Lee

Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol workshop at AAPT conference

February 5, 2012

At the AAPT Winter Conference, I attended a workshop on the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) (emphasis on “reformed teaching” not “reformed protocol”). Below are my notes on that workshop. [This workshop runs 8:00-5:00 on Sunday, and I'm live blogging this so, if you're reading during this time, reload the page for the most up-t0-date [...]

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The value of multi-modal trips

July 12, 2011

In transit lingo, “multi-modal” trips are those that use different modes to get to a destination. A common version is bike to bus/subway/rail, either taking the bike on the vehicle or locking it before one gets on. Today I had a wonderful trip that was multi-modal by accident. The “out” trip was planned as multi-modal: [...]

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Reflections on 900 miles on a bicycle

June 5, 2011

[I wrote this back in August of 2010] Well, I’ve been back for a week, so it seemed like time to write reflections on my Portland to Berkeley bicycle trip. Why? Why did I do it? Was it turning 50, the old “mid-life crisis” reaction? Maybe, but probably only a small amount. I’m pretty satisfied [...]

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“You can’t put something on the final we haven’t seen!!!”

December 7, 2010

Today as a finals review “warm up” (although it ended up taking the whole period) I presented the students with four beakers of water: One with ice, one at room temp, one on a hot plate “low” (about 37C) and one boiling. I used Logger Pro to show the four temperatures on a projector screen [...]

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Berkeley Student Food Collective now open

November 22, 2010

A new food cooperative opened on November 15 in Berkeley. The Berkeley Student Food Collective is open to anyone, student or not. Both members and non-members can shop, members receive a discount in exchange for work hours. I’ve shopped there a couple times, and the store is quite well stocked. It’s just a small storefront, [...]

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Spreadsheet for calculating slopes at points on quadratic functions

October 17, 2010

On the Physics Modeling email list there has been a discussion of finding tangents to a parabolic curve using an Excel spreadsheet. The primary way we use this is when students graph position vs time of a ball rolling down a ramp. Students discover that the relationship can be modeled as a parabolic equation, x [...]

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Drive 55 MPH on Spare the Air days

October 14, 2010

With the batch of Spare the Air days in the San Francisco Bay Area in the last few weeks, I came up with an idea that would probably save a lot more gas than trying to get people to carpool and take transit (not that I’m suggesting we stop this, but I’m not sure how [...]

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End of the year teacher evaluation for my physics students to complete

August 10, 2010

At the end of each school year, I have my students complete an evaluation of the course. My goal is for them to reflect (1) me, (2) the class, and (3) themselves. I find the evaluations extremely valuable. Scary at times, but valuable. This last year wasn’t one of my best, and the evaluations showed [...]

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Using a TI-83 or TI-84 graphing calculator in high school physics classes

July 15, 2010

This summer I’m leading a workshop at the American Association of Physics Teachers meeting entitled “Using graphing calculators in the classroom.” Featured in the workshop is my handout titled “Analyzing data using your TI-83 or TI-84 calculator.” You can download a PDF version of the worksheet here. The handout has calculator screenshots and uses TI [...]

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AAPT meeting in Portland and my bike trip home

July 15, 2010

I’m leaving today for the American Association of Physics Teachers summer meeting in Portland, Oregon. I’ll be presenting a workshop at the meeting (see next post), then riding my bicycle to Eugene then down the coast back to Berkeley. You can follow my cycling exploits here: www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=RrzKj&doc_id=7183&v=V

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