Simple harmonic motion

Videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxTZ446tbzE Tacoma Narrows newsreel *****
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPtlRf6dg8c Simple Harmonic Motion for beginners - in 3 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeYRkW8V7Vg

animations
http://www.physics.uoguelph.ca/tutorials/shm/Q.shm.html
http://www.phy.ntnu.edu.tw/ntnujava/index.php?topic=148
http://www.surendranath.org/Applets/Oscillations/SHM/SHMApplet.html

stuff
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/shm.html

open source sim Game Maker (by me)
http://rupert.id.au/schoolgamemaker/samples3/mass-spring.gm6
http://rupert.id.au/schoolgamemaker/samples3/mass-spring.exe



Spreadsheet sim

Foodweb claymation

Students' alternative conceptions of electricity

We have understandings of the physical world at the human scale which we have developed from infancy and which generally serve us well. But our understandings at the macro level (astrophysics) and the micro level (atomic physics) are modelled on understandings of human level phenomena.

These human level understandings let us down, for example, it can be useful to visualise electrons as golf balls in circular orbits but in fact they are better described as being probability clouds, similarly tunnelling behaviour of atomic particles and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle break one of the earliest rules we learnt as toddlers, Piaget's object permanence. Object permanence is the principle that an object placed in a container will continue to exist even if out of sight. In the world of atomic physics, objects can tunnel out of containers and there are limits to their observability, both of which break our fundamental human level understandings.

Electricity is a subatomic phenomenon which can be understood by analogy with water, it is convenient to use pressure for an analogue for voltage and flow rate as an analogue for current. This is a useful analogy but it does lead to misunderstandings.

"... mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicionthat electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house."
- James Thurber

http://standby.lbl.gov/pictures/AllOvertheHouse.gif

Caillot (1993) blames taking hydraulic analogies too far “Teaching strategies have also been pointed as an origin for the development of alternative conceptions. An example is the use of hydraulic analogies. “

The scientific view is that electric current is the circulation of electrons in a loop.

There are a number of common misconceptions about electricity which are incompatible with this view, many of which are related to taking the water analogy too far. Deakin University (2008) lists the following:

• In a circuit that contains wires, a battery and a globe, the battery stores electricity/power/current which flows to the globe where it is consumed.

• The thing that gets used up in an electric circuit is current.

• For a circuit that contains a battery and a globe, the globe lights up because:

o the current from each end of the battery clashes in the globe to provide the light (clashing- currents model)

o some of the current from one end of the battery is lost as it passes through the globe (consumption model)

o current from one end of the battery is all used up in the globe, making the second wire unnecessary (source-sink model).

• Batteries store a certain amount of electricity or charge.

Similar alternate conceptions which are compatible with a circulating current are noted in Hubber (2005):

• The Electric Power Companies supply electrons for your household current.

• “Electricity” is used up in electric circuits.

• Charge is used up in electric circuits.

• More devices in a series circuit means more current because devices “draw” current.

• Batteries store, and supply, electrons or “electricity” to the electric circuit.

• A wire from a battery to a bulb is all that is needed for the bulb to light up.

Most, if not all, of the alternative conceptions listed above can be categorised into

• the clashing-currents model,

• the consumption model and

• the source-sink model.

Ang (1993) confirms similar alternative conceptions, “battery is a store of electricity... one fifth of the pupils appear to hold the "clashing current" model of electric flow while about one-tenth of the sample appear to hold the "single wire" model of current flow.”

Crowley (2002) notes that in her research, a number of students, though in agreement with the scientific view, had reverted to their alternative conception by the exam.

References

Ang Kok Cheng, (1993) Primary Pupils' Conceptions About Some Aspects Of Electricity, AARE Conference 1993, retrieved 9/4/08, http://www.aare.edu.au/98pap/ang98205.htm

Caillot (1993), Learning Electricity and Electronics with Advanced Educational Technology, North Atlantic Treaty Organization Scientific Affairs, retrieved 9/4/08, http://books.google.com.au/books?id=0QuqBbRIWewC&pg=RA5-PA261&lpg=RA5-PA261&dq=alternate+conceptions+electricity&source=web&ots=BWmNoL4eJl&sig=Eb7c41LB-ISpATsVHFLG0t6I2FM&hl=en#PPP1,M1

Crowley, J.K. , (2002) Analogies Constructed by Students in a selective High School, Curtin University of Technology, retrieved 9/4/08, http://adt.curtin.edu.au/theses/available/adt-WCU20030923.135720/unrestricted/06chapter5.pdf

Deakin University (2008) School of Education Resources - Science and Environmental Education, retrieved 9/4/08 http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/education/sci-enviro-ed/early_years/electricity.php

Hubber (2005) POEs, Post Boxes, and IAIs, Science Teacher Association of Victoria, Physics Teachers’ Annual Conference, Monash University, Victoria February 8, 2005, retrieved 9/4/08 http://www.vicphysics.org/documents/events/stav2005/A2POESPH.doc

What I believe about how students learn

What I believe about how students learn

Students learn in many different ways. Gardiner's multiple intelligences gives some guidance, but only a little, the important thing is that they do learn in different ways and need to be given as many entry points or hooks as possible for learning.

Students construct mental models or understandings (1), the way students do that is highly individual. That means that students need to be given as many possible representations of the subject area as practical. We cannot predict the order or manner in which they will construct their understandings, that is why it is best if students are exposed to a rich set of learning materials and that they have some degree of autonomy in what order they engage with those materials.

For these reasons believe in self directed and project based learning. But I do abhor the occasional excesses of constructivism. There is a time for teaching content. Students cannot be expected to discover content just by being placed in an enriched environment, some stuff just has to be taught. Content is the building block for higher order thinking, unless students have a rich set of building blocks, they cannot do meaningful higher order thinking or problem solving.

The rate of discovery of human knowledge is increasing. Most of what is known has been discovered in our lifetimes. Our ability to access this knowledge base has increased with the Internet. It has been predicted that the sum of human knowledge will soon fit on a USB key (9). As a consequence, the teaching of content will become less important and the role of schools will be more about teaching students to be good problem solvers and learners (6).

Many of the problems that students will have to solve haven't been thought of yet. The skills that they most need are to be independent learners and to be able to solve ill-structured problems (7). Real world problems are ill-defined, they have poorly defined goal states, are multidisciplinary and have multiple or possibly no solutions. Schools should be equipping learners to solve real world problems. The real transfer issue for learning is, “does school learning transfer to real life?”, not “does project based learning X transfer to mathematics scores on standardised tests?”. This means that schools' horizons for self evaluation should extend far further than the end of year test results.

My vision for managing classes of students

I believe that education is best when it is authentic and relevant. Not all learning can be authentic and relevant, if it's the times tables, you just have to learn them, but when education can be authentic and relevant, it should be.

By relevant I mean important to self, by authentic I mean important to others. When you add the right tools and a collaborative environment you get the optimum situation for learning, a zone of proximal development, (4) or a state of flow (5).

Learning is best when it crosses subject boundaries, I believe the VELS (6) has got it right with its emphasis on multidisciplinary learning.

So my ideal classroom has students engaged in project based learning which crosses curriculum boundaries. Summative assessment is de-emphasised and collaborative learning is the norm (8). Students are working on projects which are relevant and authentic.

This may sound idealistic but I have run many classes which were like this (3) (8) (10) (11). Where students are disengaged from school, it is harder to involve students in project based learning. Greater levels of instruction and scaffolding are required but the goal remains the same, to move the students to a position where they are motivated to be independent and life long learners.

Tony Forster

17/5/08

Footnotes

(1) I believe that creating runnable mental models is an important component of higher order thinking http://tonyforster.blogspot.com/2008/02/problem-solving-creating-runnable.html

(2) Computer programming is one example of higher order thinking in a relevant and authentic context http://rupert.id.au/schoolgamemaker/why.htm

(3) The Games Programming Cluster of schools which I lead is an example of project based learning in a relevant and authentic context. The cluster of schools contains 3 teachers of the year, one of whom was awarded Microsoft's worlds best educational content in 2006.

http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/Game+programming%2C+the+...

(4) Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development

(5) Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's theory of flow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

(6) The Victorian Essential Learning Standards http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/index.html

(7) Jonassen holds that the solving of ill-defined problems should be one of the main goals of education Towards a design theory of problem solving

http://www.springerlink.com/content/tnk3716r532x0827/

(8) In Energy Efficiency and Demand Management, part of the Masters of Sustainable Energy which I lecture, I award 15% of course marks for contributions to Blackboard discussions. Collaborative work is encouraged, there is no penalty for receiving help on the discussion forum.

(9) I can't locate this assertion, it was quoted at the MCEETYA conference on educational games. I think it may have been Dianne Oblinger quoting Marc Prensky.

(10) http://rupert.id.au/schoolgamemaker/computerclub/index.html

(11) http://etrain.pbwiki.com/

spectrum of light

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J8iEIQBlxc&feature=related
good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjOGNVH3D4Y&feature=related
with singing (funny)

Wow, your camera, webcam etc can see the light from your infrared remote control, good sci expt.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biTb-ZEvREM
full spectrum from radio to gamma

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKO5vfu8Gns&feature=related
no audio track to this one

Colour mixing sim

source exe

Year 11 Physics - optics

Quite a few student videos of the experiment

Talking to an adolescent

Reflective Journal Entry 2: Talking to an adolescent

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." Plutarch (46 - 127)

"We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves". - Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

"It is not that students cannot learn, it is that they do not wish to" Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1991

The following impressions were gained by interview of a 14 year old boy attending year 9 of a high fee private school.

The most striking thing that came from the interview is that kids want to learn, they are strongly motivated to learn. Primary motivating factors identified were being able to get a good job and meeting parents expectations. Other factors listed were having an interest in the subject and liking to compete with fellow students.

Learning how to behave appropriately in society was also listed as a major reason for schooling. Specifically, this meant learning how to get along with other people, including how to handle conflicts with peers, to know when to walk away from an argument.

Having the skills for a satisfying and meaningful life was also mentioned. “You need maths for most careers. But you can also use these skills at home, in hobbies for example” so education is also seen as preparing for a full and satisfying life.

There should be no surprise at this high motivation to learn. The desire to learn is an essential feature of all young mammals. Kids are pre-programmed to learn, it is called play.

"Games are thus the most ancient and time-honored vehicle for education. They are the original educational technology, the natural one, having received the seal of approval of natural selection. We don't see mother lions lecturing cubs at the chalkboard; we don't see senior lions writing their memoirs for posterity. In light of this, the question, "Can games have educational value?" becomes absurd. It is not games but schools that are the newfangled notion, the untested fad, the violator of tradition. Game-playing is a vital educational function for any creature capable of learning."
Crawford, The Art of Computer Game Design
http://www.vancouver.wsu.edu/fac/peabody/game-book/Coverpage.html

Kids thrive under an inspiring teacher and can work around an average teacher but a poor teacher can really kill learning.

What are the attributes of a good teacher? A bad teacher “has poor classroom control and you don’t learn anything”. A good teacher has a relaxed attitude in the classroom but can maintain control of the classroom. It’s actually the teachers who are uptight, insensitive or poor listeners that have poor classroom control. If the teacher can make the learning interesting, then classroom control is much easier. Then the learning happens. Kids want the learning to happen.

The teacher must teach to the whole class and be sensitive to their needs. For example, the teacher should share attention equitably between different ability groups.

Good teachers make learning interesting. They do funny stuff, they play along with kids, they have an instinct about to how to relate to the different ability levels in the class, they are inclusive.

How does this kind of teacher maintain their authority? I was unable to get a clear answer. A skilled teacher seems to know what the limits are when it comes to mucking around. I expect that a teacher has some natural authority, this is because kids want to learn and a good teacher can help them towards this goal.

Bad teachers “repeat everything a billion times”, they use needless repetition. Good teachers can present the same content but vary it by adding other elements and adding interesting side content. An example is the ball game. The teacher throw a ball and the student who catches it has to answer a question. “It works”. Another technique for learning vocabulary is to vary the task, one time they have to spell the word, next time they have to give the meaning.

What are the attributes of a bad teacher? “She was really mean to the kids did not listen to their needs. If a kid was crying, she would not listen to them and see why they were crying, she did not listen to what kids had to say, she would just yell at them, she had unrealistic expectations.”

What makes a good school principal? “Principals should listen to what students are saying about their teacher”. The kids can’t go to the principal and say “my teacher sucks”, so the principal must be a good listener and a good observer.

My final impression is that I could be a better listener. Listening to the tape, there are a few examples where I interrupted with a question and things might have developed nicely if I had said nothing.

Making atomic physics fun

VCE year 11 physics unit 1, area of study 2 is Nuclear and Radioactivity Physics. The textbook is Heinemann Physics 11

http://msrb.wordpress.com/2007/09/12/hiroshima-peace-memorial/
The image files are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License (cc-by-sa-2.0)

The area of study is unfortunately didactic, which does not easily lead to higher order thinking and independent inquiry. The outcome is listed in terms of describe and apply, lower order skills on Bloom's Taxonomy. Only in assessing bias in the media and assesing risk do higher outcomes get mentioned.

Add teaching this to a group with a high proportion of English as a second language, though understanding the concepts may be easy, the language of instruction may be difficult.



A solution would be to lean heavily on visual and practical materials. Youtube has a a number of student created videos which give inspiration:

YouTube - Nuclear Physics in 3D ( good 3D modelling but does have some factual errors (I think) alpha particles not gamma and critical mass is more about amount of material than compression though compression needs to be maintained through fission
YouTube - Death Metal Physics[The cutlass head charity - atom] history of nuclear physics to a heavy metal sound track
YouTube - Nuclear Fusion, Fission, & Decay A fun and detailed explanation of the concepts, delivered with enthusiasm though the explanations may be unclear
YouTube - Nuclear Fission A 3D animation of nuclear fission made for an animation class using Maya and After Effects
YouTube - Fission (nuclear physics) simulate nuclear fission by running into each other on the sports ground

The mousetrap and pingpong demonstration
100 mousetraps
6000 mousetraps

more stuff

YouTube - Castle Bravo - What went wrong? Explaination
YouTube - Structure of the Atom 3: The Rutherford Model
YouTube - Nuclear Physics 8.1: Natural Transmutations
YouTube - Atom video
YouTube - physics atomic bomb nuclear test

the links in braces are temporarily? unavailable but you can get them in a zipfile if your school hasn't blocked this site
Open source {fission simulation} (requires GameMaker)
{Nuclear decay simulation standalone exe}

Applets from Physics 2000, University of Colorado Boulder
MIT open courseware lecture video and audio

Nanotechnology
When things get small University of California Television (thanks Karlie for links)
Cancer_killer_in_action
Cellular_visions_The_inner_life_of_a_cell

Girls and physics
Madam Curie video1 2 3 4

Blooms Taxonomy and an English test

Bloom's Revised Taxonomy

Remembering
Understanding
Applying
Analysing
Evaluating
Creating


Can be used to evaluate the Year 7 AIM2007 English test (to make sense you also need the Horizons resources)

Q1 understanding
Q2 understanding
Q3 analysing
Q4 analysing
q5 analysing
q6 understanding
Q7 remembering
Q8 remembering
Q9 understanding
Q10 understanding
Q11 evaluating
Q12 remembering
Q13 understanding
Q14 evaluating
Q15 evaluating
Q16 analysing
Q17 understanding
Q18 analysing
Q19 understanding
Q20 understanding
Q21 understanding
Q22 understanding
Q23 understanding
Q24 remembering
Q25 evaluating
Q26 evaluating
Q27 understanding
Q28 understanding
Q29 understanding
Q30 understanding
Q31 remembering
Q32 remembering
Q33 remembering
Q34 remembering
Q35 remembering
Q36 remembering
Q37 remembering
Q38 remembering
Q39 remembering
Q40 remembering
Q41 remembering
Q42 applying
Q43 applying
Q44 applying
Q45 evaluating
Q46 applying
Q47 applying
Q48 applying
Q49 applying
Q50 applying

My categorisation was a bit rough, done on the fly, but here are the results:
The 2 lower levels of Bloom's Taxonomy are well represented, the upper levels are poorly represented and the highest level, creating, is not tested.

What does this say of a test which claims to monitor state wide achievement?

• the full suite of skills is not evaluated
• schools are not given any credit for teaching higher order skills
• students are given the message that higher order skills are not valued
• there are insufficient questions to reliably evaluate middle order skillls

Fortunately there is also a writing test, with examiner instructions which I have not evaluated.

Testing sunscreen, an activity for grade 8

Thanks to Adam, the idea was his. It is based on the fact that tonic water contains quinine which fluoresces under ultraviolet light.

Tonic water (L) and tap water (R) lit by an insect electrocuter

This is a learning activity for grade 8 kids. Its intended outcomes are:

• Safe behaviour relating to sun exposure
• ie. declarative knowledge about SunSmart behaviour which is applied in daily life
• Declarative knowledge about sun exposure and health
• Declarative knowledge about the spectrum and ultraviolet
• Scientific method
• Experimental design
• Problem solving

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Regenbogen_%28NASA%29.jpg

Requirements, tonic water, tap water, 2 glasses, glass plate, sunscreen : no screen, low SPF, SPF30+. Sunlight and incandescent light but MUCH better with a UV source like an insect killer.

This is a lesson based on guided discovery by the kids.

LESSON
Hi kids, what do you know about SunSmart ?
Prompt the kids as required, they should be able to quote the key messages:

• Slip - Clothing
• Slop - Sunscreen
• Slap - Hats
• Seek - Shade
• Slide - Sunglasses

Why do you do this?
Prompt till you elicit that sun exposure can cause health effects including skin cancer.

What is it about sunlight that does this?
Question their understanding further and elicit or explain that UV rays are the reason and that they are part of the spectrum and "more purple than purple" and hence invisible.

Hey kids, we have this really neat way of testing for ultraviolet light, the quinine in tonic water glows blue under ultraviolet light. Pour a glass of tonic water and tapwater, under sunlight there is a faint blue colour.

How do we know that the ultraviolet is making the blue colour and its not just blue water?
Wait for suggestions...
Would a different light be a way to test?
If you are lucky they will suggest artificial light. Chose incandescent lighting, well away from windows. Not fluorescent lighting, it contains UV. The blue colour is absent or very faint. At this point the kids should be convinced that a characteristic of sunlight causes the blue colour.

If you are lucky you will have an insect electrocuter or other blacklight source.
Kids, can you suggest anothe light source? Move to UV source. Wow it is really amazing!

OK kids we have 3 samples of sunscreen we want to test, any suggestions?
Typically they will suggest dissolving the sunscreen in the water, if you have time, try it, we didn't. Then they will suggest smearing it on the glass. We had a glass plate which we hinted at its use by looking hopefully at it, the kids got the hint and designed the experiment.

Glass plate smeared with 3 unidentified products, the kids were able to correctly identify moisturiser, SPF15 and SPF30

Web 2.0 or the read/write web

Web 2.0 or the read/write web has a number of educational possibilities. Here are a few.

Google Earth
Great for giving kids a real understanding of geography. They love seeing their own house from space. See placespotting for a fun geography game based on Google Earth. Google Earth now allows star viewing. I have used Skyglobe (DOS program) for a number of years.
See a sneak preview of Microsoft's new WorldWide Telescope

Thanks Bill & Roland for extra astronomy links
http://www.rmit.edu.au/scienceweek/eratosthenes
http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/lectures/gkastr1.html
http://www.samtsai.com/p468 (scroll down for video)
http://www.techdo.com/images/largest-know-star.htm (slides)

Bureau of Meteorology
www.bom.gov.au
Great radar and satellite images. Note some schools have an online weather station, Westall Secondary College and Emerald Primary School

Blogs
· can be maintained by students and used to reflect on their learning
· can be maintained by the teacher for students
· can be used by teachers to share pedagogy

Student blog see the blogroll on the LHS of http://gamedesign11.wordpress.com/ Year 11 student blogs

Blog by year 3 teacher for his students

my blog,
my favorite edubloggers:
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/
http://artichoke.typepad.com/artichoke
http://learninggames.wordpress.com/

Reflection and the Middle School Blogger: Do Blogs Support Reflective Practices?
“Research examined 12 randomly selected blogs from a population of 38 teacher-created, teaching-centered blogs to determine whether they were useful reflective devices for practicing middle school teachers. The amount and depth of reflective practice, as measured by a researcher-created rubric, was examined as well. Results indicated that all participants engaged in some level of reflective writing. However, the depth and level of reflection varied within and among the blogs. The results reported here are useful for framing future research on the efficacy of middle school teacher blogs.”

RSS feeds can be used to track new postings to your favourite blogs e.g.
Bloglines is a FREE online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and rich web content.

Wikis
Kids love vandalising their school's Wikipedia entry. Is this good learning or just a teachable moment? Apart from Wikipedia (which Nature Magazine found to be almost as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica ) you can create your own educational wiki. E.g. http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/

Social bookmarking
Teachers are communicators. A teacher argues why we should share. Its always good to see who is bookmarking the stuff you see as important, see what else they bookmark. My bookmarks

Youtube
Kids will respond well to a relevant and authentic task. Publishing for the whole world makes it pretty real – authentic.
Guitar, 37 million views
History Legomation

There are also heaps of online lessons there
my stuff

Online games
A list of the educational benefits of playing World of Warcraft
The credibility you get with the kids when you say you are a level 52 Dwarf Priest is truly amazing.

Facebook and Myspace
Pretty much useless so far, but see above on credibility. Teachers can have their own Myspace or Facebook and be more in touch with what kids are doing.

Secondlife
Lag City unless you have a really fast connection. Largely wasted on recreating “talk and chalk” classrooms but has lots of potential as a creative space. See http://del.icio.us/tonyforster/secondlife (me: Australis Gondwana)

Flickr
Photosharing http://www.flickr.com


Finally
A series of videos explaining things like RSS , blogs and social bookmaking in Plain English

Lesson Plan - Perspective 5 minute minilesson

Lesson Plan (see Becoming a Teacher, Marsh p91)

The purpose is to explain the concept of perspective and to demonstrate 3 basic examples of perspective drawing.

Target
Dip Ed students

Materials
Powerpoint, ppt file and data projector

Evaluation
Will be evaluated by video and journal

1 Introduction

Your Presenters: Tony works as a consulting engineer, his methods are Physics and ICT. Peter graduated from Fine Arts at RMIT, his methods are double in visual arts.

The purpose of this minilesson is to explain the concept of perspective and to demonstrate 3 basic examples of perspective drawing.

• Perspective is a subject that spans the physical sciences and fine arts, the world is a beautiful place.

• Parallel lines appear to meet at infinity, on the horizon usually (because the angle subtended is smaller, the further away an object is.)

For example roads, railway lines

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=226937

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence

Photo by Valentin Brückel from RailFanEurope.net under Creative Commons

• Man made structures are usually made of straight lines.

• Perspective is also part of the beauty of nature

Class question: is what you see rays of light radiating from the sun?

1998-2006 Benjamin Crowell, licensed under the " Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.
Photo credits are given at the end of the link

No. The sun's light is broken up into parallel lines or crepuscular rays which appear to radiate outwards but they are really (almost) parallel, the light source is 93 million miles away.

Tell my story of seeing anticrepuscular rays at sunset on Mt Speculation.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Anticrepuscular_rays_20050918_in_Ye_Liou.jpg

The parallel rays at sunset can be even seen to converge on the opposite horizon. They are called anticrepuscular rays.

• The world is a beautiful place for mathematicians and fine artists!!

2 Class exercise

What shape is your desk? (draw rectangle, trapezium)

Hold pencil in vertical plane, move parallel to one side of desk, move to other side, you need to rotate your pencil, the two lines converge at the horizon, the “vanishing point”

Hold up paper vertically and sketch.

• perspective is a mathematical mapping of a plane onto another plane – there is interesting maths

• in perspective drawings, the lines converge at a point called the “vanishing point”

For a 1 point perspective you need a single “vanishing point” and a horizon

Do drawing with whiteboard, class to follow, make frequent eye contact.

Buildings also have parallel lines which appear to converge the further away they are.

Photo by paytonc and uploaded under a Creative Commons license.

They are best drawn with more vanishing points, for example the 2 point perspective.

For a 2 point perspective you need 2 vanishing points and a horizon. The parallel lines are drawn as pointing to vanishing point. The closer you are to the object, the wider the vanishing points are

do drawing with whiteboard

For a 3 point perspective

do drawing with whiteboard

3 In summary

• the world is a beautiful place for mathematicians and fine artists!!

• perspective is also part of the beauty of nature, also of the built environment

• parallel lines appear to converge at infinity

• in perspective drawing these points are called vanishing points

• there can be 1, 2 or 3 (or more) vanishing points

Analysis

A secondary purpose of this minilesson is to demonstrate team teaching and cross curricular teaching.

Affective benefits (engagement) hopefully through

• introducing teachers – personalising it

• pretty images

• personal anecdote

• enthusing and sharing enthusiasm

• getting a snappy 2 presenter approach like the dual anchor news presentation

It also provides “hooks” for Gardiner’s Multiple Intelligences (Marsh P107) ,

• linguistic - ppt dot points

• mathematical

• spatial

• kinesthetic – class activity

• naturalist

Though essentially constructivist, explicit instruction is considered by

• making the goals explicit at the beginning

• recapping at the end

How it actually went

Video of my presentation

Feedback
From 15 feedback sheets, 3 said my vocab was too complex and 2 said I spoke too fast. All I guess are valid criticism. I am such a techno-geek I couldnt resist introducing "anticrepuscular rays".

I spoke fast, my presentation of 2.5 minutes was cut back 50% from the material in this blog. When you have material that you like, it is very hard to cut it, and the temptation is to race through. Also how can I show enthusiasm without talking fast?

Becoming a teacher, knowledge, skills and issues, Colin Marsh

Becoming a teacher, knowledge, skills and issues, Colin Marsh

Chapter 3

Piaget (1896-1980)

A schema is a concept or framework that exists in an individual's mind. When new information causes cognitive disequilibrium or cognitive conflict, it can be resolved by assimilation or accommodation.

Learning Stages

• Children think differently at various stages

• Learning requires active involvement, mentally or physically

• Children build their own cognitive structures (my bold emphasis)

• Children think differently to adults

Sensori-motor (0-2)

Preoperational (2-7) – use symbols

Concrete operational (7-11) – still concrete thinking

Formal operational (11+) - abstract thinking , adults may never achieve in some domains

The book discusses Piaget's criticisms but cognitive load theory and explicit instruction are not mentioned.

also see:

Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not. Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist,. Discovery, Problem-Based, Experiential, and ...

Bruner

Factors in the development process

• React directly to stimuli

• Information and storage using a symbol system (language)

• Ability to describe past and future

• Systematic interactions with tutor/adult

• Language to communicate with others

Stages

• enactive – learning by doing

• iconic – imagery but not language

• symbolic – language logic and mathematics

Teachers should combine concrete, symbolic and pictorial representations (my bold)

Discovery learning. See Kirschner, Sweller and Clark above.

Vygotsky

Social constructivist – social interaction is the major determinant of learning

The ZPD is the point of optimum learning. "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86)

Scaffolding

Development stages (around speech)

• non verbal (0-2)

• merging thinking and speech

• Egocentric (overt) speech

• Egocentric speech becomes overt

(Following on my interest in game based learning, does the ZPD need to be provided by real people? Do peers need to be more capable or will numerous peers do OK? When a game gets as detailed as World of Warcraft, does the ability to match challenge to ability serve a similar role? Can in game agents including AI provide a ZPD?)

Other theories, Erikson, Kohlberg,

Chapter 4

Intrinsic motivation

Motivated students “are likely to be students who are confident about their own self worth” Does this explain the apparent failure of constructivist teaching to disadvantaged groups?

I would have liked the relationship between play and learning to be mentioned here.

"Games are thus the most ancient and time-honored vehicle for education. They are the original educational technology, the natural one, having received the seal of approval of natural selection. We don't see mother lions lecturing cubs at the chalkboard; we don't see senior lions writing their memoirs for posterity. In light of this, the question, "Can games have educational value?" becomes absurd. It is not games but schools that are the newfangled notion, the untested fad, the violator of tradition. Game-playing is a vital educational function for any creature capable of learning."
Crawford, The Art of Computer Game Design

and me on Johnson, Everything bad is good for you. pp1..62

Strategies to encourage intrinsic motivation

• novel situation

• personal anecdote

• challenging questions

• contradictory information

• unfamiliar examples

• case studies

I would add to this list teacher modeling good learning behaviour

“there is such a thing as becoming a good learner and therefore … teachers should do a lot of learning in the presence of the children and in collaboration with them.”

What is Logo? Who Needs It? by Seymour Papert Logo Philosophy and Implementation© Logo Computer Systems Inc. 1999

Extrinsic rewards, gold stars etc do significantly undermine intrinsic motivation.

Motivation declines in grades 7-9 but rises again in year 11 as a result of career motivation.

• Warmth and enthusiasm
• Meaningful goals
• Fostering climate
• Maintaining equity

At p44, simulations and games are mentioned see me at http://tonyforster.blogspot.com

My list

• Relevant challenge
• Authentic challenge
• The right tools SEE flow
  
• A collaborative environment ZPD
  

Predict –Observe-Explain

Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) is a teaching strategy that probes understanding by requiring students to carry out three tasks. First the students must predict the outcome of some event and must justify their prediction; then they describe what they see happen; and finally they must reconcile any conflict between prediction and observation.

Champagne, Klopfer and Anderson (1979) were the first to design this strategy as ‘demonstrate-observe-explain’ according to Mthembu.

A secret balot ensures that students articulate their pre existing ideas so that they are open to challenge.

Educational rationale

* identifying student ideas
* encourage risk taking
* identifying common misconceptions and misunderstandings of students
* establishing a learning conversation
* articulation of ideas
* making observations
* hypothesising
* reflection on practice

Concerns
This is certainly engaging teaching and engaging teaching is effective teaching but does its effectiveness go beyond the engagement. Is the time productive? Does it enhance problem solving skills? A cycle of predict/observe/explain elsewhere called a debug cycle can be a lot tighter, but how much time is actually spent predicting and explaining? How much time does the showmanship take? Is skill in creating runnable mental models increased unless a lot of time is spent on predicting. The role of the facilitator in predicting?

Links
http://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/snackintro.html
http://www.exploratorium.edu/science_explorer/index.html
http://www.ed-dev.uts.edu.au/teachered/poe/tasks/poehome.html
http://educ.queensu.ca/~russellt/howteach/p-o-e.htm