Winter

Colloquium
March 13, 2014

Academy of Arts and Sciences
My school is a college preparatory program
that is working to blend online curriculum
with in class instruction to better meet the
needs of our students by increased
differentiation.
The entire student population are from urban
neighborhoods in southern San Diego county.
The school is 100% free/reduced lunch.
Academy of Arts and Sciences
Our school is ethnically and culturally diverse.
There are large variations within similar
cultural groups and dialectical differences in
languages.
The average CST score for mathematics for
2012-2013 was far below basic.
Many students are credit deficient but
working hard to catch up and to surpass grade
level expectations.
Academy of Arts and Sciences
I teach conceptual physics, which is focused more
on concepts and keeps the math skills minimal. I
have spent the early part of this school year
building a strong foundation of basic algebra skills
that are needed to solve rudimentary physics
problems. We have covered math topics such as
reciprocals, square roots, conversions, and solving
for unknown variables. Students have used these
topics to solve real world problems for Force,
Velocity, Acceleration, Work, Power, Energy,
Momentum, and many more.
Academy of Arts and Sciences
In addition to physics, I also teach AVID. AVID is
Advancement Via Individual Determination. In
this class students learn to take college level
notes, reflect on their learning, help each other
resolve tutorial questions, and learn life skills.
Life skills is not usually in the AVID curriculum
but we have added this in so that every student
has access to AVID curriculum and information
about health, professionalism, basic study skills,
etc.
Academy of Arts and Sciences
I have found that my students fuel my teaching. My
classes make each day new and exciting. I cannot
wait to get to class and share in the learning
process with my students.
I feel huge wins when my students are excited
about learning and are making gains toward their
goals. When we reach a stumbling block, I reflect on
my teaching practice to either avoid it in the future
or to foresee similar events and create an alternate
plan.
MAKING SUBJECT MATTER
COMPREHENSIBLE TO STUDENTS
TPE 1B Teaching Science in a Single Subject Assignment.
explanations, demonstrations, and class activities serve to illustrate science concepts, and principles, scientific
investigation, and experimentation.









This artifact is a design your own experiment lab. I use it for scientific
investigation. The many steps that students perform, create learning
opportunities that I sometimes miss as a first year teacher. One example is the
discussion that we have had about collecting errors. This lab helps me to
incorporate real world application with scientific analysis and problem solving
skills.

Assessing Student Learning
TPE 2 Monitoring student learning during instruction.
Pace instruction and re-teach content based on evidence gathered using assessment strategies such as
questioning students and examining student work and products.









This artifact is a survey for our current
progress on the energy unit. I use it to
monitor progress, as well as to
anticipate, check for, and address
students misunderstandings.
This helps me to pace instruction or re-
teach content based on the evidence
gathered from such assessments.
(Formative)

Assessing Student Learning
TPE 3 Interpretation and use of assessments
Give students specific, timely feedback on their learning, and maintain accurate records summarizing student
achievement.










This artifact is a picture of students grades posted by pseudonyms. I well known physicists as the names.
Many of the Famous physicists were white and male so I chose current physicists as well. All the
current physicists are minorities. I use the posting of grades to keep the students informed of their
progress which helps me to students informed of the achievement. This is the weakest example of how I
keep my students informed. Others include written feedback that specifically highlights the strengths
and possible areas of improvement, informal conversations where we discuss content.

Planning Instruction and Designing
Learning Experiences for Students
TPE 8 Learning about students
Through interpersonal interactions, they learn about students abilities, ideas, interests and aspirations.
encourage parents to become involved

This artifact is a questionnaire
where students discuss their
personal lives and struggles.
They talk about how our school
Will help them to achieve their
Goals.
I use it to give my students an
Opportunity to discuss the
struggles that they face, which
helps me to find ways to make
the content more relevant to my
Students lives. (In to understand
their point of view)

Planning Instruction and Designing
Learning Experiences for Students
TPE 9 Instructional planning
Use explicit teaching methods such as direct instruction and inquiry to help students meet or exceed grade
level expectations.



I use a blend of power point presentation and white board work to
bridge prior knowledge to new concepts. (see next slide for the
artifact)




This artifact is a portion of a power point presentation from February
5, 2014. I use it to build on students prior knowledge of momentum
and total momentum which helps me to bridge that knowledge to the
law of momentum conservation.

So the Ptot that goes into a system..
Is the Ptot that comes out.





Total initial momentum



So the Ptot that goes into a system..
Is the Ptot that comes out.





Final total momentum



Next Steps
Develop stronger skills for formative and
summative assessments.
Find more ways to connect to students
specific backgrounds. For example: I know
that a student comes from a single parent
home, where their parent is employed as a
cleaning service workerhow can I relate
that to physics.