Day 91: Pendulums, Projectile Graphs, & Periodic Table Card Sort

February 5, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

AP Physics 1: Pendulums

Students collected data for variables that affect the period of a pendulum. This was a day where I could tell students are getting better at experimental design and more comfortable with being independent; groups were able to work through challenges and surprises with very little input from me.

Physics: Projectile Graphs

Students whiteboarded their results from yesterday’s activity in Pivot Interactives. They had to shake some of the dust off their skills on interpreting motion graphs, but it came back quickly and students made the connections I was after very successfully.

Chemistry Essentials: Periodic Table Card Sort

Students worked on a card sort to introduce the periodic table. A few students were really eager to know what some of the features of the cards represented, which lead to some great conversations in lab groups about patterns they saw with those numbers.

Day 90 (finally!): Vocab, Projectiles, & Review

February 4, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 2 Comments

Last week, we cancelled school Monday through Thursday due to snow and cold, then had a planned staff development day on Friday, so students ended up with a full week off school.

AP Physics 1: Vocab

On some grading I did on our surprise week off, I noticed a lot of my students were not distinguishing between different concepts in their writing (I really wanted to quote Inigo Montoya while I was grading). Today, with some inspiration from Kelli Warble, students did some whiteboarding to clarify important terms by starting with the tool they would use to measure each quantity. Students said they found it helpful; I’m hoping it will pay dividends as we move into simple harmonic motion.

Physics: Projectiles

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

Students used a video in Pivot Interactives that shows three views of a projectile to make position vs. time and velocity vs. time graphs for each component of the motion.

Chemistry Essentials: Review

The quiz on phase changes had been scheduled for last Monday. Since its been a while, we took some time to whiteboard a problem with frozen broth heating up on a stove. I broke the problem into smaller steps, and had groups pass the marker after each step so the person writing on the whiteboard varied.

Day 89: Assessments & Mistakes Whiteboarding

January 25, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Projectile Assessment

Students took their projectile motion quiz. A lot of students told me it was easier than they expected. I tend to find my students are less confident on the material than I think they should be, and I haven’t figured out yet how to help students build up that confidence.

Physics: Energy Assessment

Students took their conservation of energy quiz. We’ve been including a reflection at the end of the packets students turn in on quiz days; since my PLC decided to try using group roles for some of the activities in this packet, we focused the reflection on how the group roles went and I’m looking forward to reading what students wrote.

Chemistry Essentials: Mistakes Whiteboarding

We did some mistakes whiteboarding to go over the bar chart problems students worked on yesterday. My students this trimester have a much clearer understanding of the energy flow section of the diagrams than when I’ve used bar charts in other classes, which has been great to see. Now I need to try and figure out what’s helped them make sense of that so I can repeat it next time I teach the course!

Day 88: Catching Up, Whiteboarding, & Bar Charts

January 24, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Catching Up

The seniors were watching a play today, so I only saw one section of AP Physics 1. The good news is the section I saw is my much larger class, which is a little behind my other section. Today, I gave them time to finish up the lab practical and work on problems we ran out of time to whiteboard this week.

Physics: Whiteboarding

We got out the whiteboards to go over yesterday’s problems. In my larger section, we did a gallery walk since about halfway through the period I needed to dismiss students for the play. I saw my smaller section for the full hour, and in that class we focused on consensus-building one problem at a time.

Chemistry Essentials: Bar Charts

Students worked on some problems using energy bar charts to describe phase changes. A lot of students found the problems pretty easy and there were some great small-group discussions about a few problems, including one where students sketch sets of bar carts for a drink and for the ice in the drink.

Day 86: Projectile Practical, Bouncy Ball CER, & Lauric Acid Phase Change

January 22, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

AP Physics 1: Projectile Practical

Students started working on predicting where a marble rolled off the edge of a table will hit the floor. As a wrinkle, I left it open how to set up a ramp to launch a marble and how to measure the horizontal velocity, then had students write a procedure. Groups exchanged procedures with the goal that they should get the same velocity as the group who wrote the original procedure. My goal is for students to get some low-stakes feedback on this kind of writing.

Physics: Bouncy Ball CER

Students finished up with the bouncy ball lab we’ve been working on and whiteboarded CER statements for what is dissipating the bouncy ball’s energy. There was good consensus that the impact has a much bigger effect than air resistance. We used a worksheet to scaffold the pre-work for this activity, so there wasn’t as much variety as when I leave it wide open, but I think students were more successful than they would have been without it.

Chemistry Essentials: Lauric Acid Phase Change

Students collected data for phase changes of lauric acid. A few groups weren’t stirring, which made their data messier, but the patterns are pretty clear overall, even on the data table.

Day 85: Whiteboarding, Video Analysis, & Board Meeting

January 18, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Whiteboarding

Students whiteboarding yesterday’s problems. I focused on a consensus-building approach, where all groups whiteboarded the same problem, then we used the discussion to come to an agreement on what the answer should be, and why. Both my sections have a pretty good sense of class community, which made students pretty comfortable sharing work they weren’t sure about yet and building off each others’ ideas.

Physics: Video Analysis

We finally got out the computers to do some video analysis of a bouncy ball to figure out what interaction is dissipating the energy. I’ve never had much luck walking the whole class through the software, so I have a video analysis guide with lots of animated screenshots that I put on the class website. Students were able to get some nice graphs of the bouncy ball’s motion and connect them to our work from the past few days.

Chemistry Essentials: Board Meeting

Students whiteboarded their results from yesterday’s lab in Pivot Interactives. During the board meeting, students continued to share observations faster than I could write them down, which is a great problem to have in this course. It was also very clear to students that the temperature stays fairly constant during the freezing process. I’m hoping having had a board on these results will help students make sense of our lauric acid lab on Tuesday.

Day 84: Projectile Calcs, Bouncy Ball Diagrams, & Pivot Interactives Phase Changes

January 17, 2019February 4, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 2 Comments

AP Physics 1: Projectile Calcs

Students started working on some projectile motion calculations. We also took a few minutes to discuss a new clip from Mythbusters Jr. where an archer attempts to replicate Odysseus’ shot through a series of rings. Students head read the Odyssey in English and were excited to link what they’d read to some physics and Mythbusters and there was some good conceptual discussion about the trick.

Physics: Bouncy Ball Diagrams

We spent some more time whiteboarding diagrams in our efforts to figure out what interaction dissipates a bouncy ball’s energy. It was clear students were a little rusty on free-body diagrams and velocity vs. time graphs, but they were able to make sense of what the diagrams should look like and there was some good discussion along the way.

Chemistry Essentials: Pivot Interactives Phase Change

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

I usually introduce phase changes with a lab using lauric acid, but have found that while students notice their temperature doesn’t change during the lab, many of the students I see in Chemistry Essentials struggle enough with reading graphs that the small errors and uncertainty in their data makes it tough to pick out the big ideas. This time around, I decided to try starting with a version of the lab in Pivot Interactives. When students weren’t responsible for stirring, the data came out much cleaner. I also found students were much more willing to accept the temperature plateau as something real than I’ve seen in the past. This lead to some great questions about where the heat must be going when the temperature isn’t changing.

Day 83: Whiteboarding & Assessment

January 16, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Projectile Whiteboarding

We finally whiteboarded students’ results from Friday’s projectile motion activity using Pivot Interactives. We also made a lot of references to yesterday’s activity and how it fit with what we saw in the graphs. I always love this board meeting since things just click for students and projectile motion suddenly feels simple to them.

Physics: Bouncy Ball Whiteboarding

Students started whiteboarding the representations they’d sketched yesterday for a bouncing bouncy ball. We were only able to get through the energy bar charts today, but students started to make some connections that will help make more sense of the placed they struggled yesterday, like the v-t graphs.

Chemistry Essentials: Assessment

Students took their density retake and their gas laws quiz. It ended up taking the whole hour since we had shortened periods today. A lot of students told me they felt like they improved on density, which was the goal.

Day 81: Assessment & Whiteboarding

January 14, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Assessment

Students took their energy assessment. When they finished, they worked on wrapping up their projectile motion work from Friday.

Physics: Energy Whiteboarding

Students whiteboarded their problems from Friday. Both classes were able to come to a consensus on what the answers should be and why.

Chemistry Essentials: Gas Laws Whiteboarding

We did a gallery walk to go over some gas law problems from last week. The numbers in the problems are pretty extreme to keep the math relatively simple, but that left room for students to be able to focus on what temperature and pressure mean at the particle level and to connect their conceptual understanding to the math they were doing. That’s a trade-off I’m okay with for now.

Day 79: Projectiles, Graphing, & Gas Law Problems

January 10, 2019 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 1 Comment

AP Physics 1: Projectiles

Students worked through some questions I got from Michael Lerner to introduce projectiles by having students represent the motion of a falling object using key tools from each of the models we’ve covered so far this year. This day always makes me really happy I wait until the end of linear mechanics to do projectiles.

Physics: Graphing

Students worked on finishing up their data collection and graphing from yesterday’s kinetic energy lab. I was really excited about how many students recognized on their own that they would need to linearize this data; even groups that had data that looked fairly linear, which is common with this lab, realized their intercept would make more sense with a parabola than a straight line, which was awesome. January and February are always a tough time of year, and a clear reminder of how much my students have grown so far this year was just what I needed.

Chemistry Essentials: Gas Law Problems

Students worked on solving problems using the gas laws. First trimester, I switched from using the formulas to having students use proportions to solve the problems, which helped make the math more accessible. This trimester, I added a question where students had to determine whether the unknown quantity should increase or decrease based on their particle diagrams, which made a big difference for students when deciding whether to multiply or divide to get their answer.