Distance Learning - IB Physics
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Sincerely hope this finds you and your loved ones well. Never hesitate to reach out to me if you or someone you know is in need. During these crazy times your health and having your basic needs met will always come first before academics.
Here are the facts: There are nine more weeks of school. There are to be two "periods" of physics a week, Tuesday and Thursday. Each period is set at 45 minutes long with no extra allotment for homework. This is about a 75% reduction in physics time per week as compared to what could be asked of you prior to March 13th. So, you are not required to master all of the remaining curriculum.
However, you certainly can if you would like. As you know, my entire curriculum is already online, ready for your consumption. If you want to pick up right where we left off and finish every lesson in its entirety, nothing is going to stop you. You could go to each lesson page, watch the videos, take the notes (from the keys), play with the sims and other resources, try the homework, correct the homework (from the keys), then move on. If you are intending to seek a degree and career in the sciences or just have a deep fascination with the subject matter, this might be a good idea.
But, if you are not interested in doing the maximum, which is perfectly okay, this webpage will present the minimum requirements to complete the course. And a note on what is meant by "requirements". It is my current understanding that your grade cannot fall from what it was on March 13th. So, for those of you who have A's, it is technically true that you can opt to do less than the minimum without academic consequence. But I'm hoping you take this opportunity to add to your understanding of your physical universe.
So here is how the remainder of the material for the year will be presented. Since I already have my entire curriculum online, my website will become your primary resource. We made it through "Unit 6, Lesson 2: Electric Resistance". Roughly half of "Unit 6: Current Electricity" remains, along with all of "Unit 7: Atomic, Nuclear, & Particle Physics" and "Unit 8: Energy Production". That's 12 remaining lessons total. After thinking long and hard about what would be the best for you guys, I landed on this: IB Physics A La Carte! I'm letting each of you individually pick what you want to explore and to what depth you want to explore it (within the curriculum). This could mean you spend your remaining 13.5 hours (90 min/week x 9 weeks) on just finishing Unit 6, or you could skip straight to Unit 7 and spend your time there or you could do all 6, 7, and 8, but each to less depth, or any other permutation you choose. And again, let me reiterate, you can certainly feel free to do more than the minimum and just finish out the entire course, but that is completely up to you.
Why have I chosen this? Because a one-size-fits-all aproach was not going to serve everyone in these weird and whacky times. I know that some of you have already continued on with the curriculum in the last few weeks and there is no reason for you to redo a lesson you've already mastered. Some of you are seniors and I'm not sure how it's going to settle out, but I think your requirements will be different than the rest. Some of you are going on to pursue science in college and could benefit from learning more, some of you have other stressors in your life at this time and could benefit from doing less. Some of you like electricity, some of you would rather study nuclear bombs. Some of you, because of your grade in the course on March 13th, have more motivation than others to keep on truckin'. And of course, without an IB test looming ahead anymore, we can be infinitely more flexible with what we do.
So, you are in the driver's seat here, but you're probably wondering how I will manage to grade this. Here is my current plan which will remain my actual plan as long as someone above me doesn't switch gears again on what we can and cannot do (which has been happening a lot the last three weeks):
And there you go! You can feel free to reach out to me at anytime and I will do my best to get back to you in a timely manner. I will not be holding video conference calls or audio calls at anytime, but I will check my e-mail constantly. Check the Google Classroom tomorrow to get started. Good luck and take care!
Here are the facts: There are nine more weeks of school. There are to be two "periods" of physics a week, Tuesday and Thursday. Each period is set at 45 minutes long with no extra allotment for homework. This is about a 75% reduction in physics time per week as compared to what could be asked of you prior to March 13th. So, you are not required to master all of the remaining curriculum.
However, you certainly can if you would like. As you know, my entire curriculum is already online, ready for your consumption. If you want to pick up right where we left off and finish every lesson in its entirety, nothing is going to stop you. You could go to each lesson page, watch the videos, take the notes (from the keys), play with the sims and other resources, try the homework, correct the homework (from the keys), then move on. If you are intending to seek a degree and career in the sciences or just have a deep fascination with the subject matter, this might be a good idea.
But, if you are not interested in doing the maximum, which is perfectly okay, this webpage will present the minimum requirements to complete the course. And a note on what is meant by "requirements". It is my current understanding that your grade cannot fall from what it was on March 13th. So, for those of you who have A's, it is technically true that you can opt to do less than the minimum without academic consequence. But I'm hoping you take this opportunity to add to your understanding of your physical universe.
So here is how the remainder of the material for the year will be presented. Since I already have my entire curriculum online, my website will become your primary resource. We made it through "Unit 6, Lesson 2: Electric Resistance". Roughly half of "Unit 6: Current Electricity" remains, along with all of "Unit 7: Atomic, Nuclear, & Particle Physics" and "Unit 8: Energy Production". That's 12 remaining lessons total. After thinking long and hard about what would be the best for you guys, I landed on this: IB Physics A La Carte! I'm letting each of you individually pick what you want to explore and to what depth you want to explore it (within the curriculum). This could mean you spend your remaining 13.5 hours (90 min/week x 9 weeks) on just finishing Unit 6, or you could skip straight to Unit 7 and spend your time there or you could do all 6, 7, and 8, but each to less depth, or any other permutation you choose. And again, let me reiterate, you can certainly feel free to do more than the minimum and just finish out the entire course, but that is completely up to you.
Why have I chosen this? Because a one-size-fits-all aproach was not going to serve everyone in these weird and whacky times. I know that some of you have already continued on with the curriculum in the last few weeks and there is no reason for you to redo a lesson you've already mastered. Some of you are seniors and I'm not sure how it's going to settle out, but I think your requirements will be different than the rest. Some of you are going on to pursue science in college and could benefit from learning more, some of you have other stressors in your life at this time and could benefit from doing less. Some of you like electricity, some of you would rather study nuclear bombs. Some of you, because of your grade in the course on March 13th, have more motivation than others to keep on truckin'. And of course, without an IB test looming ahead anymore, we can be infinitely more flexible with what we do.
So, you are in the driver's seat here, but you're probably wondering how I will manage to grade this. Here is my current plan which will remain my actual plan as long as someone above me doesn't switch gears again on what we can and cannot do (which has been happening a lot the last three weeks):
- With nine weeks left in the school year, you will be responsible for submitting nine documents through Google Classroom.
- The pacing is up to you... you could do all nine in one week or one per week for nine weeks.
- Generally speaking, the document will indicate a learning goal for a minium 90 minute week chunk which will include what topic you are taking on, why you are taking it on, how you will take it on (timing - when and for how long you will do it - and resources - what you will use to do it), and a reflection on how it went once you are done.
- The document will also include three solved (showing all work as taught in class) math type physics problems that are indicative of the topic you studied. These problems should come from the homework packets and at a minimum should vary in complexity; an easy one, medium one, and a more challenging one. I will not be offended if you submit more than three nor will I penalize you if they all trend towards more complex.
- Some quick math shows me that there were to be 43 class sessions in semester 2, you were in school for 15 of them, and you will not be in school for 28 of them. If I divide 28 by 43, I find that this "distance learning" we are embarking on will consume 65% of the 2nd semester learning time. So, it follows that these nine documents will be weighted to make up 65% of your final semester 2 grade. At the end of the semester, I will look at the nine docs as a whole to give you a grade on if you followed through with the expectation to keep learning and truly dedicated a solid, productive, 13.5 hours to the task. Evidence of this will come from me seeing all nine docs, thoughtfully filled out in their entirety, with problems of appropriate skill level solved clearly and correctly.
- I will post a Google Doc tomorrow that you should use as your template for filling in your 90 min week chunk goal, reflection, etc.... As for the minimum 3 problems, if you can type math, more power to you. But for the rest of us who find it easier to use actual pen and paper, a scan or a picture of your work inserted into the doc will suffice.
- On each of the remaining 12 lesson webpages on my website, I have added an additional "Lecture" section where I have linked to excellent video lectures on each topic created by an IB physics teacher by the name of Chris Doner. Though there are plenty of other explanatory videos on my website, I prefer this guy because he is only teaching what is in the IB curriculum and does so very clearly and concisely. For this reason, it aligns very closely with my notes. If you think you will struggle learning from just the notes or the text, I would start my learning with these fantastic C Doner IB Physics videos.
And there you go! You can feel free to reach out to me at anytime and I will do my best to get back to you in a timely manner. I will not be holding video conference calls or audio calls at anytime, but I will check my e-mail constantly. Check the Google Classroom tomorrow to get started. Good luck and take care!