idea that both the magnitude of a force and the amount of time its applied seem to matter for changes in momentum to get to the idea that we could compare the area of a force vs. time graph to the change in velocity. Students used elastic strings to connect carts to force sensors and started collecting data. This was the first lab where students used the dynamics track and where they collected quantitative data from the LabQuests, but students seemed to get comfortable with the equipment pretty quickly.

Physics: CVPM Mistakes Whiteboarding

Students did mistakes whiteboarding with yesterday’s quantitative CVPM problems. In my 1st hour, a lot of groups were very vocal about picking a mistake one of them had made, and I love the way this places a value on their mistakes and gives them the opportunity to conquer the mistake.

phys mistake.jpg

Chemistry Essentials: Density Mistakes Whiteboarding

This was my chemistry class’s first experience with mistakes whiteboarding. I started the hour with a short vocabulary review that seemed to help cement the key concepts we’re working with. The class was very quiet during the whiteboard presentations, so we only go through one. I think tomorrow I’ll have them do some talking to a neighbor about each board before we shift to whole class.

chem mistake.jpg

Day 9: Momentum, Mistakes Whiteboarding, & Board Meeting

September 14, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

AP Physics 1: Momentum

We discussed what students saw in yesterday’s bowling ball lab to get to a rule for how taps affect motion. Yesterday, a lot of groups started having conversations about how the size of the tap and the mass of the bowling ball plays into how much the motion changes, so I took advantage of that to introduce the definition of momentum, which lead smoothly into framing Newton’s 1st Law in terms of changes in momentum.

Physics: Mistakes Whiteboarding

I introduced mistakes whiteboarding today with some photos from the first time I made fried mozzarella with nectarines and balsamic glaze so we could have some discussion about which photo did more for my learning. Students then whiteboarded yesterday’s problems and had some great discussion about the problems.

halfbakedharvest.com

It was still tasty

Chemistry Essentials: Board Meeting Continued

Today, we picked up discussing yesterdays lab on density. Since we’d made a good list of observations about the graphs yesterday, today I had students whiteboard “for every” statements describing their slopes, which, along with particle diagrams, lead nicely into a definition of slope. For next time, I’d love to find a second liquid that gives a pretty nice slope so students can contrast the two.

Day 7: Dueling Buggies, Board Meeting, & Volume

September 12, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 7 Comments

AP Physics 1: Dueling Buggies

Students predicted where two buggies would collide based on their starting points and speeds. It was interesting to see how different sections approached this problem; most of the groups in my 2nd hour used motion maps while almost all of my 4th hour used position vs. time graphs. When my 4th hour discussed the buggy paradigm lab, students brought up the fact that some of the graphs intersected, with one even bringing up that position vs. time graphs can be used to elegantly solve the classic two trains problem.

Physics: Board Meeting

Students wrapped up the buggy lab and we had our board meeting. Before the board meeting, I once again had students do a gallery walk and jot some notes down on their lab sheet, which lead to some really good conversation during the board meeting. The downside is students are using the gallery walk to ask questions I’d normally hope to hear during the whole-class board meeting, like asking about what a group was doing when they collected data that gave a negative slope, but students bringing up those points during the whole-class phase, so it doesn’t feel like a big downside.

buggy lab

Chemistry Essentials: Volume

Today, students found a relationship between the amount of water displaced and a solid’s volume in cubic centimeters to get at the equivalence of milliLiters and cubic centimeters. I haven’t had great results with the Modeling Instruction volume lab, so this year I cut some rods from the metals teacher into short sections so that students only needed to find the volume of cylinders. I like that the lab I did today uses the same version of water displacement they’ll use later on, but the math was a struggle for a lot of students. About half of my groups finished data collection and the other half only got one data point because they were caught up calculating the volume. I need to keep working on how to make this lab accessible to all of my students.

volume lab