Day 52: Mistakes Whiteboarding &Binary Compounds

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

AP Physics 1: Mistakes Whiteboarding

We started looking at some force problems involving Newton’s 3rd Law by doing some mistakes whiteboarding. There was a lot of good discussion on the directions of normal forces in problems where the normal doesn’t just go straight up.

Physics: Mistakes Whiteboarding

This class also did mistakes whiteboarding, even with the same problems as in AP. Once again, there was a lot of good discussion on the direction of the normal forces.

Chemistry Essentials: Binary Compounds

Students practiced translating between names and formulas for binary compounds. Most students took to this pretty quickly and easily, which was great to see.

Day 51: Problems, 3rd Law, & Covalent Bonds

November 19, 2018November 19, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Problems

Students worked some problems on balanced forces, with an emphasis on Newton’s 3rd Law. We also started talking a little bit about the final exam, which will be a modified practice AP exam.

Physics: 3rd Law

Students predicted how the forces would compare during a series of collisions, then we tested teach collision out using a a pair of force sensors with hoop springs attached. Partway through the testing, a few students made the connection to Newton’s 3rd Law, which was fun to see.

Chemistry Essentials: Covalent Bonds

I introduced students to covalent bonding today. We aren’t going into much depth on figuring out the formulas, but we did take some time today to sketch electron diagrams (simplified Lewis dot structures) to get at what is going on during a covalent bond.

Day 49: Newton’s 3rd Law, Whiteboarding, & Polyatomic Ions

November 15, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / 2 Comments

AP Physics 1: Newton’s 3rd Law

Students predicted the relative forces on two carts in various collisions, then we tested them using a pair of carts with force sensors. I really like using hoop springs for this since it gives a very clear visual in addition to the force vs. time graphs.

Physics: Whiteboarding

Students whiteboarded the problems they worked on yesterday for a gallery walk. We set up the packet to re-use the problems we had that just deal with representations.

After discussing the problems, I showed students a video I’d recorded on our elevator and asked them to write a CER for whether I took the elevator up or down.

Chemistry Essentials: Polyatomic Ions

We added polyatomic ions to the formula writing we’ve been doing. Students seem to be getting the hang of how to figure out the formula. Some students have figured out the “flop and drop” strategy, and others are opting to draw the simplified Lewis dot structures we’ve been using when they get stuck.

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

November 13, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

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.

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.

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

November 12, 2018 / 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.

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.

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.

Day 45: Quiz, Force Representations, & Bonding Intro

November 9, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

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 43: Whiteboarding, Assessment, & Isotopes

November 7, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

AP Physics 1: Whiteboarding

Students whiteboarded yesterday’s problems for a gallery walk.They are definitely taking to velocity vs. time graphs very quickly.

Physics: Assessment

Students took their assessment on balanced force problems today. We’ve been using weekly packets, and including a groupwork reflection at the end of each packet. We’ve been consistently using the same three questions, but switched to a rubric from Colleen Nyeggen for a change of pace. Several students were very vocal that they liked that the switch pushed them to think a little differently about their participation this week.

Chemistry Essentials: Isotopes

This course usually includes the fairly classic penny isotope lab where students figure out the ratio of pre-1982 pennies to post-1982 pennies in a sealed container, but the math always felt like a black box in this course, so I came up with an alternative. Today, I tried having each group find the average mass of a random sample of pennies, then comparing that average to the mass of each type of penny. Groups really consistently saw that their average was closer to the typical mass of the type of penny they had more of, which lead nicely into identifying the most common isotope of elements on the periodic table. The key moment seemed to be when I had students whiteboard their average mass and which type of penny they had more of.

Day 40: Mistakes Whiteboarding & Build an Atom

November 2, 2018 / 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.

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.

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

November 1, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

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.

Day 37: Linearization, Force Representations, & Millikan Experiment

October 30, 2018 / Marta R. Stoeckel / Leave a comment

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!

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.