Modeling Physics Week 3

All in all another great week. I learned a bit more about the process and even more about understanding how the students are doing. This process really tunes the teacher in to where the students are at. It is like a continuous assessment process. In the past I would think I knew if the students were understanding, but test results would tell a different story. Now as I observe their interactions while doing the experiment and whiteboard preparation I can see and hear what they are thinking. At times I even see that they are forging ahead to pull the other groups ahead. I begin thinking how I need to re-strategize. I love this continuous feedback! Our chemistry teacher observed my class during the second week and decided to give it a try on Friday in her honors class. She had her students model their experiment on whiteboards and had the same experience of witnessing realtime student assessment. She said that she abandoned her lesson plan and adjusted to where the students were. It was fun to share our mutual excitement. She e-mailed this weekend that she redid lesson plans for all of her classes in order to whiteboard on Monday.

The suite of labs with its variety of math models took longer than expected. Debriefing expectations from the previous week's took on whole class period pushing the start back one day. Each group did two of the six experiments, but it took two days to do the labs and two more to complete the whiteboards and record all information in their lab books. One class started the board meeting and completed group discussion of experiment one. I am looking forward to the discussions to come after seeing the great job students did on their boards!