It’s the end of the quarter, and I admittedly did not do a very good job of preparing myself mentally for what was to come today. I knew it was going to be a short period (65 minutes instead of our usual 75 minutes). It wasn’t until I was chatting with another teacher did IContinue reading “Physics Day 20: I survived another year of teaching position graphs”
Category Archives: Physics
Day 14: Physics and Algebra
Today was Day 1 of 4 of the Frosh Retreat. For Block 5, I had 6 students present for class, and everyone else was rostered to be at the retreat. I don’t actually know if anyone was absent, but I expected them to be at the retreat. Block 6 – everyone was present. This 4-dayContinue reading “Day 14: Physics and Algebra”
Physics Day 10: Buggy Lab
The beginning of the velocity unit has always been a bit hairy. This is when the “true” modeling part of teaching comes out. I ask: “is the buggy moving?” In the past, it has become a controversial question and students leave the room wondering if it really is or isn’t. This year, the students wereContinue reading “Physics Day 10: Buggy Lab”
Day 7: 2-Argument Functions
It has finally dawned on me why teaching Pyret felt both foreign and familiar. We are teaching the same material, but in a different order. At this point, we would have drawn some pictures using Pyret already. I absolutely understand why we skipped the playing with Pyret portion of the introduction. We simply don’t haveContinue reading “Day 7: 2-Argument Functions”
Physics Day 3: Variables
Day 2 schedule had me flustered. When speaking with others, they felt the same way. So I started Day 3 by apologizing the students for allowing my frustration with the time constraints to fly. We spent the first part of class reviewing all the things we should have covered the previous class. I’m not soContinue reading “Physics Day 3: Variables”
Physics Day 1: Making Squares
Today’s Day 1 (2nd first day of school) of Physics went as smoothly as it could go. I forgot how fun it is to teach the 9th graders as everything in high school is still brand new for them. They came in with a nervous excitement…Ms. Medrano had their seating chart ready to go… ThenContinue reading “Physics Day 1: Making Squares”
Day 30: Quiz and turning our motion maps
We’re about 10 days out from taking the final, and we’re just now taking the first quiz for velocity. During the next-x discussion, a lot of the students LOOKED like they were paying attention. There were lots of copying down whatever was being written down on the board. However, today, after looking at the quizzesContinue reading “Day 30: Quiz and turning our motion maps”
Days 7 & 8: System Schema and State Diagrams
Day 7: Flipbooks Today, we finally go the chance to introduce the Physicists of 406. I normally like to do this on Day 2 or Day 3, with Day 1 being a 45-minute period. I had no idea that missing that normal Day 1 would throw me off my timing so bad. Regardless, students filledContinue reading “Days 7 & 8: System Schema and State Diagrams”
Days 5-6 Observation Stations continues
I really should have lumped Days 4-6 together since it covers Observation Stations, but it looks like I was feeling particularly ambitious about posting each day. Day 5: Progress Check + Presentations Since it was our first year last year rolling out the Computational Modeling- Physics First #cmpfb curriculum, it was not as intuitive forContinue reading “Days 5-6 Observation Stations continues”
Day 5: Observation Stations Part 1 #cmpfb
Started the class with having students reflect on their Pyret homework assignment. They came up with some great reflections about what they noticed about Pyret. There are still a lot of students calling the feedback messages errors, so that just means I’ll have to be way more intentional about calling them FEEDBACK instead of errors.Continue reading “Day 5: Observation Stations Part 1 #cmpfb”
Learning with Ms. Medrano 