The Hypocrisy of Traditional Tests

TL;DR Traditional tests require students to work a few (hopefully) appropriately chosen, illustrative problems to demonstrate proficiency. What does it matter if they do these few problems early in the semester or later in the semester? What does it matter if they do them with us watching or not? What makes one essentially random problem […]

Oral Interviews as Assessment

TL;DR I have begun using oral interviews as a replacement for traditional written tests and quizzes. There are many advantages for faculty and students, including elimination of paperwork, better chances for understanding students’ state of comprehension, a more relaxed environment, and no possibility for gaming for points. The ongoing pandemic has amplified many questions I […]

Learning Critical Thinking Through Astronomy, Week 11

This week was mostly devoted to informal formative assessment (I’m really beginning to hate those words). Students were asked to explain aspects of a stick’s shadow’s behavior in terms of, for example, Sun’s diurnal and annual motions. Example questions would be something like: “In one sentence, explain why a stick’s noon shadow changes length during […]

Matter & Interactions I, Week 12

I’m getting the jump on this week for a change! This week is all about assessments and building solution portfolios. Taking a cue from something I saw in Kip Thorne’s graduate course on gravitational waves, I’m experimenting with a new way of letting students learn. EDIT 2022-03-10: The actual assignment document I gave students appears […]

Learning Critical Thinking Through Astronomy, Week 9

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week constituted our fall break. Unfortunately, that means the evening section, which meets MW, did not meet at all and the two daytime sections (one of which meets MWF and the other meets TuTh) only had one full class period each. This “week” was devoted entirely to what I […]

The Learning Critical Thinking Through Astronomy Activities

I am somewhat limited in what I say in this post because I don’t want to give anything important away to students who find my blog (not that I care if they do). It occurred to me today that a post describing my astronomy course materials might be helpful for anyone considering using them or […]

Ideas for Next Fall

This week wraps up another academic year and I’m already mulling over some ideas for doing things differently in calculus-based physics next fall. This post is just a brain dump of those ideas. As always, feedback is welcome. Okay. My students have totally bought into standards based grading. I struggle with my standards and whether […]

Three Semesters With Standards Based Grading

I need to collect and share some thoughts on my experience so far with standards based grading in both introductory calculus-based physics and introductory astronomy. I don’t know that everything, or anything, here will make much sense but it will help me sort some things out. In doing so, I may see things I’ve not […]

Modeling Reading for Depth and Understanding

Critical thinking is something we all say we want to impart to our students but something for which we frequently see very little explicit classroom modeling. This is one of the reasons the LCTTA (Learning Critical Thinking Through Astronomy) Project was started. This post will provide a very explicit way to introduce one aspect of […]

Physics Standards, M&I Chapters 1-3

Here are my M&I class’s standards for chapters 1-3. Students had considerable input into the formulation of these standards. Standard: I can use consistent and correct vector notation. Proficiency Indicator(s): Correct vector notation is used consistently throughout a problem or explanation. Mastery Rubric: Vectors are indicated with arrows. Vector components are indicated with appropriate subscripts or […]