Omaira+Pacheco

Day 1: Introduction to modeling. This is my first experience to modeling even though I heard about it but I actually was not sure of how it was implementeds. I am thinking about myself as a traditional teacher and also about the students that are in our district which are coming from traditional classroom if I will be able to implement everything right away, but definitely I will try to incorporate it the most that I can. The pendulum activity is great but it could be difficult especially for on level students which are the one that I am going to teach next year. I teach also AP chemistry but I am not planning to use modeling with that class (I need to get more familiar with modeling before placing it in another context different than Physics). One of my greatest fears is the use of technology that I am not familiar with. The discussion in a circle is something that I like and of course it has to have to be done with clear rules in order to be effective. I like the use of excell for the graphing. It save a lot of time and will be very useful for those students with weak graphing skills.

Day 2: Main purpose of the class was to develop the constant velocity model. When I used to teach Physics one of the things that I tried to do was to introduce a concept with a demonstration, But, of course I started talking about the definition without even give an opportunity to any student to express their observations or ideas. I never performed a lab with students without having already a complete lecture about any concept or definition that we were going to test in that lab. Of course everything was given: objective, procedure, blank data table to fill after they collected their data, etc. I think, I have to do a lot for myself in order to see a real effective learning in my classroom. So, we cannot allow students to use a word or name if they do not understand the real meaning of what is defined with that word.

Day 3: We started the discussion using the following statement: Nothing works for everybody. All that matters is to have as much in your bag of tricks as possible. After discussion, main conclusion: we need to be aware that there are good tools (tricks) and bad tricks, so is important to recognize from one to another before using them. The practicum lab was interesting. I am not sure if I want to use it with a very large group but I understood that we can divide the class into subgroups to get more student participation. I like the interpretation of the different graph and the simulation of the motion given the graph. We started a new model: Constant acceleration model. The use of areas of a triangle nicely guide us to get the equation of the position in function of time for an object that moves at constant acceleration.

Day 4: Today was not a very good day for me. Starting with the problems in the morning that made me so confused and continuing with the use of logged pro. I guess this is one of my weakest points on my preparation for teaching Physics and I need to practice more with the equipment. More practice using graph problems are important to reinforce further understanding of the two models. We developed another model to explain the motion of a free falling ball. We concluded that this vertical motion matches with the constant acceleration model. To present different methods of how to solve a problem gives the opportunity to reach and address the differentiation needed in the classroom.

Day 5: It was amazing how the force concept was introduced. I felt that I never as a Physics student had the opportunity to see force as an interaction and with all the demosntrations and discussion the idea of interaction nicely took us to the definition of force without even mention the word force. I love it and I think this is something that I want to do with my students.