Groovy Physix or Bust!

I don't know about you (fellow educators) but I am of the opinion that physics and any kind of learning in general without music is less fun. 

I generally like to have some music playing as students file into the classroom, some playing as they exit, and especially some more playing as they are engaged in lab activities. 

From my own humble experience, nothing beats watching students grooving to some tunes while they are immersed in physics concepts discovery.

To ensure that such experience is successful I compiled playlists of different kinds. But, the most prominent one is the Physix Playlist whose songs were chosen with a specific set of physics ideas in mind. This would enable the students' imaginations to be tickled in more than one dimensional level. At one level, this acts as a low risk challenge of trying to figure out what are the concepts that the songs are possibly conveying. At another level, this establishes connections between physics and the arts via the beauty of music. And at yet another level, it establishes a better chance for the concepts to be stored in the brain with association with tunes the students care about. Of course, I have no research nor evidence to back up these assertions of mine but the least that can be achieved is my students having fun while learning. And, this in and of itself is sufficient for me to justify the infusion of music in the students' learning experience.

Music appreciation is a subjective matter and everyone of us should have their own playlists. There are a few instances when the students would request that they would have their own songs be played and I generally would concur but with one major condition. I insist that the songs they are asking to be played must be rated G, no bad words nor offensive lyrics. Following is my Physix Playlist that I hope would inspire my fellow educators to come up with their own depending on their own tastes and their own subject matters. 

 Please, feel free to suggest songs of your own that are not listed in my now playlist in the comments section of this post. Thank you and may groovy Physix and imaginative learning/teaching be with you!

Extensions to SHM in AP-Physics

Introduction:
It is very important that students in AP-Physics classes be pushed to go beyond the usual curriculum material. We owe it to them to conduct harder labs that would push their thinking and analysis limits.

What to do?
As an option that instructors may choose is to extend regular topics to include situations that are different, unusual, or simply more difficult to arrive at definitive answers. For instance, this year, the subject of Simple Harmonic Motion (SHM) was expanded to include the following extensions and twists.

Example 1: [From Simple Pendulum to Compound Pendula]
In this case, the students are handed rectangular wooden blocks and triangular prism wooden blocks and are asked to make predictions regarding these compound pendula. For instance, what would the period be? Will it depend on mass? Will the amplitude matter? How would this kind of pendulum compare to a simple pendulum? etc.

Student was using her mobile device to measure the period.

Example 2: [From SHM to Damped Oscillations]
In this case, the students are presented with a situation where the would collect data involving a spring-mass system whereby the mass is oscillating in water as opposed to in the air as is usually the case in regular labs. The following images show the lab set up and the results of the activity.

Closing Thoughts:

Student appreciate being challenged, especially in courses such as AP-courses where the expect an added level of difficulty and rigorousness. The added benefit of such extensions is that it offers instructors the chance to detect and address any lingering misconceptions related to simpler items from the regular curriculum. This is bourn by the fact that students who have gaps in their understanding of regular material, this gaps are bound to surface in these new challenging settings. And as such, these challenging additions may serve as a safety valves that enable us, educators, to address less understood concepts in our main curriculum.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog entry and I hope you would add your own comments on the subject matter. What kind of extensions do you have your own students contemplate and go through?

Physix Curriculum Map a la Mr. Le Nadj!

Students love Modern Physics topics. Unfortunately, most introductory Physics courses eschew Special Theory of Relativity (STR), General Theory of Relativity (GTR), and Quantum Mechanics (QM) because of their perceived difficulty.

For the past four years, I have been introducing more and more of STR early on in the year/semester. But, this year I used STR as a means of introducing classical Physics concepts such as kinetic energy. The mind map below summarizes the gist of this approach. It is important to mention that the Modeling Approach serves as the backbone and the glue that holds this teaching method together. Thus, the use of many abbreviations that only modelers would know.

Physix a la Mr. Le Nadj! Curriculum Map

In future posts, I shall address each of the branches. I shall also give samples of presentations material, examples of students reactions/reflections, and typical artifacts that assist in making the case for such a pedagogical approach.

Please, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments area so that readers like you would benefit from them personally or their students indirectly. Thank you

Dedicated to the memory of my beloved father (RA).

Physix in Images 2013-2014

First: I apologize for the lack of activity in my blog.

Second: There were precious moments in Physics (3 sections) & Astronomy (new section) and I thought instead of blabbering about them I should just let some pictures convey the extent of the fun as well as learning.

The Smiles of Pride! :-)

Tip of the Hat to Sir Isaac Newton!

When Physix meets Art; only Coolism ensues! :-)
A Cool Student PhysArt Project

Nothing beats the connectedness between Physix concepts!
Mechanical Systems (spring/mass) in Series/Parallel to contrast with Electrical Systems In Series/Parallel

Students love it when Experts present their work!
Dr. Brian McNamara discusses his work on Supermassive Black Holes & Exploding Galaxies!

Star Gazing Extravaganza wraps up a Cool First Year of Astronomy, look at the wide smiles! :-)

Optics meets Art! Backyard of our classroom with the Physix room acting as a Camera Obscura!

iPad used to generate Motion Diagrams. How cool is that?

Physix of Motion meets Art! iPad used to generate the corresponding Motion Diagram.

Testing Hypotheses about Combinations of Human Electric Generators (Take I)

Testing Hypotheses about Combinations of Human Electric Generators (Take II)

Taking the concept of Combinations of Human Electric Generators to its Ultimate Finale!

Students getting close & personal with Optics, Lens Equation Lab!

Physix meets Art, slide from a student's project presentation!

Physix meets Art (refer to previous image!)

Astronomy Lab on Plasma & Light Spectra, Sweet! :-)

Astronomy class experiencing Motion Diagrams (look closely to see the blue dots!)

Third: I hope the above excite you to share your own cool images from last year of Physics or Astronomy.

Thank you for taking the time to view/read the post and I hope you would be kind to leave some comments.

Thank you and take great care! :-)

Geometry of Number Lines Makes Uncertainties Visible

Introduction:

Uncertainties tend to give students a hard time. So, I decided to approach this vital concept of Physics a bit differently this year by emphasizing the use of number lines as visual aids. This, would enable students, to not deal with uncertainties as pure abstract numbers only, rather they would graph them on number lines to reach better conclusions regarding uncertainties. 

The Nuts & Bolts:

In this experiment, a precursor to the actual Free Fall lab, the students dropped rulers to determine their respective reaction times and then, using their group's collective uncertainty number line (see images below) they decided (as a group) which student should be their stopwatch timer for the subsequent main lab activity. In addition, the students had to provide at least one complete sentence detailing their justification as to why they picked their respective group's timing person.

Following is a sample of my students' initial rough dabbling with such new approach. I am proud of them and the genuine effort they devoted to the activity!

This is Group 3's take on the matter & it is so easy for students to see unusual outcomes this way! Coolism! :-)

This is Group 4's take on the matter. The language is a bit more precise (pun intended) than I have ever had in previous years. The potential of this method is promising! Coolism! :-)

Reflections:

Of course, this visual approach may not be earth shattering but the beauty of it is in the following touches:

1) It makes the invisible, visible! Pedagogically speaking, this should improve understanding.

2) The connection this approach establishes with a math concept (number line) that students would rarely see/use outside of their math class. Physics adds Coolism to math!

3) This approach already seems to offer students a better and slightly more sophisticated way of expressing their thoughts vis-a-vis terms they need to learn to use carefully in their lab analyses such as accuracy, precision, uncertainty.

Coolism Request:

Please, add to the Coolism, by commenting on this approach and suggesting adjustments you would make to allow it to be more useful to our students conceptually speaking. 

In addition, share your own successful approaches so that together we enrich our respective students' experience with the concpet of uncertainties. 

Thank you 

Cool Physix & Astronomy Apps to Consider

I thought starting the academic semester/year with a bunch of Physix Apps and strategies for acquiring them might be the best gift I give my fellow Physix teachers and instructors the world over.

So, within this PDF file I listed all the Apps I currently own, which I hope you can acquire as many of them as possible to make your educational experience with your students a richer experience at least as far as mobile devices technology is concerned.

Please, keep in mind that most of the apps were free when I first got them but some either were removed from the App store or a price was added to them.

Mr. Le Nadj! suggestions regarding app acquirement:

1) Check the app store every two weeks or so and search for new apps dealing with specific topics you are interested in.

2) Sift through the junk by setting the search criteria to be Free & the display to be based on Ratings so that you get the free apps that got the best ratings.

3) Download the chosen app(s) even if you may not think you would need it right away because they may either disappear or become pricy. You still can delete them if need be.

Happy Educational App Year! :-)

Are Simulations Effective?

Simulations programs such as Interactive Physics, PhET, Physlets , iDevices Apps help students either generate animations such as my Gravity Animation or manipulate physical quantities to generate what if situations regarding various Physix phenomena. 

What is your experience with such educational tools and how effective you think they are in advancing your students' understanding of Physix concepts?