Teaching Strategies
Station Rotation
Station rotation facilitates the engagements of students by rotating students through several concurrent activities throughout the class period or week, depending on the model. This instructional strategy allows students multiple opportunities to refine conceptual understanding and mastery by participating in activities that target various modes of learning (e.g., kinetic, auditory, visual). Students will spend approximately 20 minutes working independently or in groups on activities. As a class, students will share findings, observations, and misconceptions that persist, once every student has rotated through each station.
The unit will concentrate heavily on a blended learning (i.e., PHeT simulations) and project-based (i.e., designing a soapbox car) approach that incorporates station rotation with inquiry activities, labs, and problem sets. V Students will be expected to take Cornell Notes, a system of notetaking that actively engages the students to ask questions, organize information, and summarize key ideas. VI Students will apply and practice concepts introduced during the first half of class through station rotations. Student will be grouped based on pre-assessment data, attendance, and behavior. The number of stations may vary based on the number of students and classroom dynamics.
Inquiry Activities
As a science, physics offers opportunities for students to apply a multitude of mathematical concepts and arithmetic skills when describing physical phenomena. This unit will seek to strengthen students’ content mastery of motion while simultaneously practicing skills and engaging in discussion with proportions, ratios, and rates. From previous years at Ballou HS, kinesthetic activities have often led to the most successful lessons. This unit will utilize inquiry as an access point for student ingenuity and provide the context for students’ to revise their ideas about the concepts being introduced. The activities will vary in duration and rigor, requiring students to work in collaborative groups.
PHeT Simulations
Students will utilize PHeT (Physics Education Technology) simulations throughout the kinematic unit to explore the concepts of distance, displacement, speed and velocity. Research has shown that students are more likely to engage in simulations if provided with minimal guidance and open-ended questioning. VII This unit will utilize several PHeT simulations, namely “The Moving Man”.V The “Moving Man” asks students to explore position-time and velocity-time graphs by manipulating the position of a digital man. These self-governed activities will ask students to record data and develop predictions from their observed patterns. In addition, PHeT simulations will serve as recovery opportunities for students whose attendance is inconsistent or for students with medical issues that require assistance at home.
Progressive Problem Sets
A pre-assessment will be administered prior to the unit to establish baseline data of each student’s capability. Questions will consist of a selection from the district’s standardized test (PARCC) as well as word problems from physics class. Students will be asked to interpret graphs and data and to solve for unknown quantities using algebra. Data will be compiled from last year’s PARCC assessment as well as the physics customized assessment to determine overall academic performance. Students will be assigned problem sets that will gradually challenge their skill level. Each problem set will consist of five to six questions that will begin with simple arithmetic questions and end with problems that require a multi-step solution. These problem sets with serve as informal assessments and facilitate discussion for Think-Pair-Share (see below) sessions. Students should be able to articulate their attempt at a problem and will be required to record every step. See examples of problems sets within each kinematic subsection below.
Think-Pair-Share
To challenge their conceptual understanding of content and foster a collaborative classroom environment students will frequently be asked to engage in discussions. Initially students tend to be resistant in participating. However, through positive reinforcement students will be more willing to share their ideas. This collaborative learning strategy requires students to first think about a question independently before they share their ideas with a classmate and/or whole group. This allows every student to be held accountable for learning that is taking place in class and presents opportunities for content misconceptions to be addressed.
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