I’ve been making smaller posts on a separate blog here: http://bcphysics180.wordpress.com The idea is to post a picture and a vignette for every day of the year. They’re just short reflections on things that happened during the day. I have benefitted from reading other peoples’ 180 blogs and I thought it would be good for me (and hopefully for some readers) if I did one too. I’m still trying to figure out the best types of posts to make.

Engagement is always a hot top in education. From upper level missions and goals, down to the minutes of each class, we all want the students to be engaged. Sometimes our activities allow easy access to engagement while others do not. Flash back three years ago when I taught two classes of grade 9 science. One was a full class of the 30 kids, many of which were very bright, while the other had 17 students, several which had learning disabilities.

In my first three years of teaching I have done a gradual move towards giving better feedback and more active learning experiences. At the same time, I’m getting better at meeting student needs, and this is one area that I want to focus on in the coming year. What’s Working I think that my grading scheme using SBG has been positive. The aspects that I like and that I get good feedback on include the following: kids get the feeling that they are not collecting marks, and know that they need to focus on learning; if a student has problems with a topic, they know they can still improve without punishment from previous attempts; the learning objectives are really clear; students for the most part appreciate the opportunity to try and figure out stuff on their own.

A few weeks ago I started reading up on Cognitive Load Theory. I found a few things about CLT to be quite interesting. In particular, there seems to be quite a bit of research to back up the idea that guided instruction can be the most effective way for people to learn. As well, CLT explains how working memory works in conjunction with long-term memory, and how this dynamic plays out with learners.

From Teaching and physics education research: bridging the gap (Fraser, Timan, Miller, Dowd, Tucker and Mazur, 2014) Examples of passive teaching techniques masquerading as active learning include: entertaining lectures, demonstrations, multimedia presentations, recipe labs (hands-on, yes, but perhaps not heads-on), class-wide discussion involving a minority of students, and classroom response systems used primarily for attendance taking or testing memory recall. These approaches can be a useful component to an active learning approach but are not sufficient in themselves.

There has been a lot written about the LAUSD’s decision to purchase iPads for each student in their school district. It’s been reported that they paid more than the retail price for the iPad, although I think it comes with some apps. I have no idea what they think is so useful about the iPad. I consider myself to be pretty on top of things with technology and I have seen very few things with tablets that really make me wish we could use them in the classroom.

Grade 8 math has been fun and interesting for me to teach. Compared to the algebra and pre-calculus parts of the higher grades, the topics covered in grade 8 seem to be immediately relevant and useful. None more so than proportional reasoning. My students, for the most part, managed to grasp the concepts of ratios fairly quickly. This shouldn’t be a surprise, given how much scaffolding there is in the BC math curriculum.

Tired of making new complex trinomials for quizzes and tests on factoring polynomials? If you have python installed, you can use this script for making quiz questions. from random import randint import math ############################################################ # complex will take the form ax^2 + bx + c # binomial factors will be in the form (dx + e)(fx + g) #randomly choose d, e, f, g for questions in range(0, 20): a, b, c, d, e, f, g = 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 ## use while statement to avoid zeroes while (d == 0): d = randint(-6,6) while (f == 0): f = randint(-7,7) while (e == 0): e = randint(-6,6) while (g == 0): g = randint(-10,10) a = d\*f b = d\*g + e\*f c = e\*g print ("(" + str(d) + "x + " + str(e) + ")(" + str(f) + "x + " + str(g) + ")

Two days ago I read Grant Wiggins’ article “How Good Is Good?” in the latest volume of Educational Leadership. My immediate reaction while reading it was one of embarrassment. Embarrassed because I do pretty much exactly what he strongly advises against. It’s not that Wiggins is always right, but there is no question in my mind that he’s right on this one. In fact, I’ve fretted over this same issue for a while.

Last week I started getting some pushback from the students in my Math 10 classes. I have been running the classes in a flipped manner, where the lecture is replaced by activities and application/practice. I’m sure the students are benefiting from the classroom environment, but it’s not completely obvious to them. As I’ve seen in the past when doing problem based learning, older students don’t always like self-directed learning. In the case of Math 10, I have students that want to be shown how to do something, along with seeing examples, before they even think about trying or struggling with the topic.