07 summer - physics
remix

zach and heather

By the summer of 2007 we had both taught the lesson twice. We came prepared with some good data - video of students working on the lab activities and photos of the whiteboards the students had created to explain each station. When the cohort began discussing how lesson study was going we mutually agreed that, for different reasons, the current lesson study had reached it's natural ending. For us, this end came for a number of reasons. We decided that although we had created a lovely lesson sequence, and that students were finding out some interesting things, we were not meeting any state standards. In addition, the lesson was not part of any logical unit progression. Rather, it was a stand-alone chunk of curriculum that had minimal ties to what came before and after it. Ultimately we felt it wasn't really worth spending any more time and effort trying to improve something we did not feel committed to using in the classroom.

anne and casey

Similar to Zach and Heather, our group had been spinning our wheels for some time. Our lesson was decent, we had some cool ideas, and conservation of energy is certainly part of the standards for physics. Our lesson had morphed significantly from its initial idea, and though we still both wanted to use some of the ideas, we didn't feel it was strong enough to keep polishing.

Because all the lesson study groups decided that they had reached a natural ending point, we decided to reorganize ourselves and choose a new topic. It was time for Heather and Zach to tearfully part ways, and same for Anne and Casey. We had a good run, but it was over...

Anne and Heather chose to team up to study refraction and reflection; and Zach and Casey chose to modify their musical instrument project into a Project-Based Learning unit based on ideas we had seen in St. Louis the spring before.

documents and resources

• need to add some stuff here (video, pictures)

(c) 2009 ronnster/oharanator productions