Physics! Blog!
teaching
Monk Whiteboarding
Last spring, a large number of students at my school observed a day of silence. Since so many of my students wouldn’t be speaking in class, and since I don’t find it very productive for me to do the talking in class, I decided to come up with an alternate plan. I decided to have … Continue reading
Whiteboarding with Mistakes
Today was my first day of whiteboarding with one of my Honors Physics classes. My plan was to use The Mistake Game from the very beginning this year. I suspected it would help set the tone of normalizing mistakes and make students more comfortable. Brief interlude about the general structure of whiteboarding in my class. … Continue reading
Advice from former Honors Physics students
One of the handouts that comes in the binders that I give to students is some advice from past students. These bits of wisdom come from the course evaluations over the past few years. It’s really fascinating to see what they say (and for me to see how what they advise changes as my class … Continue reading
Delicious Physics Binders
We don’t use a textbook in my class. So my students’ binders are their key physics possession. When I first started teaching, I foolishly just assumed that when I told them to get and keep a binder for my class, that they would know how to do that (and would do it). During that first … Continue reading
Honors Physics 2012 Objectives
EDIT: For the latest version of my objectives (including the ones for my regular classes), see the 2013 school year post, Physics Objectives 2013. — Here are my updated objectives for the year. For information on how I use them, read about conjunctive standards-based grading or check out my SBG cheat sheet. I limited myself to 5 … Continue reading
Honors Physics Course Information Handout
John challenged us to share our course syllabi. Here is my latest (possibly final?) draft for this year. I would call this more of a course reference sheet than a syllabus since it doesn’t talk about what we’re going to learn. It’s more about how we’re going to learn it. My document’s genealogy goes back … Continue reading
What should I know going into Honors Physics?
So, you’ve decided to take Honors Physics. I’m so excited for you! You probably already know that it’s going to be challenging, and you might be a little nervous since you don’t know what to expect yet. What should you know before you get there? You should know that you learn by making mistakes. You … Continue reading
Physics Exam Review: Recitation Problems
My Honors Physics exam is a Big Deal. Most of my students do their best work of the semester, and the test itself is the most difficult they’ve seen. It is their final opportunity to demonstrate mastery, depth of understanding, and creative thinking. The final preparation for this test is therefore very important. For the … Continue reading
How to Practice Physics (By Really Trying)
I want to do a better job of teaching my students how to practice physics. When I tell them which skills need work (see the SBG tag for more details), I want them to have some ideas about what it looks like to practice those skills. We say practice, not study: practice definitely means there’s … Continue reading
The No Homework Experiment
After reading Alfie Kohn’s The Homework Myth, I told my classes that I wanted to try an experiment. No homework from the start of the 2nd semester through the first test. I had a feeling that the homework wasn’t really doing much for my students, and I wanted to see how/if things would change when … Continue reading
