Good morning NTSC'ers
I hope you are all well...
Our progress through physics has (hopefully) followed these steps:
Describing motion - Quantifying motion - Explaining motion
The explaining motion is embodied in Newton's Laws of Motion. As indicated by the Khan videos - Newton's proposals were revolutionary and fundamentally changed how humans viewed and understood the natural world. They seem so common sense but, when view in depth, are quite profound. I hope you have gathered this as well. I will be expanding on this during our class.
We will be exploring the next subject day - energy! The connection to motion is what? Well, in order to move you need energy, right. So prior to motion there must be stored energy. Therefore we can separate energy into two categories: what is stored (has potential) and that is used during motion (kinetic). We will be exploring these in more detail today! And may use more Khan videos...
I have been exploring the connection between learning and creativity some more. Another blogger from Scientific American provided some details on how our society, although "supports" creativity is some ways, actually dissuades people from being too creative. The argument is that creativity breeds a bit of dissonance in our society; breaking norms and challenging the status quo. And perhaps, those creative types just don't really fit into our labeled and categorized society? Is this true? Sure, the Steve Jobs of the world are lionized because they find a way to maximize their creativity into something coveted by society (think iPads and iPhones) but not ever creative person is so "lucky". Sir Isaac Newton was, to be blunt, a very strange, reclusive person who in the end was enshrined in Western civilization but certainly did not "fit" in to many cultural norms. The blogger provided a link to an article that described a research project that looked at teachers' attitudes toward creative students. In short, teachers tended to not favor those creative, disruptive types but rather the ones that towed the line - did what was asked with few questions. I was one of the students. Above all I wanted the teacher's approval and to be seen as "the good kid". I remember those wise a.. kids in the back who were always in trouble. Maybe they were the creative ones? Now I do like to think of myself as a bit creative - or at least open to trying creative things in the classroom. So, as with most research, there are exceptions. Right. You may have also been one of those "good students" but still have a creative flame. Perhaps the take away message is to develop a lens (whether you are a teacher to be or not) that can modify our perspectives to be open to all types of learners. Of course there are some norms that have to be rock solid - anarchy does not work in a 3rd grade class. But we can develop skills and strategies that facilitate a more broad based educational and intellectual atmosphere. A real challenge.
Gotta run
See you soon
Matt
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Blog Update 2/22/12
Good morning NTSC'ers
I hope everyone is well!
I would wager that the success of yesterday's class was bimodal: those who did the experiment with the golf balls and got excellent results probably felt like Isaac Newton! The tennis ball group, where the results were not quite as good, probably did not feel the same synergy. What this really illustrates is that measurement for objects in freefall is VERY difficult, especially with hand held stopwatches. For example, the difference between 1.3 seconds and 1.5 seconds is 15%, and that is about the difference between success (a ~ 10 m/s2) and being not so successful. This is why Galileo and other physicists used ramps; measurement was much easier. We could probably use some better technology to run this experiment as well - something like light gates that automatically stop when passed. What we REALLY should be doing is going back out and re-running the experiment to get better values or at least check our results. Perhaps that vortex does exist! But we should move no. THE MOST IMPORTANT aspect of this exercise is using the equations:
a = 1/2at(squared)
average v = d/t
instantaneous v = 2 x average velocity
and interpreting the graphs. From these graphs you should be able to develop a motion and vector map! Can you do this.
Tomorrow we will watch another cool TED video about education and then do some small group investigation and documentation of Newton's Laws of Motion. It will be fun.
See you then.
Be well
Matt
I hope everyone is well!
I would wager that the success of yesterday's class was bimodal: those who did the experiment with the golf balls and got excellent results probably felt like Isaac Newton! The tennis ball group, where the results were not quite as good, probably did not feel the same synergy. What this really illustrates is that measurement for objects in freefall is VERY difficult, especially with hand held stopwatches. For example, the difference between 1.3 seconds and 1.5 seconds is 15%, and that is about the difference between success (a ~ 10 m/s2) and being not so successful. This is why Galileo and other physicists used ramps; measurement was much easier. We could probably use some better technology to run this experiment as well - something like light gates that automatically stop when passed. What we REALLY should be doing is going back out and re-running the experiment to get better values or at least check our results. Perhaps that vortex does exist! But we should move no. THE MOST IMPORTANT aspect of this exercise is using the equations:
a = 1/2at(squared)
average v = d/t
instantaneous v = 2 x average velocity
and interpreting the graphs. From these graphs you should be able to develop a motion and vector map! Can you do this.
Tomorrow we will watch another cool TED video about education and then do some small group investigation and documentation of Newton's Laws of Motion. It will be fun.
See you then.
Be well
Matt
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Blog update 2/21/12
Good morning - I hope everyone is well.
Where are we? At this time you should feel pretty comfortable with the Activity Model for Inquiry as a model for conducting (and learning) science. Hopefully this is becoming "foundational"; that is a base for our doing and learning science. You should also be comfortable with terms such as model, precision, accuracy, theory, law, hypotheses although I will be going over the last three in class at a later date. Science as a practice - you should be moving to a higher comfort level with designing experiments, identifying and controlling variables, constructing tables and graphs and using evidence to support statements. And then there is the science content - speed, average and instantaneous velocity, acceleration...The assessment on Thursday was a check to see where you are at with your understanding. If you did not perform well on these items, now is the time to check-in and get some help.
Where are we going? Our next step is to move from horizontal motion to vertical motion by looking a freefall. We will then move onto examining the "why" of motion - that is Newton's Laws of Motion, which provide the connection between forces and motion. We will then move onto momentum and energy. I will be discussing the schedule in class today but we are also moving towards starting our physics capstone project and our first exam! More later.
The blogs on creativity were awesome. For some I was looking for more connection to the article and the video. The insights were interesting and I hope we can take these ideas on creativity into our doing and learning. The challenge for those who are going to become teachers is integrating these ideas into a pretty rigid school culture and framework that focuses on assessment and outcomes. But that is the creative part of the teaching, right? It is a challenge in my practice and I am not always sure I am that successful.
And I think that is it - I look forward to seeing you in a few hours. Until then
Be well...Matt
Where are we? At this time you should feel pretty comfortable with the Activity Model for Inquiry as a model for conducting (and learning) science. Hopefully this is becoming "foundational"; that is a base for our doing and learning science. You should also be comfortable with terms such as model, precision, accuracy, theory, law, hypotheses although I will be going over the last three in class at a later date. Science as a practice - you should be moving to a higher comfort level with designing experiments, identifying and controlling variables, constructing tables and graphs and using evidence to support statements. And then there is the science content - speed, average and instantaneous velocity, acceleration...The assessment on Thursday was a check to see where you are at with your understanding. If you did not perform well on these items, now is the time to check-in and get some help.
Where are we going? Our next step is to move from horizontal motion to vertical motion by looking a freefall. We will then move onto examining the "why" of motion - that is Newton's Laws of Motion, which provide the connection between forces and motion. We will then move onto momentum and energy. I will be discussing the schedule in class today but we are also moving towards starting our physics capstone project and our first exam! More later.
The blogs on creativity were awesome. For some I was looking for more connection to the article and the video. The insights were interesting and I hope we can take these ideas on creativity into our doing and learning. The challenge for those who are going to become teachers is integrating these ideas into a pretty rigid school culture and framework that focuses on assessment and outcomes. But that is the creative part of the teaching, right? It is a challenge in my practice and I am not always sure I am that successful.
And I think that is it - I look forward to seeing you in a few hours. Until then
Be well...Matt
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Blog Post 2-15-12
Good morning NTSC'ers:
I hope everyone is well. It was my impression that people understood the intent and goals of yesterday's lab. I am hoping that is true! And not just deceiving myself. Here is a couple of items that, I think, underlay the work we have been doing.
1-We have been using models quite a bit and that is very common in scientific endeavors. The natural world is a messy place and we are saddled with making as good approximations of natural processes. That has not been to bad a place to be so far; the only "natural" data that we collected was with the sandbags and that was a pretty controlled setting. To be explicit, the Walking Man is certainly a model and we have used that to understand how to use different equations related to motion, understand the difference between instantaneous and average velocity, understand constant acceleration and interpret graphs of distance, velocity and time. You should start to feel comfortable with all of these terms and concepts.
The other model we have been using are graphical - a good model for constant velocity is a straight line model (y = mx + b) where m = velocity. For constant acceleration, the best model is a curve (exponential) line that reveals that velocity is increasing as shown by the steepening slope of the line. I wonder what a plot of changing acceleration looks like?
2- The second item is to keep our eye on our process - that is the process of science. While you are working do some metacognating. Think about where you are in your intellectual process: are you asking questions? are you collecting data? or reflecting on findings? How about communicating? I would like to think that a fundamental outcome from our work are experiences with doing authentic scientific work, that is breaking out of our experiences with more linear thinking and doing into a mode of more divergent and non-linear process.
Tomorrow in class we will go more vertical. We have been exploring horizontal motion, which is easier to observe and measure. Now as we go vertical we have objects that move at a much higher velocity (is it a constant acceleration?) and therefore harder to measure. This was a fundamental problem with early investigators (Aristotle, Galileo) who lacked the technology to make accurate measurements. We will explore new models (equations) that we can use to understand vertical motion (called freefall) and use technology to document our observations. After freefall, we will start to look at Newton's Laws of Motion that provide the framework for understanding motion, at least on the macroscopic scale.
See everyone tomorrow.
Thanks
Matt
I hope everyone is well. It was my impression that people understood the intent and goals of yesterday's lab. I am hoping that is true! And not just deceiving myself. Here is a couple of items that, I think, underlay the work we have been doing.
1-We have been using models quite a bit and that is very common in scientific endeavors. The natural world is a messy place and we are saddled with making as good approximations of natural processes. That has not been to bad a place to be so far; the only "natural" data that we collected was with the sandbags and that was a pretty controlled setting. To be explicit, the Walking Man is certainly a model and we have used that to understand how to use different equations related to motion, understand the difference between instantaneous and average velocity, understand constant acceleration and interpret graphs of distance, velocity and time. You should start to feel comfortable with all of these terms and concepts.
The other model we have been using are graphical - a good model for constant velocity is a straight line model (y = mx + b) where m = velocity. For constant acceleration, the best model is a curve (exponential) line that reveals that velocity is increasing as shown by the steepening slope of the line. I wonder what a plot of changing acceleration looks like?
2- The second item is to keep our eye on our process - that is the process of science. While you are working do some metacognating. Think about where you are in your intellectual process: are you asking questions? are you collecting data? or reflecting on findings? How about communicating? I would like to think that a fundamental outcome from our work are experiences with doing authentic scientific work, that is breaking out of our experiences with more linear thinking and doing into a mode of more divergent and non-linear process.
Tomorrow in class we will go more vertical. We have been exploring horizontal motion, which is easier to observe and measure. Now as we go vertical we have objects that move at a much higher velocity (is it a constant acceleration?) and therefore harder to measure. This was a fundamental problem with early investigators (Aristotle, Galileo) who lacked the technology to make accurate measurements. We will explore new models (equations) that we can use to understand vertical motion (called freefall) and use technology to document our observations. After freefall, we will start to look at Newton's Laws of Motion that provide the framework for understanding motion, at least on the macroscopic scale.
See everyone tomorrow.
Thanks
Matt
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Blog Update 2-14-12
Good morning - I hope everyone is well.
First, a bit of review. Our major goal last week was to enter into physics gently. Exploring simple motion of objects (us and The Moving Man) and how we can represent the data. Data represent took three forms: tables, maps (with vectors) and graphs. It appears that some people were frustrated with what to do with The Moving Man model; I will review that some more today.
This week I want to continue this pace - we will finish up our motion work that we started last week. We will plunge into comparing graphical values with calculated values. That is, we will make sure that everyone can calculate velocity and acceleration. And we will start looking at acceleration of objects down ramps and then freefall (much more challenging).
The bigger picture with our efforts is to build skills and content knowledge so that in a week or so we can launch into a student/group driven research project on motion. So, I am hoping for a good week.
We have also been working on our parallel path of investigating various aspects of learning with creativity being our major focus. I have asked you to reflect as a group (your motion group) on the Ken Robinson video about schools destroying creativity as well as read and blog entitled "The Educational Value of Creative Disobedience". These items have a similar theme: sometimes traditional teaching in a traditional classroom can stifle what students are really good at including the ability and desire to think and act creatively. I enjoyed Dr. Robinson's presentation; I think he is a great speaker and like his self-deprecating humor. Although it can be distracting at times. His use of the example of the dancer who went on to become quite famous and successful was especially poignant. It made me think about kids I went to school with who were on the outskirts of the standard academic environment who probably had skills and interest that were sufficiently quelled by the relatively fixed and inflexible atmosphere. Kind of sad.
The article was some of the same but also presented some practical suggestions about how to promote creativity in classrooms - let kids explore, provide times for play, don't always give the answer, allow for error, model times when you don't know the answer as well. This is hard. I am learning that in my teaching and perhaps you are sometimes frustrated in our work because of it. And then how do you do this when confronted with 25+ 3rd graders many with different needs. And then on top of that you have to attend to focus on literacy and math in preparation for testing. This is why teaching is so difficult, yet so rewarding. I know from my experience as a teacher and parent there is NOTHING quite so rewarding as experience the wonder of discovery in a student's face. So, I am marching on in a my own teaching process trying to develop ways to nurture learning and exploration and creativity. It is not an easy path. It would be simple to give you a prescribed lab ("hands-on activity") decorated with a few equations and then a study sheet for what will be on the test. But I ask you to join me instead in developing curiosity about the natural world, yes even something walking and dropping balloons or watching The Moving Man, to stimulate your own creativity as a learner.
See you later this AM.
Be well
Matt
First, a bit of review. Our major goal last week was to enter into physics gently. Exploring simple motion of objects (us and The Moving Man) and how we can represent the data. Data represent took three forms: tables, maps (with vectors) and graphs. It appears that some people were frustrated with what to do with The Moving Man model; I will review that some more today.
This week I want to continue this pace - we will finish up our motion work that we started last week. We will plunge into comparing graphical values with calculated values. That is, we will make sure that everyone can calculate velocity and acceleration. And we will start looking at acceleration of objects down ramps and then freefall (much more challenging).
The bigger picture with our efforts is to build skills and content knowledge so that in a week or so we can launch into a student/group driven research project on motion. So, I am hoping for a good week.
We have also been working on our parallel path of investigating various aspects of learning with creativity being our major focus. I have asked you to reflect as a group (your motion group) on the Ken Robinson video about schools destroying creativity as well as read and blog entitled "The Educational Value of Creative Disobedience". These items have a similar theme: sometimes traditional teaching in a traditional classroom can stifle what students are really good at including the ability and desire to think and act creatively. I enjoyed Dr. Robinson's presentation; I think he is a great speaker and like his self-deprecating humor. Although it can be distracting at times. His use of the example of the dancer who went on to become quite famous and successful was especially poignant. It made me think about kids I went to school with who were on the outskirts of the standard academic environment who probably had skills and interest that were sufficiently quelled by the relatively fixed and inflexible atmosphere. Kind of sad.
The article was some of the same but also presented some practical suggestions about how to promote creativity in classrooms - let kids explore, provide times for play, don't always give the answer, allow for error, model times when you don't know the answer as well. This is hard. I am learning that in my teaching and perhaps you are sometimes frustrated in our work because of it. And then how do you do this when confronted with 25+ 3rd graders many with different needs. And then on top of that you have to attend to focus on literacy and math in preparation for testing. This is why teaching is so difficult, yet so rewarding. I know from my experience as a teacher and parent there is NOTHING quite so rewarding as experience the wonder of discovery in a student's face. So, I am marching on in a my own teaching process trying to develop ways to nurture learning and exploration and creativity. It is not an easy path. It would be simple to give you a prescribed lab ("hands-on activity") decorated with a few equations and then a study sheet for what will be on the test. But I ask you to join me instead in developing curiosity about the natural world, yes even something walking and dropping balloons or watching The Moving Man, to stimulate your own creativity as a learner.
See you later this AM.
Be well
Matt
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Blog post 2/8/2012
Good morning NTSC'ers:
I hope everyone is well. And enjoying our entrance into physics. One of my strategies yesterday and into tomorrow is to scaffold our learning. A fancy word for building on knowledge - both what you already know and what you are acquiring. The goal is to avoid the tsunami effect; pouring so much in that students don't have enough time to really absorb and reflect (and enjoy) the learning process. Of course, there is a balance. You don't want to go so slow that students are bored.
Tomorrow we will be doing some direct instruction (lecture) on basic science process content and skills and then move onto analyzing our data. We will then endeavor to use some interactive visualizations to further our conceptual development of these physics concepts and then look at a real world application of motion patterns. It will be fun.
To continue our parallel effort of investigating education and learning topics we will be considering some more information on creativity. This will involve the following:
1- We will be watching a TED video on creativity by Ken Robinson during class
2- I also want you to read this blog/article on creativity The Education Value of Creative Disobedience
Within your motion groups (that we organized yesterday) I want you to have a blog discussion on these articles. I would like to keep this open but you may consider some of the following items:
This is due next Thursday 2/16.
I will cover this in class tomorrow as well.
See you then
Be well
Matt
I hope everyone is well. And enjoying our entrance into physics. One of my strategies yesterday and into tomorrow is to scaffold our learning. A fancy word for building on knowledge - both what you already know and what you are acquiring. The goal is to avoid the tsunami effect; pouring so much in that students don't have enough time to really absorb and reflect (and enjoy) the learning process. Of course, there is a balance. You don't want to go so slow that students are bored.
Tomorrow we will be doing some direct instruction (lecture) on basic science process content and skills and then move onto analyzing our data. We will then endeavor to use some interactive visualizations to further our conceptual development of these physics concepts and then look at a real world application of motion patterns. It will be fun.
To continue our parallel effort of investigating education and learning topics we will be considering some more information on creativity. This will involve the following:
1- We will be watching a TED video on creativity by Ken Robinson during class
2- I also want you to read this blog/article on creativity The Education Value of Creative Disobedience
Within your motion groups (that we organized yesterday) I want you to have a blog discussion on these articles. I would like to keep this open but you may consider some of the following items:
- What is your "definition" of creativity?
- Why do you think creativity is important?
- Can you think of a time when you were most creative?
- How does creativity mesh with the Harwood Activity Model for Inquiry?
- What can we do to foster creativity in ourselves and others (like our classmates or future students)?
- Do you know any really creative people - what are they like?
- etc.
This is due next Thursday 2/16.
I will cover this in class tomorrow as well.
See you then
Be well
Matt
Monday, February 6, 2012
Blog post 2/6/12
Good morning NTSC'ers
I hope everyone is well.
REMINDER
Please take the physics pre-test before class on Tuesday. This pre-test will not count towards you grade but will give all of us an idea about where we are with respect to our physics knowledge and where we need to go. It is very helpful to me, for sure.
OBSERVATIONS
To review - the goal of the "stick" exercise was to illustrate how thinking "outside the box" is sometimes required to solve or approach problems. Paradigm shifts in all fields usually start with looking at questions and observations from a different perspective and creatively. It requires mindfulness of the possibilities that lie outside our normal habits and patterns. This might be a stretch; I mean it was only a stick, right? But the general idea still holds. As we move through our learning experiences we should try to be aware (through metacognition - thinking about your thinking) how the new information fits into our model of the world, our previous learning experiences and our potential for use in the future (either through our teaching or other avenues).
THIS WEEK
We will be presenting our Candle Inquiry first thing on Tuesday and then moving onto physics. Real science! We will be taking two approaches during this and other science learning adventures: 1- we will learn content using a range of instructional strategies and 2- we will be learning, reviewing, re-learning a variety of skills that are required to better understand our natural world. So, content and skills. It will be fun. One of the issues with the content part is attending to the different levels of current knowledge and ability. Some of you might have extensive knowledge and aptitude with some of the content and skills. Others will not. In classrooms, this is approached through differentiated teaching - a fancy term for attending to as many levels of ability as possible in your/my teaching. It is a challenge, for sure. So, please be mindful that we all bring different knowledge and skills to our learning adventure and we need to take advantage of that.
Also this week we will be doing some reading and listening to issues related to creativity. This will require some writing on you part that will be part of your Science Education and Learning grade.
GRADES
I have finished grading the Changing Education Paradigm writing. I will be posting those grades by the end of the week.
AMI REFLECTION
Please remember that you have a reflection to post related to the Standards Based Grading sheet on Process of Science. This needs to be done by Thursday. Here is a copy of part of the email I sent to you on 2/3 regarding this assignment:
Be well
Matt
I hope everyone is well.
REMINDER
Please take the physics pre-test before class on Tuesday. This pre-test will not count towards you grade but will give all of us an idea about where we are with respect to our physics knowledge and where we need to go. It is very helpful to me, for sure.
OBSERVATIONS
To review - the goal of the "stick" exercise was to illustrate how thinking "outside the box" is sometimes required to solve or approach problems. Paradigm shifts in all fields usually start with looking at questions and observations from a different perspective and creatively. It requires mindfulness of the possibilities that lie outside our normal habits and patterns. This might be a stretch; I mean it was only a stick, right? But the general idea still holds. As we move through our learning experiences we should try to be aware (through metacognition - thinking about your thinking) how the new information fits into our model of the world, our previous learning experiences and our potential for use in the future (either through our teaching or other avenues).
THIS WEEK
We will be presenting our Candle Inquiry first thing on Tuesday and then moving onto physics. Real science! We will be taking two approaches during this and other science learning adventures: 1- we will learn content using a range of instructional strategies and 2- we will be learning, reviewing, re-learning a variety of skills that are required to better understand our natural world. So, content and skills. It will be fun. One of the issues with the content part is attending to the different levels of current knowledge and ability. Some of you might have extensive knowledge and aptitude with some of the content and skills. Others will not. In classrooms, this is approached through differentiated teaching - a fancy term for attending to as many levels of ability as possible in your/my teaching. It is a challenge, for sure. So, please be mindful that we all bring different knowledge and skills to our learning adventure and we need to take advantage of that.
Also this week we will be doing some reading and listening to issues related to creativity. This will require some writing on you part that will be part of your Science Education and Learning grade.
GRADES
I have finished grading the Changing Education Paradigm writing. I will be posting those grades by the end of the week.
AMI REFLECTION
Please remember that you have a reflection to post related to the Standards Based Grading sheet on Process of Science. This needs to be done by Thursday. Here is a copy of part of the email I sent to you on 2/3 regarding this assignment:
- Look over the specific benchmarks for the SBG Sheet- Process of Science. I have shared this document with you.
- For each item write a short description of how this benchmark was met during our inquiry
- Some of these might be - "well, we have not addressed this yet". That is ok for some of them, but not many. So, for these just indicate that we have not worked on this yet.
- Other parts may require some research to learn definitions of specific terms; you need to do that.
- Submit this as a blog - send me the URL of your blog.
- I will grade this using the blog assessment matrix
- This is due by Thursday 2/9
Be well
Matt
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