October 10-14

This week, we began with a lab activity in which my students rolled a tennis ball down a ramp (the ramp was a book that was held at various angles). The goal for the students was to see the connection between a steeper ramp and a faster rolling tennis ball. We also did my least favorite thing...Notes. We began notes on various equations in physics. This included Force, Work, Power, etc. I tried to spice up my notes by including example problems involving my dog Carol and my cat Indy. I also included an example problem with my mentor teacher drag racing out of the school parking lot. My students really loved that example problem. I am finding it difficult to teach the "math part" of physics with some of my students because some of them are in lower level math classes and have a very difficult time doing very basic math. For these students, I gave them an equation sheet ahead of time and gave them guided notes so they could spend more time doing the word problems and less time writing down everything on the slides. Overall, the week went by fairly smoothly. Next week we will finish the notes and take a quiz on the math portion of physics.