Learning with Ms. Medrano

We had a Physics Learning Team meeting, and we looked over where we are today compared to what we did last year. We are behind. I know that we took an extra day to make sure we really knew how to write the Claims and Evidence for the CER (Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning). However, I’m unclear to where the time went.

Last year, we wanted to include a Proportional Reasoning lesson because we do a lot of Proportional Reasoning thinking throughout the year. This year, was Take Two for this lesson. At the beginning, most of the students seemed to be tuned out because the math was so easy. We made it easy so that we wouldn’t be teaching math, but the proportional thinking. Because I lost so many of them so early, maybe we should make the math part a little bit harder.

This was the first question we gave after the Proportional Reasoning Intro. Here is the Proportional Reasoning document: Proportional Reasoning document. Then we gave this as the first practice problem. The first block informed me that I needed to go over the meanings of coefficient and variable. Then we went over how to isolate the variable by using the opposite operation. Once we got to the algebra, it was easy enough.

Both Mrs. F and I decided that we should include some sort of table. Such as this one to the right. It was much easier to see what the coefficients are. However, it wasn’t so easy to see the coefficient that match the variable. Also, it was hard to see that delta x is one variable.

There are still quite a few kinks to work out, but I think we’re getting better each year.

This year, I also made it a requirement to reflect on how we did on the quiz PLUS what we can do better next time. Students who got a 100% saw it as something that they didn’t need to do. However, with growth mindset, we can always do better or improve something. Somehow, that message didn’t come across as strong as I hoped it would.

All my Physics related blog posts are probably going to start with I hate how Schoology is down for our freshmen class. It’s really throwing a wrench in my organization and work flow. Over the long weekend, we assigned some homework pages that are meant to be practice for students about graphs and equations. I had quite a few miss the homework because they didn’t have anywhere to check to confirm what their homework is. Over the last ten years, my philosophy on this has changed significantly. It should have been on the student to complete their homework, but if they don’t know what’s for homework, then how can they complete it? Argh.

We ended up whiteboarding the homework. It was the original plan, so it was totally fine. The students did wonderfully! I’m so proud of how they all came up to present their problem and answered my questions wonderfully. There were some common misconceptions that came up like making graphs have even intervals. Another common one was that the cyclists had the same velocity at the moment the lines intersect (on a x-t graph). For the most part, it went well. I think students understood it more. I did get one student who was convinced that the negative slope meant that the cyclist was slowing down. We went back to the buggy lab conclusions and most of their peers were really excited to show how the negative slope meant the opposite direction.

I really enjoyed seeing the students work together on their whiteboards because they wanted to do a good job.

THREE DAYS!!! Three days of discussing the Buggy Lab. It really didn’t help that Schoology is down. I totally messed up and made like three assignments of the same assignment in Google classroom. So naturally, we have confusion. Learning is hard enough without our tools malfunctioning. With this hurdle, listening and paying attention have become a tad bit more difficult.

For the first part of the discussion, I asked students to make a graph of their work. They all scaled them the same way so that the differences and similarities can be more easily seen. They had to identify their buggy color, street direction, starting position, and the m value given on Desmos.

They eventually arrived at the following conclusions:

• linear graph = constant
• Increasing slopes = positive direction
• Decreasing slopes = negative direction
• Red buggies were fast and blue buggies were slow.
• Slope tells us the speed.
• y-intercept tells us the starting position.

Day 3, I realized that they knew to say those things, but didn’t completely understand why or what it meant. So Day 7 (3rd day of talking about buggies…) I thought it would be a good goal to try to get them to understand meaning by writing CERs.

My colleagues and I have been thinking and thinking about how to teach our ninth graders how to write CERs. Finally, it came to me. Our students may not understand what we’re doing but they sure do understand photographs! I thought to find a couple of photos that may or may not be clear in what the people in the photograph are emoting. (Here is a link to my slides: CER Slides)

Photograph 1: A couple seems to be celebrating a joyful event.

The first photo I chose was purposeful. I Google searched for black and white photos of people showing joy. I picked the one that showed joy, but could be interpreted differently based on the evidence chosen. This particular couple looked happy, but the woman also had a handkerchief to her eye (she could be crying?). It really drove the point that I wanted to make clear the difference between observation and inference. We don’t know if the man was clapping, but we can say that his hands are together.

Photograph 2: A man getting off the bus to meet his family at the Manzanar Internment Camp.

I’m not sure if the caption that went with the photo is totally accurate, but it was very much unclear what was happening. The man could be getting on or off the bus. Who were the people in the photograph? Students were asking each other great questions, and trying to come up with great answers. They were excited. When it was time to share, they were even more excited to talk about who was right and wrong. My Block 4 seemed to be bent out of shape because I didn’t pick a right/wrong team. It was also a great chance to talk about how a group of Americans were sent away to live elsewhere because of fear. There were some definitely discomfort in the classroom because of what we were talking about. However, students were beginning to ask great questions such as what is racism and what is not?

Transition to Buggy Lab

Both my colleage, Mrs. F (Mrs. F’s #teach180 blog) and I were super excited at how excited the students were…then we brought it back to the Buggy Lab. It was such a terrible transition. They were not excited to talk about Claims and Evidences in relation to the buggy. It also occurred to us that we had to rewrite the answer key AND the rubric since we weren’t really focusing on Reasoning at all. However, I do think the students did a really great job of trying to keep up and write their own claims and evidences. We recognize that they’re doing something difficult, and we keep improving how we scaffold it for students.

Update on the LMS malfunction

I tried emailing students daily what we did in class and what the homework is. I also placed important due dates for them. Tried to make it as clear as possible…once again…to me. We found out in class that no one reads their emails. So here I am, learning Google classroom right along with them. I made a classroom for each Physics block during my lunch. Some of the students are giving me pointers. My homework this weekend is to learn Google classroom. Any help is welcome.

Google slides- Introduction

It actually turned out way cuter than the previous class indicated. Students really put in a lot of work into their introductions. So much so that I think I might start each class by playing the video of their slides. Because they have their first and last names on it, I don’t think I can embed the video. However, students were looking around the room to see who the person was…and then yelling across the room to ask about the thing that they shared in common. My objective of the freshmen getting to know each other was met.

Invention task

We had students work on the Physics Invention Tasks: Popcorn Popping Index, Fastness Index, and The Steepness Index. We talked about showing students that an index is really a unit rate. They struggled through counting. Every year I forget that I have to tell the students that the individual tick marks makes up a block. It’s not a big deal, but it does add a great deal of frustration to their learning. I think I’m okay with giving them that much information. We put the follow-up questions on a separate page. I think that maybe we should just include it in the already large packet, or keep the questions together. I didn’t like the logistics of the students having to move between the worksheets. More than one packet seemed to be a bit overwhelming.

Group made a mark for every “Mississippi” and found out that the marks are equidistsant.

Our first official board meeting!

More student work.

Students who thought of having the buggy go repeatedly the same amount of distance and hopefully get the same amount of time.

Students transferring the discussion of rates into this activity.

Is the buggy moving at a constant speed?

This is my third year doing this curriculum. The first two times I did it, it didn’t work so well because I forgot to give the students the buggy. Since the students were genius, they figured it out anyway…we just took a lot longer. This year, I let Block 4 use their phones as timers AND the buggy. I saw a lot of Instagramming…but not of Physics. So the next two blocks, I took away their timers. Bonus: they were able to get the concept better. The majority measured their buggies to go from starting to a point and seeing if it did that every time. The minority put a tick mark for every “1-Mississippi.” Then they showed that the distances were indeed equal. There were quite a few that didn’t understand what we meant, so I’m going to have to go over that next class.