180: Day -2: Updating the physics mechanics inventory

Like many physics teachers, I use a pre and post “test” Concept Inventory to help me understand how and where my students are learning and struggling. The concept inventory is an amazing tool, but the images in it are of poor quality (think ’90’s computer art). I decided this year to update many of them, as well as tweak some of the wording. This means I won’t necessarily be able to compare with other teachers (since they are using the old version), but I’ll still be able to look at my pre and post scores (I haven’t changed any of the actual problems, just some of the wording within each). Here’s a copy of a couple of the images I updated (I have blurred out the words, since I don’t want students to be able to “prepare” for the “test.” If you have the old version, you’ll probably see what I’m talking about in terms of clarity of images.