Welcome to the 2012-2013 School Year! I would like to share some thoughts with you about the offerings for this school from the SLAPT. Let me begin by saying that I have doing some reading about physics/science educational research. I am at best described as a “lurker” on the PER topical group listserve from AAPT. They have been having an illuminating discussion on the role of guided inquiry and on pre/post testing for conceptual understanding. The first thing I learned was that there is some research on exactly what does the FCI tell us about a student’s understanding if they get a question correct on a post test. It seems that some research is showing that a number of false/positive errors are occurring. In other words kids can get it wrong for the right reasons and kids can get it right for the wrong reasons. There is evidence in some research that kids taking the post -test revert to their original way of processing information rather than use their newly acquired expertise to deal with the questions. The conclusion on the listserve was that an end of course interview serves the teacher the best to determine the level of comprehension a kid has. Not to sure I know how to do this or if there is even time in a high school curriculum to do this. So to this point I recommend that the least we can do is practice with better questions during the term. The first workshop that will be offered in August will be on a new book called N-TIPERS where the N stands for Newtonian. (You will receive the book as part of the cost of the workshop. This workshop is limited due to number of books so respond quickly to reserve a spot.) These questions have a way of probing kids conceptually especially if they have to combine the response with a white board sharing with classmates. The new book is a continuation of the work done by the authors of Ranking Tasks, E-TIPERS and M-TIPERS.

The second thread in the last several months on the listserve was on guided inquiry labs as a means to achieve better gains on the FCI. Real Time Physics was an offering as well as Workshop Physics. Both of these books can be purchased at the Vernier website. Another important site to visit for free but having researched materials is Eugenia Etkina’s ISLE program at Rutgers. She uses so many videos labs and her promotion of students processing through a cycle of hypotheses is terrific. This website gets you to her video labs. http://paer.rutgers.edu/pt3/

If you are interested in video labs and technology of that type, please attend Jen and Ryan’s workshop on VPython. It looks like it can create a great deal of interest in our tech savy, visual kids. In considering guided inquiry labs, I would like you to think about the workshop we are offering on Energy II. Rex, Gary and Lee will present a workshop that is a continuation of the workshop on energy from last year and will show the added guided inquiry labs needed to form the mathematical relationships that proceed from the conceptual labs. While I was lurking I came across some materials referenced by Richard Haake on labs so I will include the web address because these are free for the investigating. These give a good sense on how other guided inquiry labs ate designed. http://bit.ly/9nGd3M

I am also reading a book called Assessing Science Learning from NSTA press. Again the question is how do you know what a student “knows”. This book is promoting formative assessment that, whether formally or informally, speaks to the teacher on intermediate progress and how the teacher must change the next lessons to accomplish the targeted concepts. They first suggest, from research, that one positive way to improve student scores on high stake tests is to improve teachers’ content understanding. Even if you do not teach Astronomy perhaps it would be advantageous to attend Frank Cange’s workshop on CLEA. It is program that can also benefit the physics classroom. Also, Bob Brazzle will address Newton’s Laws with materials he has used for his National Board Certification. Both sound like excellent sources of new materials and interesting content.

Again the book cycles back to the question of how to probe understanding. Jim Cibulka will be presenting a workshop on “goalless” problems. They move you away from “normal” style problems and again increase the probe at trying to understand what kids understand. They sound like a worthwhile hour to spend. Just for the fun of it, take a peak at Redish’s website at the University of Maryland. He has some interesting problems that can tease out a student’s knowledge. http://www.physics.umd.edu/perg/abp/TPProbs/ProbSubjs.htm

We will offer our continuing workshops on Six Flags. We encourage you to attend Six Flags Day and also the Physics competition both held in April. Watch the website for dates. We will offer a joint meeting with ACS but have not settled on the topic yet. We are looking for a few brave people who would like to make a one- hour presentation on “My Lesson” to the group. This could range anywhere in content, application or whatever. This is a great way to share an idea with the group without having to do a full -blown workshop. Perhaps this is your way to try out giving a presentation to a very friendly and supportive group. Hope to see you soon!

Val Michael, President -- vmichael@jburroughs.org

Summer 2013 Workshops - Here is the start of a list of Summer Workshops hosted and sponsored by other organizations.

American Modeling Teachers Association: Fifty Modeling Workshops in high school physics, chemistry, physical science, and biology will be offered in summer 2013, in many states. Modeling Workshops are peer-led. Modeling Instruction is designated by the U.S. Department of Education as an Exemplary K-12 science program. Some sites offer stipends, usually for in-state teachers. Graduate credit is available at some sites. For information, go to: http://modelinginstruction.org/teachers/workshops-2013/