COVID

It's hard to believe that it's been over a year since I was at CERN for HST2019!  So much has happened since then, the biggest being COVID and the tremendous impact it's had on our world.  Throughout this time there have been so many challenges.  When we had an idea that schools would inevitably shut down, it became a questions of how do I take a program that I've worked so hard to make hands-on and turn it into something online, keep students engaged, and how do I create a grading system that is fair to all students in this new environment.  When grades were frozen on March 20 it was a question of how to motivate students that already have their credit to keep going.

I feel that in terms of moving the program online and finding a grading system that was fair, I was somewhat successful.  I created "Quarantine Physics: The Game Plan!" and my students responded well to it.

With this I created a points-based system for each chapter and tried to give students as much choice and opportunity as possible.  The feedback from students was very positive and they made a point of telling me that they appreciated what I had tried to do and that an opportunity to work on their Physics was what they looked forward to the most during this time.  This experiment also reminded me of a few very important things that became somewhat forgotten as the years have gone by:

• a student with a grade in the 60-70% range doesn't necessarily know or understand less than a student in the 80-90% range in a system dominated by assignments and tests - often times the only difference between the two is who can memorize facts better
• give students choice and let them show you who they are and you will create better connections
• be humble, honest, and not afraid to show humility and your students will often respect you even more for it

During this time I had students create some amazing context-rich problems.  We were fortunate to have been in the classroom long enough to have already done a couple that were created by Joe Cossette:  https://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/blog/kinematics-crime-scene and https://passionatelycurioussci.weebly.com/blog/projectile-murder-mystery and students could use these as a template for creating their own.  To me, this underscored the first point I made before as some students that struggled at 60% in a course based on assignments and tests produced amazing work that clearly showed a deep understanding of the material when they had time to focus on learning and doing something really well.  Meanwhile, many of the students that were good at memorizing tried to take the easy way out and do a "research project" that saw them just regurgitate something they had read in my notes or online and, when they tried to elaborate on anything, show that they had little to no understanding of the topic. 

I have to admit that I struggled with being at home and trying to teach students.  I often didn't know which way to go, but I am so thankful that the Perimeter Institute put on a series of workshops to help teachers with delivering materials online.  This provided an opportunity to not only connect with their amazing outreach team, but also with other teachers around the world that were going through the same struggles.  I honestly cannot thank them enough and am very proud to be part of the Perimeter Institute Teacher Network!

So we survived the March-June stretch of COVID and remote teaching!  It wasn't always pretty, but I learned a lot during this time and it will have a lasting impact on my teaching.