Unit 1 Reflections

Modelling as a way of physics.  I think it is doable but I think it is going to be a lot of work.  Here is what I’ve gotten out of the first few days of the workshop.  A good amount of the technique seem to coincide with what my school has been working on the last few years so I think the transition will be an easy sell to my administration.  Here are the main points.

1.       I need to do less talking and the students need to do more.  This will involve answering questions with questions and try to lead the students to think through the material.

2.        The beginning of the year will involve getting to know the students and the students getting used to the processes of the class.  One of the main processes will be the board meeting. 

3.       The 6 to 10 labs we did help the students come up with operational definitions.  They will see that the things that we use in the class are what we come up with and it will help delve into some of the misconceptions and gaps that are there.

a.       I want to make sure I deal with some that involve each type of graph relationship

b.      Be sure to deal with one involving area so that the students can develop an operational definition for area.

c.       Be sure they gather at least 5 points of data

d.      Try to have them gather points so that ideally the largest is 10x bigger than the smallest.

e.      Make sure the students are arguing from data

f.        The 5% rule for rejecting setting the intercept to 0

g.       They should be able to make an argument for why the point 0,0 is included in their data or not.

h.      What should be included on their labs and boards

·   Title

·   Research question

·   Graph

·   Data table

·   For every statement

4.       Only use things in class that the class comes up with.

I’ll have to come back and refine this later but this is a start.