I’m fairly new to working within the public school system, and it’s been really interesting seeing how the dynamics of school compares to how I remember it when I was a student. One thing that is different now is a new iteration of an old idea: distance learning through online courses. Lots has been written about online learning. I’ve personally completed a masters degree in educational technology all through online courses.

I give out notes to my classes. Lots of notes. That is to say, I hand out notes rather than spend precious class time having my students copy them out. I think my system works pretty well. The notes contain some blank spaces that we fill in together, which I hope activates some cognition and gives students focus points. Research says that partial notes are a good compromise between activating cognition, using time wisely and ensuring that the notes get copied correctly (references upon request - I’d have to dig them up).

I was reading this post by Carolyn Durley on formative feedback, and a sinking feeling came over me. I’ve read a lot about Assessment For Learning and Formative Assessment, I’ve tried to incorporate AFL in my classes, I pride myself on my SBG, and yet I’m starting to doubt whether I’m giving good feedback to my students. What I do know is that I give my students multiple ways for them to reflect on what they are doing and how things are going.

Let’s suppose you’re interested in learning about Python, or want to install it on your computer for the first time. If you have a 64bit OS, I strongly suggest that you install the 32bit version. I’m certainly no expert in Python, but I think this is the best way to avoid possible headaches in the future. Like the headache I’ve been dealing with… As mentioned before, I’ve been fooling around with some basic computational modeling using Python, VPython and Scratch.

Previously I’ve written about problem based learning (PBL), and I did just finished another round with the heat problem in Physics 11. A couple of issues have been revealed this year, and I’m not entirely sure what to do about them. The first issue is one of differentiation. This year I’ve had three classes try out the problem. All three had 2 full periods to solve the problem, but very few groups actually finished the problem to the state where a solution was written up or sample calculations were done.

I’ve been following the thoughts of John Burke and what he’s been writing and doing with introducing computational modeling to HS physics. I think there are some real opportunities with using modeling in this way. The greatest thing I see with it is that the students end up doing science and engineering. They’re not answering pseudo contextual questions from a textbook or worksheet, but actually applying their knowledge in a way that real scientists and engineers would.

I’ve often wondered if all of the segmented learning objectives in Standards Based Grading results in too much reductionism and micro-managing of learning, where the forest gets lost in all of the trees. In response to this, I’ve been reading “Understanding By Design” by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, with hopes of clarifying the learning intentions with my students. Certainly my students should be aware of individual skills or required knowledge, but how these pieces fit into a bigger picture is more important.

L’histoire After Term I had ended last fall, I was exhausted and extremely disappointed with my students’ reaction to my re-assessment policy. Since I had used the same system the year before, I wasn’t anticipating a different reaction this year. Different year, different students and things didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. The Experiment During Term II I was telling my students that I was no longer doing re-assessments.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of having two students pop by after school for a bit a help. I say “pleasure” because it’s pretty rare that students come by for help. To top things off, it was a Friday afternoon that leads into a long weekend! My students wanted just a bit of help with a problem we were working on in class, and they were accompanied by a couple of friends who patiently waited while we talked.

A cool and somewhat funny thing happened in one of my physics classes yesterday. I had asked the class why we/they do quizzes. The answer I was hoping to get to was “so we can demonstrate what we’ve learned.” However, the most popular answer that was shouted out was, “they’re for practice!” I thought that was pretty cool. On the other hand, it was also funny and a bit confusing because I don’t know what ultimate goal they think they are practicing for.