What should the mission of the DMAPT be?

Near the end of the summer some of the current and past officers of the DMAPT met to lay out plans for the coming school year. One of the questions that came up was what is the role of the DMAPT? Why do we exist as an organization?

Jim DeHaan, our current treasurer, asked me to add a couple of related questions to ponder. He asked me to forward them on to the group so that people could think about this before our first meeting (date not set yet):
______________________
After hearing recent stories from elementary school teachers of frustration with curriculum and isolation in the teaching community, even in their own school, I have two questions.

1. The DMAPT is to high school physics instruction as _____________ is to elementary education.
2. We always say that there is a known disconnect between high school teachers and elementary and middle school teachers. What is the DMAPT’s roll in bridging the gap?

Thanks for your time,

Jim

Conceptual Difficulties with Acceleration

Conceptual Difficulties with Acceleration
by Don Pata

The other night I received an email from Mark Davids.  For those who do not know Mark he is a recently retired physics teacher who taught at Grosse Pointe South high school for over 30 years.  He was a master teacher and a practitioner of the Modeling Method.  He won the PAEMST (the Presidential Award) and was an Einstein Fellow.  Most importantly he was the heart and soul of the DMAPT for many years.

Although he has been retired for a couple of years he was missing being in the game and convinced some teachers in Tennessee - which is where he and his wife retired - to run a modeling workshop last summer.  Once he got back in the game I knew he couldn't stop.

He emailed wondering how we dealt with the conceptual difficulties that students persistently have with acceleration.  He sent the following as a plan to deal with these conceptual difficulties.  His contention is that the kids have problems mainly due to the way that we teach it.

His suggestion is to emphasize that constant acceleration is simply a constant change in velocity each second.  Here are a few specific ideas to improve student understanding:

1.  Always make a data table (time and velocity). 

2.  Then make a velocity vs. time curve.

3.  The slope of a velocity graph is always to the acceleration.

4.  The area under the curve is always equal to the displacement.

5.  The formula: (Dx = ave. velocity * Dt) still works for constant acceleration.

     (Students are familiar with these ideas from the previous unit!)

6.  Keep local gravity –10 m/s/s and separate it from the gravitational field strength of 10 N/kg

7.  Refer to accelerations as 2.0 m/s each second or 2.0 m/s every second

8.  When students are asked to predict (or match) graphs of position, velocity, and acceleration suggest that they always begin with the velocity curves.

9.  Avoid stock formulas (Dx = V_ot +1/2 at² and V_f²– V_o² = 2 a x)

(Most students do not have any conceptual understanding of where these came from or how and when to use them; i.e.can you make a drawing that explains the last equation? Can you apply the last equation when the acceleration is zero?, etc.)

I learned everything that I know about teaching from Mark so looking at this list, I am not that surprised by any of them and in fact my thought is, "Doesn't everyone do it this way?"

But I think not.  I am sure that there are plenty of physics teachers out there who still roll out the equations on day 1 and work for the next week to have students verify them.  Or that their unit on acceleration consists of drilling and killing kinematics problems.  We know that proficiency in solving kinematics problems does not necessarily coincide with a conceptual understanding of acceleration.

So I guess my question is; what is your goal when teaching acceleration?  If real deep understanding is what you're looking for consider Mark's list above as a real approach to getting your kids to deeply understand what it means to "accelerate".

DP

MSTA 2013 Conference

The Michigan Science Teachers Association annual conference is going on March 8-9 at Eastern Michigan University. There is a lot being offered in the way of workshops, presentations, and activities. You can check out the full program for details of all the events, but the DMAPT will have a strong presence as usual at this conference.

Several of our members will be presenting this weekend in a variety of areas, including Don Pata, Laura Ritter, Jim Gell, and Gary Abud. We also have an table in the exhibitor hall, so check it out!

To help with your conference planning, here is a summary of the presentations our group will be giving at the conference:

Friday:

Cool Tools for Electrostatics and Magnetism 

Donald Pata, Grosse Pointe North HS

Time: 10:00 - 10:45AM 

Primary Subject: IN, PH

Interest Level: MS, HS

Location: Stu-Center - #350

Discover science based toys and other cool tools that will enhance your static electricity and magnetism lessons bringing real-life examples into your classroom. This session will be presented by an award winning physics teacher, using a combination of hands-on activities and thought-provoking demonstrations. Products include: Van de Graaff generator, fun fly stick, and lots and lots of magnets!

Cool Tools for Projectile Motion 

Donald Pata, Grosse Pointe North HS

Time: 11:00 - 11:45AM

Primary Subject: IN, PH

Interest Level: MS, HS

Location: Stu-Center - #350

Make your class take off with these projectile motion products from Arbor Scientific. Learn to launch air rockets and water rockets. Explore the effects of gravity. Hit targets and investigate the effect of angle on range. This session will be presented by an award winning physics teacher, using a combination of hands-on activities and thought-provoking demonstrations. Products include Air Powered Projectile, Super Bottle Rocket Launcher, Horizontal Projectile Ramp with Ball, Monkey and Hunter, Coin and Feather Demo and more.

Speaking of Science…Good Practices for Great Student Dialogue 

Laura Ritter, Troy High School

Time: 2:00 - 2:45PM

Jennifer Gottlieb, Birmingham Public Schools

Primary Subject: IN

Interest Level: MS, HS, CO

Location: Sci-Complex - #145

Meaningful student-centered dialogue can improve critical thinking and uncover misconceptions. This hands-on workshop provides teachers with useful resources and strategies for conducting effective dialogue in a high school science classroom.

Saturday:

Teach Circuits with Cutting Edge, Constructivist Pedagogy: The Modeling Method 

Donald Pata, Grosse Pointe North HS

Laura Ritter, Troy Schools

Time: 9:00AM - 12:00PM

Primary Subject: IN, PH

Interest Level: MS, HS

Location: Stu-Center - #301

How do you teach circuits and electricity in a way that engages your students at every step? Participants will do many labs and experience teaching methodology that is proven to excite students.

Cool Tools for Force and Motion 
James Gell, Arbor Scientific
Time: 9:00 - 9:45AM
Primary Subject: IN, PH
Interest Level: MS, HS
Location: Stu-Center - #360
Motivate your students! Discover science-based toys and other cool tools that will enhance your force and motion lessons and bring real-life examples into your classroom. Be ready to get involved! Handouts and door prize provided.

Socrative: A Digital Touch on Demos and Discrepant Events
Gary Abud Jr., Grosse Pointe North High School 
Andrew Steinman, Kent ISD
Time: 11:00AM - 11:45AM
Primary Subject: CO, IN
Interest Level: EE, LE, MS, HS, CO
Location: Sci-Complex - #143
Participants use their web-enabled device to participate in this interactive session that allows the audience to engage actively in demos & Discrepant events for science teaching.

Why You Want an iPad Instead of an Interactive Whiteboard
Gary Abud Jr., Grosse Pointe North High School 
Andrew Steinman, Kent ISD
Time: 2:00PM - 2:45PM
Primary Subject: CO, IN
Interest Level: EE, LE, MS, HS, CO
Location: Sci-Complex - #211
Participants will engage in wireless teaching techniques for the science classroom that use iOS and Android devices. (BYOD is highly encouraged!)

February 26th Google Hangout

Due to a winter storm that moved into the area at the time of our scheduled meeting, we cancelled the in-person meeting, and decided to hold an online meeting instead using Google Hangout. It was AWESOME! Besides adjusting to being on camera and learning to navigate all these new controls at once, we had three DMAPT members participate in the Hangout, 5 viewers checking it out live streamed on YouTube, and the LTU students in the pre-service teaching program viewing from class. Google+ automatically created an archive video of our Hangout and posted it online for us. Now, anyone who didn't attend the meeting can still check it out.

Our Agenda:

• Google+ Hangouts
• Upcoming MSTA Conference with the DMAPT sponsored presentations and table
• Textbooks
• Online resources for teaching physics, including blended learning
• Waves, Energy, & Sound Demos and Labs
• Next meeting at the Michigan Science Centere

If you tuned in at 7pm on 2/26/13, you could view the Hangout live streamed via YouTube:

Rob Harr from Wayne State University shared an upcoming opportunity for high school students and teachers at Wayne State for a Master Class with the QuarkNet program on March 23. For more information about the Master Class at Wayne State, check out this informational flier.

There are three upcoming conferences that we discussed:

Michigan Science Teachers Association (MSTA)

2013 Conference [March 8-9 | Eastern Michigan University | Ypsilanti, MI]

Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning (MACUL)
2013 Conference [March 20-22 | Cobo Hall, Detroit, MI]

Michigan Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers (MIAAPT)

2013 Spring Meeting - [April 20th | at Henry Ford Community College | Dearborn, MI]

In Google+ Hangouts, we have the ability to share screens, video chat, text chat, and collaborate on work together all at the same time. Although the video archive only shows what's displayed in the main Hangout window, we can separately keep track of the chat window and archive it. The chat archive for this meeting can be found here.

Our next DMAPT meeting will be on March 20, 2013 at 6:00pm at the Michigan Science Center.

Notes and Links from the December 4th Meeting

We had a great turnout at our meeting in Grosse Pointe. Thanks to Scott for hosting us in his classroom. Scott Brunner is our President this year and this was our first meeting with Gary Abud as our Vice President.

As usual we started with introductions and then Beth Kubitskey gave a presentation on the Next Generation Science Standards. She discussed a bit about what we could expect to see and how this might change science education k-12. The new draft of the standards should come out in January for public comment. You really should try to check them out and make comments. Laura Ritter, has been involved in working on the standards at the state level, said they really do listen to comments and several changes have happened because of them. We will let you now when they become available.

Next up was Jim Gell. Jim showed one of his favorite demos. You need a large clearish balloon. You put the quarter in the balloon and inflate. The you try to get the quarter spinning. Once it starts you just hold the balloon and watch the quarter go and go. Then just wait for the questions from the kids. Jim also highly recommended looking for a video by Tony Wagner on "The Finnish Phenomenon."

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Gary Abud shared many ideas. He proposed that we should change out meetings slightly. We always have time for demos and labs, but usually save technology for special meetings. Technology is becoming a part of so many good lessons we should just include it with the demos and lab ideas at every meeting. Gary also went on to share how he uses blogs and twitter to learn from other great educators on the net. Gary also shared a cool Augmented Reality app for iOS and Android called Aurasma. You point the camera of your phone at a picture and then wait for cool stuff to happen on the phone's screen, as if the phone can see things that aren't visible to the naked eye. Cool stuff!

Stephanie Spencer followed this up with a similar technology. Stephanie puts QR codes on worksheets for her students. When her students finish a problem then can instantly check their answers to see if they were right or if they need to try it again. You could also just have this give hints for how to solve the problems.

Don Pata was up next. I recorded a part of his presentation and uploaded it to YouTube. Hopefully he doesn't mind.

He went on to show how he has his students use Excel to calculate the lengths of the different pendulums. If students can figure out how to set up a spreadsheet to do all of the calculations then there's a much better chance they really understand the relationship.

Scott Brunner was next up showing how you could use a LabPro with a force sensor and motion detector to determine Hooke's Law. You suspend a spring holding a weight from the force sensor above the motion detector. It helps to tape a 3x5 card to the weight to make it a better target for the motion sensor. You then start the weight bouncing up and down. The graphs for force and position are 180 degrees out of phase, pretty cool. The you create a new graph of Force vs. distance and then watch Hooke's law be traced out on the screen over and over again.

I (Steve Dickie) rounded out the meeting by sharing Steam for Schools. You can get free versions of Portal 2 and the Universe Sandbox for your school. Then all you need to do is convince your tech people to let you install them.

DMAPT blog experiment

In the spirit of friendly collaboration, Gary Abud Jr. and I thought it would be a great idea to create a blog for DMAPT-relevant topics. Eventually we will be able to organize our posts, comments and discussions into useful threads for DMAPT members and anyone else who might benefit from our years of experience in physics education.

I am sure there will be kinks to work out with this, but for now I will try set this blog up so anyone with the blog link (URL) can contribute. If you do not have a Google account, go here and sign up for one. You can also sign up for Blogger here. Signing up for Google and Blogger should not be necessary to leave comments on the blog, for now, but you will need to if you want to create new post for new topics. If you are signed up for both and you want to be added as a collaborator on the blog, let me know.

We could start this blog off with posts on basic units or topics where DMAPT members can add links, images, labs, demonstrations, videos, news, and other tools or ideas for the physics classroom. We could also get some good conversations going on important topics like the implementation of the NGSS and changes to AP Physics B. This will allow our great meeting conversations to continue between meetings! 

If you have any ideas for what this could/should become then comment on this post and let's get this blog rolling. Wait . . . anyone know the moment of inertia of a baby blog?

-Scott Brunner