ePortfolio Assignment 8

Egg Car

Above is a link to a short movie I created showcasing my students work. Believe it or not the students had a great time working on the Egg Car Project as well as seeing themselves staring in a movie.

ePortfolio Assignment 7

Students could greatly benefit from the flipped classroom if they would take advantage of the opportunity to maximize their learning. I feel that the flipped classroom concept is a good one if I had the power of changing how students value their education. I have trouble getting students to complete homework, practice science equations or even read material to prepare for class. If I do not allow the students time to complete work in class, in many cases, it simply is not completed.  If I were to adopt this form of teaching without the buy in of the students I believe it would fail. 

Social media is where students are tuned in. Communicating with students through Facebook, Twitter, etc. is a really efficient and beneficial. Teachers can get to know their students and gain a better perception of their students. Likewise students can begin to acknowledge their teachers as people instead of strictly teachers. Social networking can help build relationships by allowing students and teachers to identify common interests and build communication lines that otherwise would not have been built. These relationships can be imperative to the student’s academic success. 

ePortfolio Assignment 6

I looked over the exam I gave at the end of the first semester. I chose this assessment because it is a large portion of the students’ final semester grade. The exam questions cover all levels of DOK. I do require students to apply the knowledge they have learned in order to solve posed problems. The test is comprised of multiple choice and essay questions. The multiple choice section weighs more heavily in the DOK levels one and two while the essay portion of the test weighs especially heavy in the third and forth DOK levels.

I could make this assessment more rigorous by adding a lab skill portion to the test. This would require students to properly use science equipment and perform experiments in order to answer questions proficiently.

It is important to question our students in a way that fosters their ability to think analytically. With the use of technology, students are learning to answer low level DOK questions more efficiently than ever. However, when teachers are able to assign tasks and ask questions at higher DOK levels students are required to improve their critical thinking skills. It would be difficult to teach real 21^st century skills by simply telling students “correct” answers that they can readily Google at any moment. Like driving a car or riding a bike, 21^st century skills can be taught, learned and improved with practice. To ensure students get the practice they need to be successful in today’s fast paced world teachers must regularly utilize high level questioning and real problems in their classrooms.

ePortfolio Assignment 5

Although there were times the classes were in quads A-D most of our time was spent in quad B and D.  We have been studying Newton’s Laws of Motion which is not a new concept for my students. We related the laws to something we have all had experience with- cars. 

In ninth grade students need to be able to state Newton’s Laws and then actually apply those laws by experimentally obtaining data, graphing the data and using mathematical models to quantify Newton’s Laws of Motion. Students are required to apply the mathematical equations for potential energy, kinetic energy, velocity, acceleration, force and momentum. To achieve this, I asked the students to build a car that was designed to protect its passengers (an egg) while compensating for Newton’s Laws. The car had to travel a certain distance, reach a specific velocity and the passengers had to survive a head on collision with a concrete wall. 

Students brought materials from home. We would consider most of the “construction materials” to be trash. We turned that trash into cars. Items such as bottle caps, baby food lids or CD’s where used as wheels. Tissue boxes, coffee cans, soda bottles and oatmeal containers were used as cabs for the vehicles. Strings, rubber bands, and small strips of duct tape were used as seat belts.  By allowing students to be creative with their materials everyone had the opportunity to contribute and be successful with this project. 

After the construction of their vehicles students calculated the potential energy, kinetic energy, velocity, acceleration, force and momentum of their cars. Students also crash tested the car and checked on the “passengers’. There were fatalities, head injuries and passengers who escaped the crash without a scratch or crack.  Last students constructed essays evaluating how their car demonstrated Newton’s Laws, how well their car design compensated for Newton’s Laws to protect the egg and reflected on how the car could be improved in future.

Given that my students are just reaching driving age they are thinking of their first car. It would be extremely relevant to them to select five cars they could realistically purchase as their first vehicle and investigate those cars’ safety ratings. They could then determine what aspects of the cars improve the safety of vehicles and present that information to their peers. Last they would be asked to look up on their top car choice and apply the Newton’s Laws to a hypothetical crash involving that specific car.

ePortfolio Assignment 4

In order to prove their proficiency with plate tectonics, simple machines, Newton’s Laws and other physics concepts students have been working on a variety of STEM projects. They have built model houses that were to be able to withstand an earthquake. Students have constructed Rube Goldberg machines. They have engineered bottle rockets, egg cars and roller coasters.  When considering iPad apps the one app that has been consistently used throughout all of these projects is the use of the camera.  Students have used the camera to track their projects progress, remember construction design and record the performance of whatever it was they had built.

The camera apps usage for the tasks at hand would be considered synthesis and evaluation on the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Students were building structures from diverse elements, putting parts together to form a whole, while obviously emphasizing the creation of a new structure. Not only were they creating something but their creations could withstand obstacles and perform tasks.

Students were using the camera app to evaluate their projects as well as their peers’ projects; looking at the end result as well as the process they used to get there. Students were able to see mistakes while their projects were undergoing construction and then compensate for those problems. They made judgments concerning the usability of materials they were working with and had to make collaborative decisions about what would and would not work for the tasks at hand.

 

When evaluating Acuity with Bloom’s Taxonomy I find that it is reserved for the first four levels of Blooms. There is assessment of knowledge, comprehension, and even application. While in fewer instances I can see some evidence of analysis. In my opinion Acuity is not a good assessment of synthesis or evaluation skills;it is difficult to show these types of skills with multiple choice testing.   

ePortfolio Assignment 3:

The students had the opportunity to extend their knowledge of simple machines by building Rube Goldberg machines that could solve a problem they face in their lives. Machines solved problems such as: turning an alarm clock off, turning the light on without getting out of bed, opening and closing a garage door, feeding a dog, feeding a fish, putting toothpaste on a toothbrush, and closing a blind.  Students presented their projects to the class. They had the choice of presenting their machines live, creating a video and showing it to their class or a hybrid of both where students videoed their machine, but then explained to the class what was happening in the video. I have attached three of the videos to this blog entry.Two of the videos feature music by Julian Smith, a new YouTube sensation.

In this lesson students used 21^st century presentations skills as well as various technology skills to create their videos. I could improve this lesson by allowing students to keep a class blog which would allow them to collaborate on their project, swap ideas and constructively criticize each others’ work before the presentation day.   

Turning out the Lights- Sam 

Closing the Blinds - Zach and Andrew 

Toothpaste on a Toothbrush- Rose and Kendall