Unit 2 has been very different from unit 1. Due to the structure of the standards and how we are approaching them, they are going by much quicker. This has been its own challenge. A quicker timeline has meant less time for me to grade each part, which has admittedly left me exhausted at times. To help me out, for some assignments, I really focus on just grading the part that matters. Take the third part of this assessment, the investigation stations, I focused my time in looking at the end of the assessment, their claim with evidence. Yes, I skimmed for completion on the station observations and questions, but I honestly don't have time to read through 250 complete lab reports. What I care about is that they can use evidence to support the claim that action at a distance forces do that, act at a distance, so I used my time to see if they met that understanding.
This assessment, as they all do, had four parts.
Part 1:
The first part was a thinking map comparing electric and magnetic forces. This was a very easy start to the assignment, which I like. I want all my students to be able to be successful in completing part 1 of the assessment. The one challenge with this was that the articles themselves were not great. They are on two slightly different topics which made comparing them a bit weird. Next year I want to find different articles or just write my own.
Part 2:
Do you ever have labs you overly worry about and overly prepare for? This was mine. I've done electromagnets before, but never to this scale and I just wasn't sure what I could need. I think I have enough material for the next few years.
I gave a rundown of this in that week's reflection, but once again this is what I used:
D Batteries (I was worried about how well these would last, but each of the batteries held out for the whole day so I have plenty left for next year)
Electrical Tape (Helps hold down the wires to the end of the batteries and stop the students from getting shocked)
Nails (I got a 5lb box of 10d 3" Galvanized Nails. I don't think the nails you get really matter, but you do want steel nails. This is enough nails to last forever, because there is no reason to not just keep using them)
Sandpaper (The students need to sand off the insulation from the wire)
Paper Clips (To test the strength, though really anything with steel, even other nails, would work)
Wire (This is what I got from Amazon I gave each group about 4' and they were able to use it for all their different tests. I bought 2 rolls, but one was well more than enough. If you look closely the dimensions of the spool are not right on Amazon, this thing 3 inches high)
That is by no means the definitive list of materials, but it was successful for my students.
The main challenge I had with this assignment was that it is hard to complete in a class period (let alone the short Wednesday schedule, which I placed the lab on without thinking about until 1st period ended before I expected). The problem is if they don't finish testing in the class period then they will have a different set of material the next day which could skew their testing. The time isn't necessarily a problem, but some groups had more challenge getting their electromagnets working in the first place, which gave them less time to test their proposed changes.
The other challenge I had was some students had trouble applying their findings to the lab to the conclusion, that being said this is part 2 of the assessment. While most students should be able to complete it, it may start to be a challenge to some. The main problems were students suggesting things in the conclusion such as more electricity (which might work, but they didn't test) or using magnetic material, which suggested they just tried to Google an answer or just guess something.
Part 3:
This part of the assessment was a rotation lab about action at a distance forces using electric and magnetic forces as examples. Generally this went well, a downside is that I think this is easier than part 2, but I really wanted all the students to engage with the electromagnet (and it is much easier to do as a whole group) so it needed to go first.
My main challenge with this part of the assessment was that I couldn't get one of the rotation stations to work (the one where they were supposed to get a circle of paper to float). It just stuck to my hand or flipped off the balloon and onto the table. No idea what was going wrong so I scrapped it and related it with a demo of the Van de Graaff generator to add another electric example. I was planning on doing the demo anyways, but just as a demo.
One change I might make is instead of having written observations, have the students take pictures that show the non-contact interaction. I had some students that did this and I felt like taking a picture that showed it was just as effective, if not more so, than trying to describe it. Plus, they do need to describe it overall at the end of the assessment.
Part 4:
The last part of the assessment was drawing models showing how any of the phenomena they observed worked. This was easy for some students, but really a challenge for many of them. It felt accessible to most of my students, which was great as most of them tried to create the models. But I still have students trying to revise their models with increasingly specific feedback from me.
Overall:
I liked this assessment. The lab activities were good. Some of the parts were a bit easier than they could have been, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. And most of my students felt like they could tackle all the parts, which is great. The small problems I had in parts 1 and 3 were minor and are just something to think about for small revisions next year.
Electrical Tape (Helps hold down the wires to the end of the batteries and stop the students from getting shocked)
Nails (I got a 5lb box of 10d 3" Galvanized Nails. I don't think the nails you get really matter, but you do want steel nails. This is enough nails to last forever, because there is no reason to not just keep using them)
Sandpaper (The students need to sand off the insulation from the wire)
Paper Clips (To test the strength, though really anything with steel, even other nails, would work)
Wire (This is what I got from Amazon I gave each group about 4' and they were able to use it for all their different tests. I bought 2 rolls, but one was well more than enough. If you look closely the dimensions of the spool are not right on Amazon, this thing 3 inches high)
That is by no means the definitive list of materials, but it was successful for my students.
The main challenge I had with this assignment was that it is hard to complete in a class period (let alone the short Wednesday schedule, which I placed the lab on without thinking about until 1st period ended before I expected). The problem is if they don't finish testing in the class period then they will have a different set of material the next day which could skew their testing. The time isn't necessarily a problem, but some groups had more challenge getting their electromagnets working in the first place, which gave them less time to test their proposed changes.
The other challenge I had was some students had trouble applying their findings to the lab to the conclusion, that being said this is part 2 of the assessment. While most students should be able to complete it, it may start to be a challenge to some. The main problems were students suggesting things in the conclusion such as more electricity (which might work, but they didn't test) or using magnetic material, which suggested they just tried to Google an answer or just guess something.
Part 3:
This part of the assessment was a rotation lab about action at a distance forces using electric and magnetic forces as examples. Generally this went well, a downside is that I think this is easier than part 2, but I really wanted all the students to engage with the electromagnet (and it is much easier to do as a whole group) so it needed to go first.
My main challenge with this part of the assessment was that I couldn't get one of the rotation stations to work (the one where they were supposed to get a circle of paper to float). It just stuck to my hand or flipped off the balloon and onto the table. No idea what was going wrong so I scrapped it and related it with a demo of the Van de Graaff generator to add another electric example. I was planning on doing the demo anyways, but just as a demo.
One change I might make is instead of having written observations, have the students take pictures that show the non-contact interaction. I had some students that did this and I felt like taking a picture that showed it was just as effective, if not more so, than trying to describe it. Plus, they do need to describe it overall at the end of the assessment.
Part 4:
The last part of the assessment was drawing models showing how any of the phenomena they observed worked. This was easy for some students, but really a challenge for many of them. It felt accessible to most of my students, which was great as most of them tried to create the models. But I still have students trying to revise their models with increasingly specific feedback from me.
I did give my students a model of the type of information their models should show. Since we didn't cover field lines in a lot of detail, but they were important for the model, I felt like an example was needed.
Overall:
I liked this assessment. The lab activities were good. Some of the parts were a bit easier than they could have been, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. And most of my students felt like they could tackle all the parts, which is great. The small problems I had in parts 1 and 3 were minor and are just something to think about for small revisions next year.
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