Matt Randall

This is great! What other books are on your list?

Thanks! This is a great summer project for me.

Also, do you cut your own handles in the boards? If so, how did you do it?

That looks great! I have a co-worker who wants to start using whiteboards and wants stands too. This looks very doable, thanks for the pics!

Does anyone have a design for a whiteboard stand made out of PVC (for 24”x32” boards)? I think I remember someone posting this on the old site. #iteachphysics

St my first school, I co-led a group we called the “3 minute observation club.” Each week we took turns observing in one another’s classrooms for 3 minutes with a specific prompt, and then talked about what we saw and what it made us think about our own teaching at lunch. It was awesome.

YouTube video by Flipping Physics How PhET is Being Hurt by Funding Cuts

I have a platform. It may be small, however, I still feel compelled to use it. youtu.be/RGPF-BzWxCc
#PhET #NSFgrants #physicseducation

Thank you for sharing this!

I had a co-worker share AI responses to the reflection questions for our evaluation process, encouraging others to consider that use of AI. I now put a disclaimer that I didn’t use AI on the writing I do for our evaluation process.

That’s good feedback. I got to participate in updating the Patterns Chemistry curriculum last year. There are a lot of great people making cool improvements each year.

I had such a good experience working at a district where we adopted Patterns for our 9-11 science program, were trained in it together, had a lot of alignment between courses, and used teaching practices to meet the NGSS. I’m trying to advocate for something similar in my new district.

I moved back to WA this year. In my new district, our main track, by design, has 2 years of Physical Science where the second year is a near duplicate of the first. The reasoning I’ve heard is similar to yours, there is concern that the majority of students can’t pass a standard chem class.

I spent my last 3 years teaching in Oregon and can confidently day that most of the state has a high school sequence that makes meeting the NGSS a priority (more than 2/3 of the H.S students are in schools that use the Patterns Curriculum).

It sounds like this may be past, but I think the argument is that it is still our responsibility (and also a worthy goal) for our teaching and learning to meet the NGSS standards.

Many school districts map out the performance expectations over a 3 year sequence. I believe districts have to pass an audit for this. I’ve never taught forensics, but my guess is that it’s more of a cool elective course and might be less about ensuring that the whole of the NGSS are addressed.

Do students take courses that adequately address the NGSS standards? Does your school district map the NGSS performance expectations to the courses students take, to make sure the whole set of standards are being addressed?

I’ve also seen the transformative nature of having a high quality curriculum (Modeling, Patterns) on teachers. Having a great starting point is a game changer. But if it’s overly scripted, it’s really confining. (Sorry if this was long, this is my teaching life right now).

One benefit of this curriculum is that someone with very little background/understanding of science teaching could do about the same job as someone who does. It’s hard to see how disheartening it is. I supposed there could be good scripted curriculum, but this isn’t it.

I am at a new school this year. We have a highly scripted curriculum (Amplify Science). Everyone hates it. There are teachers counting the days until they retire with no hope of change. I am re-writing the lessons to make them more engaging, while still following the curriculum, it’s a huge lift.

Ugghh. Gut punch.

I was not expecting the second sentence. Cool!

Good point!

Have you made any adaptations to make it align better with NGSS? I’m a lifelong modeler and recently started using the Patterns Curriculum. It has a lot of the same strategies as modeling, such as paradigm labs and data discussions, but also taught me a lot about how to address the NGSS.

I used speaker notes for a long time but so many students didn’t use them, even with lots of explicit instruction. So many times: “Ohhh, that’s where the instructions are!”, even after I showed multiple times. I like the text around the sides much better.

Good tip! I’ve also learned from a colleague to add instructions, sentence starters, and links in the empty space outside of each slide as text boxes. Easy for students to see while working and then are hidden in Slideshow mode. This has been a gamechanger for me.

Hello Howie!

YouTube video by Physics with Simon Poliakoff Five great demonstrations with an infrared camera to teach the terms absorb, transmit and reflect

This series of demonstrations with the infrared camera are really good for getting students to write explanations using the key terms absorb, reflect and transmit. Worked well in class just before half term.

#SciTeachUK
#ITeachPhysics

youtu.be/iE0ajDN9848

Thanks!

Thank you!

I bought a copy through my local bookstore and it’s in back order. Happy to see this be so popular, and I’m enjoying the new podcasts.