TPE 5 Summary

In order to keep my students engaged in Conceptual Physics this year, I did a

lot of fun activities, labs and simulations in order to make instruction
relevant. I also did a lot of elbow partner discussion and asking meaningful
questions to monitor progress and reengage off task learners.

My first piece of evidence for this TPE is a Force and Motion simulation lab.
This lab was incredibly effective at not only engaging every single one of my
students, but also at teaching my students the concepts. I found that by
using simulation where students could play experience what happens first
hand, helped my students to access the curriculum far better than anything
else. During this lab, I walked around the classroom asking meaning
questions about what students were observing in order to monitor the
progress of this lesson. After this simulation, I incorporated simulations into
my lesson as often as possible due to high engagement of students as well
as successfulness of enabling my students with disability to access the
curriculum.

The next piece of evidence can be found as pictures of my students enjoying

our sink or swim lab. This was done to engage students in the process of the
scientific method, by asking the scientific questions of what will happen if I
drop a certain object into the water? Will it sink or float? Students were then
asked to develop a hypothesis. I used class dojo to call on random students
to tell me what they thought would happen, and then we took a vote and
tallied up the data. This lab was especially fun because my students became
peer tutors for the first time as we had invited the moderate to severe class
to join us! We then tested our hypothesis. My students really enjoyed this
part as they were shocked by some of the results and couldnt wait to test
the next object! During this lab, students collected data as well as practiced
writing sentences for the scientific method processes, including a conclusion
of what happened. Through meaningful questioning I was able to keep
students on task and engaged, as well as help them understand all scientific
method.

The next fun and engaging activity taught my students the difference
between accuracy and precision. In this lab students got to enjoy the outside
as they tossed bean bags at a target on the floor. Student had a lot of fun
collecting data and trying to be both precise and accurate with their tosses.
As you can see all the students were engaged actively learning. After this lab
we held a class discussion about what they learned and how this is relevant
to their own lives. Students said that this was extremely relevant to a lot of
the sports they played. Especially in basketball and baseball.

The next two pieces of evidence show how has I ask meaningful questions
during lectures and engage students with fun pictures and elbow partner
discussions. This last PowerPoint was especially fun as students got to come
up with and share their own observations and inferences about what was
going on in different silly pictures. This PowerPoint also allowed me to clear
up any confusion between observations (what you see) and inferences (what
you think is happening) as they shared in a fun and engaging way.