Sounds like a heat wave: PTSOS2 RA09 afterlinks 1

The Sacramento PTSOS New Teacher Workshop 2 was held January 24 at Rio Americano High School. Steve Keith and Dean Baird led an energetic group of teachers through demonstrations, discussions, and projects on the topics of heat and waves.

Though we try to work through the day slowly enough that all the information can be absorbed at a reasonable pace, it might be helpful to review some of the info links discussed.

Here's a brief list of some of the topics we planned to cover. (Sometimes the day gets away from us before we get to all of them.)

HEAT
Book of Phyz coverage of Heat and Temperature (Physics 1)
Book of Phyz coverage of Thermodynamics (AP Physics 2)

Although we didn't discuss it specifically, the good people at PhET have a nice Kinetic Theory / Gas Laws simulation.

My Web Video page gives access to video clips of the Leidenfrost Effect. And don't forget that nice video clip, "Putting Firewalkers to the Test." What an excellent example of Science shutting down the Woo! If you like that kind of thing, you might consider attending James Randi's The Amaz!ng Meeting in Las Vegas this summer.

Specific links to demo/lab ideas connected to goodies in the goodie bag. (The item name links to the vendor's product page.)
Colliding Spheres: Sheet
Ball & Ring: Sheet + Presentation
Compound Bar (Bimetallic Strip): Sheet + Presentation
Radiometer: Sheet + Presentation
(The Ove-Glove is a handy (!) aid whenever handling hot water, etc. It's an answer that you'll find questions for when working with hot objects.)

Sounds like a heat wave: PTSOS2 RA09 afterlinks 2

The second half of January's PTSOS2 New Teacher Workshop at Rio Americano was devoted to mechanical waves and sound.

WAVES
Book of Phyz coverage of Waves (Physics 1)
Book of Phyz coverage of Harmonic Motion and Resonance (AP Physics 2)

We looked at (and listened to) Pasco's WavePort software. Lots of potential there. Try it for free when you get to waves and run the activities I designed for use in conjunction with it.

We also ran PhET's Wave Interference simulator. I wrote an activity for that simulator focused on the basics, but our participants ran through it like kids in a candy store, finding the interference modes, and the sound-generator, and the light/color-generator.

I use the Physics: Cinema Classics clip on the Bell Jar to show that "In space, no one can hear you scream." (Reference: Waves (I)>Periodic Waves>Sound.)

As a flashy demo combining heat, sound, and waves, Steve brought his Ruben's Tube. The Mythbusters have a nice Ruben's Tube clip on YouTube.

They also have a nice clip of another demo that Steve showed: Fun with Gas! (And kids: even if you can get your hands on sulfur hexafluoride, don't try this at home!)

My Web Video page gives access to a few supersonic fighter jet video clips. Nice when talking about shock waves and sonic booms. Another sonic boom classic is the opening sequence from the Imax film, The Dream is Alive.

We finished the day with Steve's "String Machine" make-n-take. He brought the parts and tools; PTSOSers brought the energy and labor! The Exploratorium has a similar String Machine snack posted online. This project garnered rave reviews from power-tool-wielding participants.

Jeff Milner's Backmasking page has nicely produced examples of auditory pareidolia. Jeff has a follow-up post, too.

If you like the Mythbusters and/or are intrigued by the backmasking site (and our ability to fool ourselves), please look in to the James Randi Educational Foundation and The Amaz!ng Meeting. Science teachers play a critical role in teaching critical thinking and skepticism. The JREF and TAM are great resources in that regard.

Also in the day's binder pages was the latest set of Released Test Questions from the California Standards Test in Physics. An updated set with 15 more questions should be appearing soon. Check the "Physics RTQ" link to the right. The 2008 edition had 74 RTQs. The 2009 edition should have 89.

Thanks--as always--to The Northern California and Nevada Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers and The Karl Leslie Brown Memorial Scholarship Fund for making PTSOS possible. And thanks to our participants for making PTSOS awesome!

Caturday feline physics

more animals

Troubling trend in teacher training

Skeptical Teacher Matt sounds a warning about the upcoming population of prospective teachers. There's a disturbing imbalance emerging.

...the problem is a double whammy - not only are there too many people going into teaching the humanities, but there is a lack of qualified teachers for core scientific & technical subjects such as math, physics, and chemistry!

Make no mistake. English is the single most important subject taught in high school. Math comes in second place. Physics is down the list a bit. Nonetheless, I agree with Matt in the concerns that surround this impending oversupply/undersupply. The United States stands to lose its leadership role in science and technology. Meanwhile the US is a uniquely hospitable environment nurturing the growth of antiscience in all its forms: from creationism to homeopathy to all manner of psychic woo woo.

So who should we concede our leadership role to? China? India? In reality we won't need to choose. The lead will simply be taken from us. The silver lining? We'll be able to read and write about it, and chronicle and analyze the transition.

On to electricity, magnetism, light, and optics

At the risk of repeating this post, let me tell you where I am as we head into the second semester.

In our first semester at Rio, we cover motion, Newton's laws, UCM & gravity, momentum, energy, and heat. That is, everything that the state of California spell out in the first three of five content standard sets devoted to 9-12 Physics. "Motion and Forces," "Conservation of Energy and Momentum," and "Heat and Thermodynamics" are done.

In second semester, we cover "Electric and Magnetic Phenomena," and "Waves." There's plenty to do in those areas, and we're never done with all of it by the April CST administration.

But I would kindly suggest that if you're still meandering through mechanics when second semester hits, you don't stand a chance of making it through the state's prescribed content. I know at least one or two physics teachers for whom that is not a concern. They express their distaste for statewide standards and assessment by disregarding them completely.That's not a path I would recommend. To each his (or her) own, I suppose.

Return of the Student Opinion of Teacher Survey

High school teachers in the college town of Ann Arbor were required to undergo anonymous student evaluation at the end of each semester back when I did my student teaching there. The Ann Arbor School District developed a generic Likert scale and open-ended questionnaire that allowed students to rate teacher performance. The front of the questionnaire was devoted to 24 Likert (five-point) scale performance assessments. The back was devoted to open-ended prompts.

Students were not to include their names on the surveys. Completed surveys were collected by a student in the class and delivered to the teacher's evaluating administrator before the teacher could see them. The teacher could not access the completed surveys until semester grades had been turned in.

I brought the form with me to Sacramento. San Juan Unified had no such instrument or program. I was too chicken to use it my first year. In retrospect, I have reason to believe the results would have been much better than I expected. Oh well.

I started using it my second year, 1987-88. I was knocked out by how kind the students were in their assessment of my performance. It might have helped that I was young and they could see that I really was trying. It didn't hurt that Rio's Class of '88 was a truly exceptional group. (I perceived it even then, but my perception was verified by more veteran teachers at the time.)

I continued to administer the survey until 2006. In the early years, I learned a thing or two. And I changed a thing or two about how I conducted the class. But after a while, the annual results started to merge into a certain sameness. My stock would rise or fall within a certain range. The comments--good and bad--changed little from year to year. I lost interest.

I revived the old form this year. To make it somewhat interesting and useful to me, I changed some of the questions.

Here is the survey instrument.

Here are my results. (The graphs will be meaningless without the instrument; the graphs don't show the text of the questions.)
1. Summary Graph by Period (Physics 1 only)
2. Summary Graph (Physics 1 and AP Physics 2)
3. The Data

How my students have performed on the physics CST

We get CST results each year. The STAR reports are not always useful or logically organized. I've been on a mission to get results that I could hammer into something meaningful. Each year, I have to volunteer some time, talent, and energy to tease out results that reflect on what's going on in my own classroom.

The state generates some very broad results that they publish August 15-ish each year following the Spring administration. School districts are then charged with providing individualized teacher reports.

With the additional effort I put in, here's a presentation of how my students have performed on the Physics CST over the years. (The file is a zipped QuickTime document.)

Interpreting those results is another matter. Given the data presented in that report, I'm hard-pressed to generate much analysis. My students generally fair well. They've got a number of advantages over the average California physics student. But as far as using the results to decide what to do different next year, the picture is not entirely clear. I've already surrendered a huge portion of the second semester to electricity and magnetism. And electricity and magnetism remains an area of relatively low performance.

My Dear Machine

There are, generally speaking, two types of casual bloggers: those who have idled their blogs for a spell and those who will.

I honor of my time away from this URL, let me present Sixpence None the Richer's "My Dear Machine." Sixpence disbanded in 2004 and reunited in 2008. They returned with an EP whose title track was "My Dear Machine."



With lyrics like, "My dear machine's been idled so long, now it's time for another drive," it's hard to miss the metaphor. But I really like the track and now I'll be able to access the video easily on my blog. (It says something nice about singer Leigh Nash that she didn't mind the nostril massage making the final cut.)

Oh, you can't get the EP in stores or the iTunes Music Store. I bought it at NoiseTrade. But I don't see it there anymore. I'm not sure where you could buy it if you wanted to. Sorry. If someone knows how to get it, let me know in the comments!

Power Pointlessness at the speed of light

The first experimenters who tried to measure the speed of light concluded that light speed was infinite. Their equipment was unequal to the task of measuring something so very fast. In v = d/t, the t was too small no matter how big they made the d.

Similarly if you were to take the ratio of effective presentations (PowerPoints) you've seen to the total number of presentations you've sen, you would be forgiven if you concluded that "effective PowerPoint" was an oxymoron. (The "effective" number too small and the "total" number total too large.)

Effective presentations do exist. Garr Reynolds hosts a weblog devoted to Presentation Zen. He offers fundamental principles for success that can be found here.

Thermal physics in slow motion

Here's a generous helping of new high-speed video from my trusty Casio EX-F1. We're into thermal physics right now, so it was time to record flame, steam, and the Leidenfrost Effect as Paul Robinson demonstrated at PTSOS.As always, these are QuickTime clips (for better playback control and ease of downloading).
Enjoy the clips here.