Monday, July 25, 2011

Constant Velocity Motion Model, Take 1

I'm working on planning the first unit for next year: Constant Velocity Motion. (I'm hoping I can work in the data collection and graphing that go in the introductory unit in Mark Schober's Modeling Physics plans without devoting a separate unit to those.) The performance task for the unit is analyzing the traffic on a street that separated an elementary school from a park, and arguing for or against a pedestrian bridge to allow students at the school to use the park for recess (and science classes). 

Things I need to do:
  • I need to come up with more details on how to judge the quality of the letter/presentation to the Planning Board that's the "deliverable". 
  • I need a video of the traffic (including pics of the school and the park. 
  • I need to figure out where I'm going to use Dan Meyer's 'Boat on a River' (really 'Man on an Escalator') video. It could be part of the hook, or it could be part of the unit test/assessment. I'm leaning towards using it as part of the take-home test/final blog post. (I used a Pyramid Exam model for summative assessment last year, just in-class--collaborative--take-home,  and liked it.)
  • I need to fit data collection guides in, and make sure my reference manual for LoggerPro is clear. I'd love to use Tracker so students could use the same program at school and at home, but if I have to take students to the computer lab anyway, might as well use what's already installed. I highly doubt that our thin clients will play nicely with Tracker.
  • I need to investigate using PollEverywhere for exit slips/1min essays/Gots&Needs.
  • I need to write rubrics and quizzes and practice problems. I'm aiming for Kelly O'Shea's No Homework policy: anything they do at home will be voluntary practice, or spillover from slacking off during class.
What else do I need?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Last year, I used Dan's escalator problem as a deployment activity/paradigm lab. Have you seen Shawn's great video of a car driving in the opposite lane? This could be another great paradigm lab.