Physics Documentaries

Physics is a subject that has been developing since the beginning of time.  Physics is all about understanding the world around us, and since no one knows everything about the universe, physics is a subject that is constantly developing.  Being a student learning physics it is extremely important that the students know the history about how everything came to be discovered.  Now with the technology that we have there are countless documentaries that talk about many physicists upon how they contributed to physics.  This is great for students because many physicists come from all different kind of backgrounds and knowing about them can inspire students to believe that anyone can make big contributions to this world.

Nowadays many of the documentaries are easy to access online and are very entertaining to watch.  Many times students do not pay attention to these kinds of documentaries, but with the technology that we have now, the documentaries are inspiring to watch.  Especially with physics, it talks about very big things such as planets and very small things such as electrons and it is impossible to show all of these things without movies.  Documentaries and movies about physics allows for more students to be able to see more of what physics is and gives them the potential to want to learn about it.  Physics is extremely exciting and intriguing it focuses on life’s questions.  However without being able to introduce what physics is in an engaging way it does not give opportunities to students to want to learn about physics unless they already have a natural interest in it.  As a student I never wanted to learn physics because of all the scary things I heard about it from other students, but after I was forced to take a course in it and saw some documentaries I was hooked to learn more about it.

Clickers in the Classroom

I always felt that it would be great to make the classroom as interactive as possible.  These clickers work in a way where students can participate without raising their hands.  They can answer multiple choice questions that teachers ask.  This is extremely helpful for students who are scared to participate or who are shy.  Also it helps the teacher have everyone be engaged and not only the student that always raises his/her hand.  From the clicker teachers can get a better idea of how many students in the classroom understands the material and how many are not.  This is great because I remember many times being in the classroom where it seemed only one person knew the answer to the questions that the teacher was going over and because of that the teacher would continue onto the lesson.  However with clickers the teacher is always aware upon how many students know the material and can decide to move on or not from that assessment.

                I’m sure as a teacher many times it is confusing to see if the students really understand the material or not.  I have seen how many times students look like they are paying attention and seem to be taking notes, but when they are called to answer a question they have no idea what the answer is.  Clickers in the classroom get rid of this problem from having the teacher constantly guess if he/she is giving a good lesson or not, the assessment can easily be calculated from the clickers.  I know that this technology is expensive, but I feel it can great assist teachers to get more of an accurate assessment of how their class is doing instead of relying on their intuition.  These clickers also provide for the whole class to be constantly engaged, with these clickers it becomes easily noticed if not everyone is participating and it allows the teacher to know how many of the students are even listening. 

Technology Integration Plan

For my final project I used a lesson plan that I had recently made in my methods course.  It is an introduction into Newton’s Second Law.  This lesson works upon introducing the idea of “net force” in many different ways.  I wanted to have students learn about Newton’s Second Law from a lecture, demonstration, worksheet, computer games, and discussion.  Students will need to make sure to listen to me and take notes, along with being actively involved to get the full impact out of this lesson.  This lesson will end with students working on an online worksheet that will be due for homework if it is not completed, also the material learned from this lesson will be a large portion of the unit test.  As much as possible I wanted to have the students be excited.  Plus I wanted this lesson be able to have any type of student be able to learn from the many divergent ways of teaching

On my first row, this part of the lesson has the student go on a computer and go online and play a game that http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/physics/motion provides.  Through this creative game students will become familiar with how net force works.  This program is not only fun, but it explains the physics behind how you play the game.  It gives great scientific explanations that 5.1.12.A.1 and NETS-S is looking for.  Hopefully by becoming familiar with these game students will start to get a realistic feel of how Newton’s Second Law is applied in this world.  This is many times a challenge with physics because most of the times concepts are very abstract and confusing.  However I’m hoping with the students playing this game Newton’s Second is not just some words, but it is something that has meaning and is something that makes sense.

On my second row, with PowerPoint I will give a lecture on Newton’s Second Law describing what it is and giving real life examples of what it is.  Throughout this presentation I will be giving the students a lot of questions so that they will be engaged.  The students will also be solving some example problems that I will be going over in the PowerPoint presentation that they will need their calculators for.  Afterwards we will do a question and answer session from any questions that the students may have.  All of this will hit the points that satisfy 5.1.12.A.2, along with the communication and collaboration portion of NETS-S.

On my third row, we will be working on a short case study that I printed out, that has to do with Newton’s Second Law.  We will read this case study together as a class, and once we are done the students will pair up with each other and have a discussion on the scientific issues of the case studies.  Once the students are done talking with each other we will share together as a class if any of the students analyzed anything that is worth bringing attention to the class.  This case study will help students become aware of how Newton’s Second Law is applied in real life, and will have students be engaged upon real life scenarios such as, how friction applies to slippery roads after rainfall.  All of this will engage the students to be critical thinkers, understand and solve real issues, and make smart decisions from the research they analyze.  This is what 5.1.12.D.1 wants from the students and parts of NETS-S.

On my last row, I will be demonstrating an experiment that will show proof of the formula Force = mass x acceleration.  This will be a demonstration that will project 2 balls of different mass with the same force, and it will show that the acceleration on the ball with a smaller mass will be greater.  With this demonstration it will require that I measure the distance that each ball travels and calculate its acceleration.  This calculation will also need to be made with a computer program called Vernier, which records the motion of a flying object and can calculate its velocity and acceleration.  After this final demonstration the students will log onto Web Assign and will do a worksheet full of problems.  This will be their assessment that will judge how much of the information they were able to understand and how well they will be able to mathematically calculate the concepts that they just learned.  This demonstration is perfectly set up for 5.2.12.E.4 along with the NETS-S requirement for technology operations and concepts.

spread sheet

Youtube a Physics Teachers Best Friend

Being a physics teacher can be extremely complicating.  Many times the teacher needs to focus on advanced mathematics while also being able to explain abstract concepts.  It is not an easy job to constantly be able to do both.  Many times to help students understand and relate to abstract concepts the teacher would need to show demonstrations to help students learn.  However with youtube there are an unlimited amount of physics demonstrations that can be shown and explained.  This makes it easy to access videos to find a demonstration for almost any concept in physics.

This helps teachers to save a lot of time not having to set up demonstrations, and to create demonstrations.  Also many times schools do not have the best materials to properly show demonstrations.  However with youtube you can find demonstrations done in the best colleges to teach physics.  Of course live demonstrations are always the best, but it is not always possible to do that.  As a physics teacher I want to make sure to utilize youtube to help my students learn physics and make it a lot more fun and exciting.

This is a great advantage that teachers have with projectors and computers in every room.  Many times teachers do not use their computers to teach in the classroom, but youtube has so much potential to be a great tool for education.  More teachers should become familiar with youtube and use it more within the classroom.  Especially being a science major there are many things that can not be seen or shown within the boundaries of a classroom, but youtube really helps to get rid of this limitation.  I hope as teachers use youtube as a resource they can also be able to upload demonstrations and learning materials onto youtube for everyone else in the world to benefit.  Instead of constantly having to reinvent the wheel if teachers can share with each other their hard work we can all give the students the best education.

Online Grading

As a student I was always annoyed with never knowing what I was going to be receiving for my report card each marking period.  I seemed to always be guessing, and either become delighted or disappointed when the time came.  Nowadays most schools have a system where teachers can post grades online and students can receive their results as soon as the teacher grades them.  These grades can then be accessed by students and teachers right away.  When I first heard about this I thought it was a great idea for students, parents, and teachers.

As a student they will never be in the dark about how they are doing or what to expect in their coming report card.  They will be able to see what grades they have and also be able to know how much they need to study or how well they need to do on the next test to get the final grade that they desire.  The students would no longer complain or try to fight their grades, because the grades are all clearly shown online.  If ever the teacher makes a mistake recording a grade for a paper or forgets to record certain information the student can talk to the teacher about it and help him/her be aware of it.

From a parent point of view, when the report card finally comes into the mail it should never be a surprise what their child is going to receive.  The parent can constantly be aware of how their child is doing and help motivate them if they are falling behind or not doing well.  Also many times students do not report grades to their parents, but with online grading forging signatures is no longer a problem that parents need to face.  Lastly with certain online grading systems teachers can write comments upon each grade to help clarify and communicate the reason why an individual student received the grade that did, this would help not only the student realize what he/she needs to do in the future, but also the parent.

Phet: Interactive Science simulations

Phet is an online website that produces free online chemistry, physics, biology, and mathematic simulations.  Since I am a physics major this a great website to have students understand abstract concepts that they would have a hard time imagining.  Physics has many kinds of topics which are relatable and easy to understand, but there are also many concepts that are difficult to grasp, because many of the concepts have to do with invisible forces.  Because physics covers many topics which are intangible Phet is a perfect website that allows students be able to conceptual understand through simulations that this website provides.

For the high school level Phet has simulations for every topic a student would need to go over.  And many of the simulations are presented in a manner that is very fun and similar to playing a game.  I have only used it for the sake of physics, but it is a great way to have students understand the concepts behind the lessons that are being taught.  Phet is not a program where students can teach themselves physics, it does not really go over the math that is needed.  However many times in physics the biggest challenge could be that students do not understand the abstract concepts that the teacher is trying to explain.  Being able to have a resource such as this one can dramatically help students not only to understand physics better, but to come to be excited to learn about physics.  This I believe is one of the biggest benefits of having technology within the classroom; it gives teachers opportunity for every subject to be exciting and inspiring.  I believe once we can understand and learn to use the resources that technologies such as Phet provides it will make teachers jobs a lot easier along with being more exciting.

http://phet.colorado.edu/

Collaboration Canvas

With this new remixed canvas, I added the concept of Vectors.  Geometry is a perfect segue to Vectors, so when I saw this canvas I immediately thought how it would be perfect to introduce Vectors.  I kept most of the content that was on the original canvas I just mostly added new videos and pictures to further expand the subject and have the knowledge help learn about new concepts about physics.  Throughout the remix canvas I wanted to add videos and pictures that would perfectly relate the original canvas and it would not be confusing to anyone who originally liked the canvas.  To do this I got rid of some pictures that did not fit well with the new concept of Vectors.  Also I found videos that directly related to geometry, but still talked about vectors.  Math is closely related with Physics and so this was not difficult.  In the education system math and physics should be integrated more often.

Remix Canvas