Gwyneth's Blog – September 2008 Archive (4)

http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dg65p5tg_0ch7q94hp



This is the presentation that my Y13s made on wave-particle duality. It was a great collaborative effort and we all had a good time. Yay! for my students.



Of course, they are now doing their student appraisals of my teaching, so I will probably have to rescind all interesting learning opportunities and make them doing boring textbook work in… Continue

First period, Y13 Physics. I gave them a presentation template in googledocs, with the main summary headings so they wouldn't go too far off topic. Then, I got them to research and find answers and summarise them and enter their results into the presentation. We had three laptops in the room between six of us, so some people were using the internet while others used books or summarised the ideas that the people using the internet were coming up with. Sadly, no one else had a gmail account, so… Continue

As I wind down through the last unit in each of the three senior subjects I teach, my students are trying to make sense of new concepts and half-heartedly revise their existing knowledge. Everything gets squeezed down to whether or not questions like that are asked in the examinations, and, if not, they're not interested. Additionally, spring winds its flirtatious tendrils into their hormones and I get to see enough mating behaviour to make me a little nauseous.



Also winding down is… Continue

One of the biggest problems that most students face in physics is writing describe and explain questions. They might understand the concept and be able to apply the formulae and use mathematical methods to solve problems, yet be unable to translate that understanding to written answers.



There is no easy solution. The reasons students struggle with them range from basic problems with writing to problems with ordering their ideas, to those that can't identify the key thoughts they need… Continue