Problem-Solving Sessions with my Physics Classes

Here is a mash-up of the problem-solving sessions I had with my physics classes yesterday and today. The conversation was remarkably similar with each class, so there really isn't much mash-up here — actually, the conversation that follows is more like a generic version of the individual conversations that took place.

Enjoy...

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In my physics classroom...

TEACHER: Do you know where the elevator is?

CLASS: Yes.

TEACHER: Do you know where the science department's glass display window is near the elevator?

CLASS: Yes.

TEACHER: Go sit in a circle on the floor in the hallway in front of that display window. I'll meet you there.

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Sitting in a circle on the floor in the hallway with my students...

TEACHER: Physics is about problem-solving. We – have – a – problem. Let's solve it. You already know what the problem is. Can you tell me what it is I have in mind?

CLASS: (Blank looks...) Uh, we talk too much?

TEACHER: I want you to talk! Talking is part of the curriculum!

CLASS: Uh, we don't work enough?

TEACHER: You work very well! Why are students so eager to take the blame for a problem in class? Tell me, what do you do in class?

CLASS: We talk.

TEACHER: What else?

CLASS: We work.

TEACHER: What else?

CLASS: (Blank looks)

TEACHER: Do you ever wait in class?

CLASS: Yes.

TEACHER: What do you wait on?

CLASS: You!

TEACHER: Yes! That's the problem!

A CLASS SMART ALECK: (Light-hearted) You're the problem, Dr. Buckner!

TEACHER: (Smiling) Yes! Yes, I'm the problem. When I tried out the Japanese steakhouse style of teaching at the end of the year last year, this wasn't a problem. Students loved it, and I loved it. So, this year I've switched over entirely to the Japanese steakhouse style of teaching — but I never anticipated that you would go so fast I wouldn't be able to keep up with you! This is the problem we need to solve.

ANOTHER CLASS SMART ALECK: (Grinning) We'll be happy to slow down for you, Dr. Buckner.

TEACHER: (Wryly and playfully) Thank you for your willingness to sacrifice for my sake, but I don't think that will be necessary. (Pause) One way to solve the problem would be to go back to traditional lecture-based teaching...

CLASS: (Unanimously) No, no, no!

TEACHER: Can't we at least consider going back to lecture-based teaching?

CLASS: (Adamantly) No! We love coming to this class! We love how you run it!

TEACHER: Well, let me hear some ideas, then.

CLASS: (A mixture of blank looks and thoughtful looks.)

TEACHER: No ideas? Well, I have an idea: Instead of covering new material with each learning team individually, your teams could each send a representative to me — I could cover the new material with them, and they could bring it back to you.

CLASS: (A few weak nods, but mostly troubled faces) We don't like that idea. How can we be sure we're getting the right information? It's like playing "telephone."

TEACHER: But I would circulate team-to-team to correct misinformation and fill in the gaps.

CLASS: No. We don't want to do it that way. (Pause) When we finish learning one skill, we have to wait on you to circulate around to our team to check us off and give us the packet for the next skill. Why not lay out the packet for the next skill on the front table instead. Then we could come get it and start working on it without waiting for you to come to us.

TEACHER: I like it! Why didn't I think of that! It will take me one or two days to prep for that, but I'll do it!

CLASS: And if you could tell the whole class about the learning packet when we first get it, we wouldn't have to wait for you to circulate from team to team to get us started.

TEACHER: That sounds a lot like a lecture. Is that what you want?

CLASS: (Troubled looks) Hmmmm.......no.

TEACHER: How about this... Instead of a lecture, I could give the whole class a very short introduction — just enough to get you started, not a full lecture with all the information. Then I could circulate from team to team and fill in the gaps while you are working on the packet.

CLASS: (Happy faces all around) Yes! That would be great! Then we could get started right away!

CLASS: (Pause, with thoughtful faces all around) But different teams are on different skills. How can you introduce a new skill to the whole class when we are on different skills. Why don't you just keep the whole class together on the same skill?

TEACHER: I really want to keep the teams self-paced. Last year I kept all the students in a class on the same pace, but here's what happens... I HATE, HATE, HATE to leave anyone behind. If I leave someone behind on one skill, they will not be able to pick up the next skill either. Soon they have dropped by the wayside with no hope of catching up. Since I can't stand to see that happen, I keep the class pace slow enough so that everyone can keep up. (Pause) Since I also can't stand to hold students back who could move faster, I experimented last year with letting teams move ahead of the class pace. It worked very well. There are some teams in this class who can complete two years of physics in this one year. There are other teams who will need to go much slower to get a good understanding of the material — that's just the way it is. Whatever adjustments we make this year, I really want to keep it so that students who can go fast are not slowed down, and students who need more time don't get left behind. (Pregnant pause) Here's an idea... We already have a class pace, the pace most students can keep. I can introduce new skills at the class pace even though some teams are ahead of it and other teams are behind it, if I make the introductions optional instead of whole-class — think of it as optional lectures. If your team wants the introductory mini-lecture, come up front and get it. If your team doesn't want it, stay in the back with your team and keep working together.

CLASS: (Enlightened looks) Optional lectures are a great idea! The teams ahead of the class pace don't need it, and the teams behind the class pace aren't ready for it and they can get it later when your circulate from team to team.

A TROUBLED STUDENT: But while you are circulating around the room from team to team, when we have a question we have to wait a long time for you to get back around to our team. Couldn't you stay up front and be available to answer our questions as they come up?

TEACHER: I really enjoy the interactions I have with you in small teams and I don't want to give that up.

CLASS: (Pleased looks on faces all around) Aw!

TEACHER: How about this... I give a short optional mini-lecture to introduce a new skill, and then I circulate from team to team to fill in the gaps. After two or three circuits around the classroom, I park myself up front to take your questions as they come up.

CLASS: (Excited faces) Yeah! That's perfect. (Quiet conversations all around)

TEACHER: I sense that we are ready to wrap up. Before we do, I'd like to make sure we all agree on the steps we are going to take. I understand the steps to be... 1) I will lay out learning packets for your teams' next skills so that you can begin them when you are ready, without waiting for me to come around and hand one to you. 2) I will introduce new skills at the class pace by using optional mini-lectures, just enough to get you started but not with all the information you would get in a full lecture. 3) After introducing a new skill, I will circulate team-to-team to fill in gaps and work with you at your team's pace. 4) After two or three circuits around the room, I will park myself up front and take your questions as they come up. Do I have it right?

CLASS: (Smiling faces and nods all around) Yes!

TEACHER: Okay. Let's try this and we'll see how it works. If it doesn't work out so well, what shall we do? Go back to traditional lectures?

CLASS: No! If today's plan doesn't work we'll meet together like this again and come up with something new to try.

TEACHER: (Pleased) Good! I'm with you! (Brief pause) For the rest of this class period, would you rather go back to class and get to work on physics right away, or go out to the parking lot to look at my motorcyle first?

CLASS: Motorcycle! Motorcycle!

TEACHER: Okay! QUIETLY go out to the flagpole, and I'll meet you there.

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At my motorcycle...

A PERCEPTIVE STUDENT: Dr. Buckner, you must feel awesome. You're sitting on your motorcycle surrounded by teenagers who think you're cool!

TEACHER: Yes, indeed!

Quiz and Test Generator

I'm transitioning to Standards Based Grading (SBG) this year. One essential element of SBG is allowing students to reassess on any of the standards. I tried SBG last year, but the reassessments were unmanageable.

Over the summer I wrote software to automatically make quizzes and tests for me simply by clicking links on my class webpages. The links are set up with parameters specifying what kind of assessment it is, the title of the assessment, the skill or skills to be assessed, and the number of freeform and multiple-choice questions for each skill.

The software reads the parameters, selects skills from a test bank, selects random questions for each skill, and selects random variants of each question. It formats the assessment to be displayed on a screen, so that I can give a randomized quiz to a class on a whim. When I print an assessment, the software formats it differently, optimized for taking the test on paper instead of from a screen. The software will also display and print the answer key for me.

The random selection of questions and the randomization of variants gives me a countless variety of assessments. Even if a test gets out in the public, students who would cheat will see random variations on the questions. They will soon figure out that they must actually learn how to do the problems because the answers on their test will be different from the answers on the test from their friend's class.

You can see the links in the Assessment sections of my lesson plans. My test bank is hidden behind passwords, so you won't be able to see actual assessments by clicking on the links there.

But I have put up a publicly accessible sample so that you can play with it. Try these links to see samples:

• Quiz: Motion Graphs (has a bug making graphics unreliable)
• Quiz: Motion Graphs (with a workaround for the bug)
• Quiz: Triangle Review
• Quiz: Vectors (has a bug making graphics unreliable)
• Quiz: All Three (with a workaround for the bug)

I'm writing the test bank as I go this year. Since I'm writing the questions, they correspond exactly to the specific skills I'm teaching. If I don't happen to like the mix of questions on an assessment, I simply reload the page to get a new randomization.

For One Who is Grieving

You're safe in my arms, daughter — safe to cry.
Cry, daughter. Crying is good. Crying is your love for her.
One day you'll finish crying, but not today. Today, let your love for her cry.

You're safe in my arms, daughter — safe to grieve.
Grieve, daughter. Grieving is good. Grieving is your love for her.
One day you'll finish grieving, but not today. Today, let your love for her grieve.

You're safe in my arms, daughter, — safe to feel the emptiness.
Feel the emptiness, daughter. Feeling the emptiness is good. The emptiness is her love for you.
How she must have loved you to leave such emptiness behind!

One day you'll finish crying.
One day you'll finish grieving.
But you'll always feel the emptiness.
When you feel the emptiness, know that it is her love for you.
The emptiness will remind you that her touch on your life is forevermore.
And the emptiness will remind you that your touch on her life is forevermore,
for how she must have loved you to leave such emptiness behind.

It Wasn't Very Long Ago

For my children on their coming of age

It wasn't very long ago I used to set you in my lap
and read you picture books.

It wasn't very long ago you needed me to hold your hand
to take you to new places.

I wasn't very long ago you needed me to teach you how
to understand the world.

Now look at you.
Now look at you!

A little bit of time went by and now
you stand here facing me, a young adult!

I'm not sure I'm ready.

You're not sure you're ready.

But here we stand together side by side,
a single path behind us,
a double path before us.

Let us reminisce upon the single path
we trod together to this place.
And let us contemplate the double path
we've yet to take into uncertain futures.

May we tarry here a moment — a moment more.

May we tarry here a moment more.

For though we hand-in-hand resume our walk from here,
the windings of our separate paths must
draw and break our grasp.

And from afar I'll watch you tread alone
the way to your success.

And I'll recall the time,
and I'll recall the place,
where our one path became two.

And I'll feel the sadness,
and I'll feel the happiness,
of my love for you.

But I'll be satisfied I knew you when you were a child,
and I'll be proud to know you as adult,
off on your own.

Motivation Research

Ah-hah! This is the first time I've seen results of motivation research. For rote tasks, use the carrot-and-stick approach. For complex tasks, pay enough to take money off the table as an issue, then promote autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

How does this translate to education? Here's how I translate it...

For trainers: Link compensation to trainee performance on a paced, standardized curriculum.

For trainees: Link compensation to good output measured against quotas.

For teachers: Unlink compensation from student performance on a paced, standardized curriculum, then promote teacher autonomy in the classroom, self-directed development of mastery for teachers, and autonomous, self-directed learners as the goal of teaching.

For students: Provide enough success to take grades off the table as an issue, then promote autonomy in learning, self-directed development in the student's desired area of mastery, and learning to learn as the goal.

It's no wonder we're not seeing the results we want from education reform. We've set up the incentives to motivate rote learning and to reward drudgery, not to develop lifelong learners.

Ignited and Burning Bright

Some snippets of conversations with a student... (I've embellished it a little bit for readability, but otherwise the dialogue is true to life.)

A couple months ago...

Student: Quantum mechanics is awesome. I've been reading about it. Strange things happen.

Teacher: Yes, quantum mechanics explains and predicts many strange effects. Physicists call it "quantum weirdness."

Student: Dr. Buckner, is there a such thing as a quantum physicist?

Teacher: Yes, there is. Quantum effects are being used more and more in devices. There will be a need for quantum physicists during your lifetime.

Student: How would I become a quantum physicist?

Teacher: Get as much math as you can in high school. Make sure you're strong in it. Major in physics in college. Then go to a graduate school with a strong program in quantum physics and pick a research project that fascinates you.

Student: That's what I want to do. I want to be a quantum physicist.

A couple weeks ago...

Student: Dr. Buckner, would a bowl of cereal with milk be a solid, or a liquid, or a broth?

Teacher: Well, it definitely would not be a broth — a broth is made from meat. (English is this student's second language.) Technically it would be a mixture — but it's just a bowl of cereal. (smiling) I believe you're overthinking it. Why do you want to know this?

Student: I ate a bowl of cereal this morning and I wondered how it would be classified. It had liquid in it, but it was not a liquid. It had solids in it, but it was not a solid. So I wondered if it must be a broth since it is both solid and liquid.

Teacher: The kind of thinking you are doing is important in science. Great scientists can look at the same things everybody else looks at day to day, but they see something new and different from what anybody else has seen before. When I was in graduate school, I was in a meeting with Nevill Mott, a Nobel Prize winner. A student asked him what he got the Nobel Prize for. Mott said, "I created a new field of science." The student asked how he did that. Mott said, "I was looking through a window, thinking of the atomic structure of the glass, and I realized that everything I knew about solid state physics says that this atomic structure should be opaque, not transparent. I set out to understand why glass is transparent instead of opaque, and it led to a new field of science."

Student: (grinning) I'm going to win a Nobel Prize!

Last week...

Student: Dr. Buckner, if you had a beam of light and shined it into a box made of mirrors, could you keep the beam of light forever?

Teacher: Well, if the mirrors were perfect reflectors I suppose you could. But if you had it, how would you ever look at it?

Student: What do you mean?

Teacher: If you made a window in the box to look at the beam of light, wouldn't it escape?

Student: (puzzled) Yeah, I never thought of that.

A few days ago...

Student: Dr. Buckner, if you use a solar panel to power a light, and you shine the light back onto the solar panel, would the light stay on forever?

Teacher: All real systems have losses. Every time the light goes back into the solar panel some of its energy is lost. Every time the electric power goes back into the light some energy is lost. So it would not stay on forever.

Student: How long would it last?

Teacher: A small fraction of a second. It would go too fast to watch it fade.

Student: (Sat down, deep in thought.)

Last class period...

Student: Dr. Buckner, if you put a huge mirror out in space 10 light years away, and looked at it through a powerful telescope, could you look back in time to 20 years ago?

Teacher: Hmmmm. This is something I've never thought of. Let me think about it a minute. (brief pause) Well, of course there would be practical difficulties of ever actually setting a large enough mirror 10 light years away, and of having a powerful enough telescope to see the reflected image, but in principle I don't see any reason why you are not correct. Fascinating. This is a new thought for me. Do you like science fiction? You could write a great science fiction story with this.

Student: (smiling with pride) Yeah!

Sometime in the near future...

This student's scientific curiosity is ignited and burning bright. He is going to bring in some scenario I won't be able to answer. What will I do as his teacher? I will have discourse with him about it, showing him how a scientist might approach and explore an unanswered problem. Together we'll come up with some hypotheses and some testable predictions. He'll experience what it's like to weigh one hypothesis against another on a real unanswered scientific question. He'll sense the eagerness and the drive scientists feel to test their hypotheses by experiment. Most importantly, he will no longer come to me to get an authoritative answer to accept as-is — he'll come to me as a resource from whom he can get information to formulate his own answer.

Seating Charts

At the beginning of this school year, I kept strict seating charts in my classes. Now I don't. Here's what I used to do, and what I do now.

To keep strict seating charts, I built a spreadsheet to automatically label a chart for each class using information in my rosters, with seniors highlighted. The "Print" tab shows the chart from the teacher's perspective, for taking daily attendance. The other tabs show the charts from the students' perspective, for them to find their seats while looking at a screen display of the chart. I built in a randomize function that allows me to shuffle seats on the spot. I've used this, for example, to shuffle seats for a test. If you like, you may copy the spreadsheet and modify it for your own use. Leave a comment with your contact information so that I can tell you how to access the undocumented functionality. (For example, student ID's can be turned off by deleting the content of cell H1 in the "Print" spreadsheet.)

As my teaching style has evolved from mostly lecture to mostly group work, I no longer keep a strict seating chart. I allow students to self-select into learning groups, which works pretty well in my classroom environment. They enjoy sitting and working together in clumps, instead of in neatly arranged rows all facing forward.

To support the "mostly group work" teaching and learning style, I now use seating charts built from photographs of each learning group, with seniors highlighted in bold. This allows me to take attendance quickly while supporting the "clumpy" sitting arrangements preferred by the students. I can still use the spreadsheet if I need to shuffle students for a test.

Lecture: Optional

I've been trying an experiment in my physics classes, making lecture optional. Students who want the lecture on a topic come up to the front of the classroom, and students who would rather learn the material from the textbook read and study it together in groups in the back of the room while I am lecturing up front.

Lecture gets a bad rap, but results in my classroom are clear: lecture is effective compared to unguided learning from the textbook in small groups. The optional-lecture experiment was one piece of a comprehensive lesson plan that also included guided inquiry, active learning, scaffolded problem-solving, and repetition. Within that context, lecture was effective.

Conclusion: Lecture can be enjoyed in moderation as one part of a healthy, balanced diet of learning strategies.

A Cloudy Vision

I have a not-yet-well-formulated vision that standardized testing could be transformed into an SBAR process. Specific skills would be tested, and reporting would consist of a list of specific skills for which a student has demonstrated mastery.

Instead of subject-based tests where the student is judged "not proficient," "proficient," or "advanced" in a subject, standardized tests would assess mastery of cross-curricular skills. The variety of subject-based tests we administer now would be collapsed into a single test of cross-curricular student skills.

As I stated, my vision of this is not well-formulated, but if it can be well-formulated and implemented it would change the focus of education from content delivery to student development. In the current system, students are receptacles for content. Standards of Learning are written as lists of content to be mastered, and end-of-course tests are written to sample the content.

In the reform I envision, student development becomes the focus. Content becomes a means of  achieving student development. Standards of Learning would be written as lists of student skills to be mastered, and standardized tests would be written to assess student skills.

Suddenly, it would become much less important to push a student through a lesson on Le Châtelier's Principle, for example, and much more important to develop the ability of a student to comprehend how manipulation of one variable in apparent isolation can result in complex system-wide changes. Le Châtelier's Principle provides content for developing this comprehension in the student of chemistry, but ecosystem ecology does also in biology, as well as parametric equations in mathematics, historical narratives in social studies, free-body diagrams in physics, and even poetry in English. In fact, the very act of specifying that students must learn Le Châtelier's Principle in chemistry isolates the concept as something peculiar to chemistry without parallel or application in other subjects, something to be remembered for a test and then forgotten.

On standardized tests, a student would be able to demonstrate cross-curricular skills in any of the specific content areas that include the skill, or in several content areas that include the skill. Each year, students would accumulate a longer list of mastered skills in their testing report. A simple pie-chart showing number of skills mastered by content area would indicate student strength by subject.

Diplomas could be individualized, as, for example, "John Doe, graduated 2012, having mastered 567 standards of learning, with a concentration in science and math."

Even test-based teacher evaluation might work under this system: "On average, Jane Doe's chemistry students add 15% more demonstrated science skills to their testing record after taking her course." Reporting new skills added as a percentage of previously acquired skills in a subject would normalize for incoming student ability. A teacher of low-performing students could still demonstrate solid teaching ability through the percentage gain. If her students were grossly behind in their skills and not ready for the rigors of her course, she could engage them to learn the skills they are ready for and still show good teaching performance. The system we have now forces her to do the opposite — to push students through content they are not ready for in hopes that they will retain enough to pass the test.

In our current system, where standardized tests are content-based, "teaching to the test" is a frustrating experience for teacher and students, when students come into a course ill prepared to comprehend the material at the pace required to cover standardized content, as is often the case. In our current system, "not teaching to the test" is also a frustrating experience for teacher and students, because the test does not illuminate the fact that her students have actually made good progress.

In a system of standardized tests based on student skills, "teaching to the test" is exactly what the teacher ought to do. She makes strategic selections from the wealth of content she has at her disposal to address the skills her students are ready to develop. She has the freedom to keep her students in Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, where learning is most efficient.

I invite everybody, everywhere, to help me develop these ideas. Please poke holes in it, and let's see if we can plug them.

The Write Idea

I have a son in Godwin High School taking a course with challenging writing assignments. Like most colleges nowadays, this high school has a writing center, a resource for students to use to improve their writing. In addition to a final draft, my son is also required to turn in a first draft that has been marked up by the writing center.

What a great idea! Everybody wins:

• My son gets the benefit of another set of eyes looking at his writing. When he writes, he knows he must write so that another real person — not just a teacher — can understand what he has written. The mark-ups give him authentic feedback for improvement.
• The student in the writing center who marks up my son's paper gets a much deeper understanding of the writing process. The best way to learn is to teach. The student likely also gets service hours.
• The teacher gets papers that have already been screened and corrected of the most egregious errors, so that she can focus on higher-level structure and effectiveness of the writing. The writing center also probably enables more cycles of learning, since the teacher can use her limited time for grading final drafts rather than first drafts.
• The school gets a better performance record because it feeds more sophisticated students into the standardized testing process.

My own students could benefit from this approach. I need to give some thought as to how I can incorporate screening and rewrites into the writing they turn in to me.

First MOP Team Assessment

A couple weeks ago I started a program in my physics classes called MO Physics for students who want to move faster than the class pace. Today I assessed the first MOP team to move ahead of their class.

The MO B.A. Physics team pictured here did a marvelous job. They signed up on my online form to come in at lunchtime today to demonstrate mastery of the physics skill Acceleration.

When they came in, I told them with a genuine smile on my face, "My job is to make you nervous. You'd better be certain of what you say to me. You might be saying the most profound thing imaginable, but you won't see any sign of it on my poker face. And if you're uncertain of something, you won't find the answer in my face. In fact, I may give you a blank stare that makes you think you're saying something stupid. It won't be easy, but if you can get past me, you can do this for anybody." Since we have an excellent rapport, they know the friendly, supporting spirit in which these true-but-not-threatening remarks were given. I also told them the worst possible thing that could happen is that I would ask them to come in again to elaborate on something that was lacking the first time.

Part of the MO Physics program is for the team to determine how they will demonstrate mastery of a skill to their teacher in such a way that it would be apparent that each individual had mastered the material. I was curious to see how they would do it. The team of four had prepared four white boards demonstrating their mastery of each of the specific skills listed in my lesson plan, using drawn images, equations, and text. They presented individually and together, acted out a demonstration of deceleration together, and answered all of my impromptu questions to my complete satisfaction.

I have enjoyed watching the team work together in class. Rarely have I seen such diligence and focus. I was eager to see if they could pull off a good demonstration of mastery, and they did! In fact, I'm convinced they comprehend the material better than if they had studied to pass my test on it (which they are exempt from now).

I can say the performance of this team has been the highlight of my teaching career so far, and I am delighted with their success today. May they be the first of many yet to come.

"When will I ever use this?"

The question is a narrow one. It is a perfectly fitting question to ask of a vocational school preparing you to become a worker in a trade. But high school provides broad liberal education, not narrow vocational training. Liberal education, literally "the skills of freedom," empowers individuals with knowledge of the major endeavors of humanity, the disciplines of formal thinking, empirical investigation, informed judgment, practical decision-making, and appreciation of human ideals. Liberal education produces persons who are able to achieve in a vocation, to adapt as vocations change, and to develop new vocations as new needs arise. Liberal education produces free citizens who direct and reform the institutions of society to provide for the general good. It produces citizens who are capable a making democracy work.

A better question to ask is, "How will this make me a better human being?" The value of a worker in a trade is the product produced, and so the value of one worker is very much like the value of another. But the value of a human being is the breadth and depth of the individual in the whole of human affairs. Not every experience in high school can make you a better worker in a trade, but every experience in high school, no matter the subject, can make you a better human being — if you atune yourself to receive the improvement and to effect it within yourself.

A worker in a trade is dispensible when machines or cheaper labor come along to make the same product. But human beings with a liberal education, the "skills of freedom," will always be indispensible.  When the value of an endeavor has been exhausted, the workers are let go. But those individuals with the "skills of freedom" are retained and sought after, because they are the ones who are fundamentally innovative to find or create the next endeavor of value.

If you are able to leave high school with the abilities required to work at a trade, then you have received an adequate return on the time you invested. However, if that is all you leave high school with, you have left the far greater value behind. A liberal education, available to every young person at public expense in high school, is really an extraordinary opportunity, afforded only to the few wealthy in ages past. My advice is to shake yourself out of the notion that high school is something you have to endure in order to get a job. Instead of enduring it, take charge of your education and milk the high school experience for as much as you can, not just to become a worker at a trade, but to make yourself into a better human being. If you do, you will be valued far more than a worker in a trade throughout your life.

I Am an Introvert

I am an introvert.

When you are talking things through, I am busy with internal dialog and discussion, me vs me.

When you and I are discussing something, you are seeking your resolution through the conversation and you would like to talk until we are resolved. I am seeking information so that we can stop talking, because then I can begin my internal conversations and come to my resolution.

When you are talking through your thoughts with me, my internal conversations are disrupted. I will begin to see things clearly when my internal conversations get a chance to progress undisturbed to completion.

When you notice that I am passive, aloof, and unengaged, my mind is teeming with internal conversations about unresolved issues. My mind is so busy that sometimes I have to lie down in a quiet place to let the activity play out.

When you relax with other people and find refreshment in the stimulating talk and conversation, I relax in solitude and find refreshment as my swirling internal conversations settle and finally solidify through my keystrokes.

When we are together, you find your satisfaction in the moment-to-moment experience. I find my satisfaction in the quietness afterward, when I can rethink our interaction to fully process the pleasure I take in being with you.

You are a Type A extrovert. Something is always going on with you, and everyone can see it. I am a Type A introvert. Something is always going on with me, but no one can see it.

To Love

Love is not a mystery. It is the easiest thing in the world to know when you love somebody. It is when you stop thinking, "How can you please me," and start thinking, "How can I please you."

To Disagree

You people who disagree with me are valuable to me. You readily point out issues that escape my notice. The best solutions notice and address every issue. So...let's disagree together and find the best solutions.

Science Learning Ought to Enlighten and Liberate

Somehow we've made learning difficult for kids, when it ought to be the most natural, spontaneous, and enjoyable activity they engage in. Science, in particular, ought to enlighten and liberate, not obscure and burden. Students should leave school with a warm feeling about science because it has opened their eyes. Instead, many (most?) students leave school cool toward science because we teach it in a way that veils simple and beautiful truths behind opaque jargon. The refreshment students could be taking in a few key and abiding scientific truths enjoyed deeply is instead drowned in a shallow, overwhelming torrent of the entire body of scientific facts. We turn the excitement of personal discovery and connection into the drudgery of rote and disconnected "learning."

I believe that somehow we can have high student achievement with low stress and high enjoyment. And I believe a key component of this "somehow" is to select from our wealth of content, and use our selections to cultivate student breadth and depth.The focus needs to be on using content selectively to enlarge students rather than using students as receivers for massive content. We should teach the student, not the subject.

"I had fun in your class today."

"I had fun in your class today. I think MO Physics is a good idea," a student told me as I was leaving school today.

Students often tell me my class is fun, but I was surprised to hear it today. We didn't do a lab. We didn't play an educational game. We didn't watch a video. We didn't go outside. We did worksheets and bookwork! Since when did that become fun? Since she took charge of her own learning by doing MO Physics!

Following the lesson plan I publish online, she and her teammates assigned themselves bookwork to learn the next physics skill in the sequence and prepare themselves to demonstrate mastery of it to me. I watched them in class and I thought to myself that I'd never seen students dig in like this. They really were poring over the textbook, taking notes, discussing the concepts, calling me over occasionally to answer a question. Looking on, I would have characterized it as hard work, but not fun. I'm delighted that she had fun at such hard work as learning physics.

MO Physics is a program I introduced to my high school physics classes this week. I'm piloting it this year to work out the kinks and to determine whether I will continue with it next year or pull back from it. It is aimed at differentiating instruction toward the high-performing end of the class population, providing a way for them to move at a faster pace than the class, and freeing up my time to work more with the low-performing end. I've been surprised at the high level of enthusiasm it has elicited so far from the students.

Working with teens, I'm well aware that they will enthusiastically jump into something new and then let it quickly peter out. I'm eager to see how student engagement looks a few weeks from now, after the newness has worn off. The students are aware that this is a pilot program, and right now we are enjoying together the excitement of trying something unconventional.