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
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