After every day I’ve taught, I’ve written a brief reflection about that day’s lesson for each of my classes. Sometimes the reflection is very brief and superficial and sometimes it is detailed and full of wisdom for my future self. I go back and read these reflections each year when preparing for the upcoming unit. Given my poor memory, these have been valuable in helping me to prevent the same mistakes over and over again.
Here’s my reflection for today’s paradigm lab for constant acceleration particle model:
Today’s class was a train wreck. I planned to start the constant-acceleration particle model unit in much the same way as Kelly O’Shea. However, I thought that students viewing the graphs on iPads connected to a single LabQuest 2 would be better than students watching the project image of the LoggerPro screen. I first discovered that the LabQuest 2 only works with Vernier motion sensors and not PASCO ones. I did finally find an old Vernier motion sensor, but it was somewhat temperamental collecting useful data. I was able to get a good run after some positioning adjustments. However, when I had 20 iPads all connect to the LabQuest 2, they wouldn’t all be updated at the same time. Some would display the latest data from the LabQuest 2 and some would be stuck waiting to refresh or showing a previous run’s data. I probably tried to connect too many devices to the same LabQuest 2. As a result, I ended up projecting my iPad on the large screen. At this point, I was basically back to displaying the data for all to see, but I was displaying the Graphical Analysis app on the iPad instead of the more complete LoggerPro display. Today was an example of technology not helping students. I’ll have to clean up my mess on Wednesday when I’m next in class.
I’ll spare you all the photo of the crying students after this lesson.
##capm ##paradigmlab ##setbacks