back in the saddle

It's been a while since I've posted. Mostly because I've been super busy, but perhaps I was also putting too much effort into my posts to make them perfect. No time for that now, so you'll be getting the raw versions.

Updates:

Regents Physics: moving forward, but slower than I would like. Still working on projectile motion. Some neat experiments in progress (does adding flavoring to water affect how it freezes... Build your own air-zooka... piezo-electric film canister poppers, etc.). I did something different with Unit 4 this year. Started with the 3rd law. I liked it, but made a mess of the introduction itself. I made a new worksheet and added it to the mix. Decided to set it in space to put off dealing with Fg for a while. I decided to use two rockets, but that was a bad idea, because the students had to consider thrust. I'll use the same sequence if I teach the course this way next year (see note below), but rather than rockets and engines I'll use something like two objects that an astronaut is batting around. Ball in a cup game perhaps? Not sure why you would take that into space, but hopefully you get the idea.

AP Physics is going well. Again, slower than I would like, but I'm ok with it. Our foundation is rock-solid, now the pace will increase. I am confident that we'll get through all the topics, but we'll have to keep the pressure on. Still doing SBG and the weekly assessments. Two minor changes: they can apply for re-assessments using a paper form now (in addition to the google docs form), and no guarantee of seeing each target 3x on in-class assessments. I found that this was taking too long, and also made the students reluctant to apply for re-assessments because they knew they'd see the material again. Right now we're doing a museum-style installation of tennis ball arcs in the room (a la Helaina/Shawn). I'm psyched with how it's going. Lots of trial and error with the actual hanging methods (who knew that a fishing line wouldn't hold a clove-hitch without a keeper knot?), but the kids are troubleshooting really well. We'll have lots of arcs, some bouncing, etc. Probably some inverted gravity as well to keep things close to the ceiling and out of our way.

Writing all my AP units in LaTex because I promised myself never to use Word for anything bigger than a unit test. It's good, but slow. I'm getting better, much better, but it still takes a while. Hopefully this will be the only time I have to do it and the future years will just make tweaks.

Next year:
I'd really like to teach AP Physics again. The year-on, year-off cycle isn't much fun- I feel like there are all of these things that I want to do and then forget about. One of the best things about having Regents Physics every year is that I get the chance to consistently tweak things.

Next year I'm hoping to have lab and class back-to-back for my Regents students with the same rosters. Maybe even labs 3x every 6-day cycle rather than the current 2. I might abandon my current Modeling materials in class and independent labs in small groups during lab method and do bigger stuff with smaller independent experiments mixed in. SBG? Maybe. I spend a lot of time on it and I'm only using it with my AP class right now. We'll see if the change comes to fruition. It would be a great change, but lots of work.

New things:
I stumbled across desmos (courtesy of mathalicious) and love it. I would tweak a few things (like why can't theta be  variable?), but overall it's really powerful. My AP kids are using it a lot for their arcs.

Hope to write more soon and make this updating thing a more regular occurrence.