Journal 5

To whom it may concern, I have come across the the Turning Point clicker product and I think it would be extremely helpful for the classroom learning environment. I would like to request funding for this product.About the technology:Multiple Choice questions are presented to students in power point format. The students make their choices on their individual clickers and the software turns the responses into an instant graph of the polls. The students instantly see the distribution of answers that were clicked in. After this, we can have a discussion about what choices we think are correct and why. So the students are able to reason with each other. The students show a great deal of enthusiasm with this technology and it works! They’re learning and they’re learning quickly! The answers are anonymous to the public so the anxiety in shy students can be eliminated. For the teacher, individual student answers can be saved and this can actually be used as a formal assessment. I can use this for higher level learning tasks by asking the students to create problems and I can collect these questions from the students by sending a Wufoo survey and turn it into a powerpoint question and answer activity with the students. This technology really increases efficiency so that the teacher can focus more on giving attention to students. Parents who have had exposure to this technology, love it! They agree that this technology is great for student learning. Overall, this technology is efficient and it increases the community. Its great for in class formative assessments. Its amazing for participation and it works. Let me know what are your thoughts. Thank you very much for you time. I’m looking forward to hearing from you. Best, Linda Lagunzad

Journal 4

Topic: DC Circuits

Observation Experiment:

The students could use the current probe and the differential voltage probe to measure current through and voltage across a resistor. Then design an experiment to find the relationship between voltage and current. They can learn how to measure current and voltage using the equipment and then analyze and interpret the graphs on logger pro. This could be good if the students have a lot of difficulty with graphing and time does not permit them to explore and learn how to use something like Excel to create graphs with error bars.

Testing Experiment:

Then they can do the same thing for a light bulb. Is there a way to put error bars in the graphs on logger pro? YES! Hopefully it’ll show that the error bars do not cross the linear fit “prediction” line and make a judgment about the hypothesis. This would be good for error analysis and more experience interpreting graphs.

Testing Experiment:

Previous knowledge: Power

Given the hypothesis: “In a circuit with two resistors, the one with the larger resistance will dissipate the greater amount of power.” Design an experiment to test this hypothesis. Then they can find out current remains the same for series circuits and/or voltage remains the same for parallel circuits. They can conclude that the hypothesis has been disproved with a parallel circuit.

 

I also found the PhET DC circuit simulation very helpful. Seeing the movement of the electrons really helped them make sense out of the circuit. What values can you manipulate? What is current? What does current and voltage have to do with resistance? There were other questions but those are the ones I can remember. It feels like you’re just playing! (I spend a lot of time playing with them also and sometimes I incorporate it into my lessons.)