Science Teaching tips from Lee Trampleasure – Page 5 – Bringing over 30 years of public and private high school teaching experience to help you.

September 3, 2015

180: Day 9: Whiteboard walk

I usually do whiteboards as “meetings,” but hear recently of “whiteboard walks.” These walks are designed to mimic scientific poster sessions, where one student stays with their board, and the others walk to other boards and have conversations with the “authors” of the other boards. I tried this with my AP Physics C class today, and it seemed to go...

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September 1, 2015

180: Day 7: Traffic jam as freshmen and seniors both drop balls

Three years ago my school switched to 9th grade physics, and I’m teaching the last year of ‘first year’ senior physics (since next year all seniors will have taken physics as 9th graders). Today we had a bit of a traffic jam as freshmen and seniors both met to drop balls 🙂

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August 31, 2015

180: Day 6: Successful ball bounce, and follow up worksheet

Today my regular physics students conducted their ball drop test. Students mark where they predict the ball will bounce to. After my first day with this lab, I realized I needed a better sheet for them to mark on (I film each drop to get the ‘exact’ bounce height), so here’s a copy of the new prediction half-sheet I developed:...

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August 28, 2015

180: Day 5: This 180 stuff is HARD…

OK, I didn’t take any photos today, just too busy helping students to remember. Today’s reflection: Don’t worry about spending too much time establishing good lab/classroom practices with your students. If you lead a student-centered class, it may be the first time they have really experienced that, and they need to learn the ropes. Today I didn’t get nearly as...

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August 27, 2015

180: Day 4: Better instruction produces better whiteboards

OK, I broke down and did a PowerPoint slideshow 🙂 I let my students know that I realized that I hadn’t provided enough instruction in what I was looking for in a whiteboard, then showed the slideshow. I then gave them time to update their whiteboards, and the improvement was dramatic!

180 Comment: 1

August 26, 2015

180: Day 3: Bouncing those balls

Today my students collected data for the bouncy ball lab, then processed it and started on whiteboards. I have them using Desmos to plot their data (my fist time using this with a class), and it seems to be going well. Tomorrow will be our first whiteboard meeting!

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August 25, 2015

180: Day 2: Learning whiteboards

Today my AP Physics C students got through creating whiteboards for the bouncy ball lab, and it’s clear I didn’t give quite enough instructions…but it is only their first “modeling” whiteboard. Items for me to work on with them: Graph axis are labeled with variable and units. Equations are ‘translated’ from ‘math’ (e.g. y=3.6x+1.2) to ‘science:’ x and y are...

180/Modeling Comments: 2

August 24, 2015

180: Day 1: Lab design and rubric

OK, I gotta remember to take photos of my students in action…so for today I just have a photo of my lab grading guidelines and metric prefixes that hang all around my classroom. As you can partially see on my “Day minus 3” post, my room is designed with no “front.” Here are a couple of comments from students today:...

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August 20, 2015

180: Day -2: Updating the physics mechanics inventory

Like many physics teachers, I use a pre and post “test” Concept Inventory to help me understand how and where my students are learning and struggling. The concept inventory is an amazing tool, but the images in it are of poor quality (think ’90’s computer art). I decided this year to update many of them, as well as tweak some...

180/Modeling/Science Education Comment: 1

August 19, 2015

180: Day “Minus 3”: Getting the classroom ready

This is the first of my attempt at a “180” blog. 180 blogs aim for “a picture a day” from a teacher’s classroom, along with a short reflection. The “180” comes from, I believe, the fact that there are about 180 teaching days in a year. If you’d like to watch my 180 posts without any other posts, you can...

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