I really appreciate your sharing your great day with me, Veena. It is truly a joy to see you enjoying yourself so much.
One exciting feature of teaching is figuring out a concept for yourself before you teach it, and it's almost magical when you can use that excitement to help students sort it out for themselves. I'm sure you will always remember that moment and its payoff! I'm so pleased that you could identify and respond to the students need to see a node for themselves!!
And when you can get your teaching in two different subjects to complement each other, it's another big bonus. No wonder you feel so positively about the day!!
I hope you have many more such days in the next 2 weeks. Do you think it helped that your associate wasn't there so you weren't being watched in quite the same way?
Yours,
tom
Thursday, February 24, 2011
a first: four classes back-to-back
Today was an important day... I taught four classes back-to-back and my associate teacher was away ill. For Physics Grade 11 we covered wave interference and superposition, leading up to the formation of standing waves. After an introduction, some brief examples of superposition when two waves meet, and a step-by-step diagram of node formation through the meeting of a crest and a trough of equal magnitude, I showed a simulation: http://www.walter-fendt.de/
This simulation really helped me to understand particle motion vs. wave motion and visualize a wave reflecting back on itself. It was a pleasure to share something with students that had given me insight into a concept..... it seemed to be working for them too... I heard some "Oh!"s ripple through the class.
We ended the class with talking about harmonics and demonstrating standing wave formation on a string attached to a vibrator (weights hanging on the other end to keep it fixed). We increased the frequency of vibration to find the fundamental, first, second and third harmonics. A number of students needed to see a node for themselves to really believe that there were points that remained perfectly stationary throughout the interference.
In Grade 11 Math we introduced periodic behaviour, talked about the periodic nature of trig functions and manually sketched some graphs of sine x and cosine x. I thought it would be too simple and they would get bored really quick, but both classes seemed engaged by the exercise. It's hard to know what students know, what holds their interest... it's often surprising. Tomorrow we move on to transformations of trig functions.
It's neat how we are covering periodic behaviour in both physics and math right now. I see some of the same students in both classes, and they bring up concepts and ideas that we talked about in the other subject... that's a great feeling.
This simulation really helped me to understand particle motion vs. wave motion and visualize a wave reflecting back on itself. It was a pleasure to share something with students that had given me insight into a concept..... it seemed to be working for them too... I heard some "Oh!"s ripple through the class.
We ended the class with talking about harmonics and demonstrating standing wave formation on a string attached to a vibrator (weights hanging on the other end to keep it fixed). We increased the frequency of vibration to find the fundamental, first, second and third harmonics. A number of students needed to see a node for themselves to really believe that there were points that remained perfectly stationary throughout the interference.
In Grade 11 Math we introduced periodic behaviour, talked about the periodic nature of trig functions and manually sketched some graphs of sine x and cosine x. I thought it would be too simple and they would get bored really quick, but both classes seemed engaged by the exercise. It's hard to know what students know, what holds their interest... it's often surprising. Tomorrow we move on to transformations of trig functions.
It's neat how we are covering periodic behaviour in both physics and math right now. I see some of the same students in both classes, and they bring up concepts and ideas that we talked about in the other subject... that's a great feeling.
Friday, February 18, 2011
a simple harmony & transformations
this past week's physics topic: SHM, shhhhhhmmmm.... simple harmonic motion.
this past week's math topic: review of sine and cosine law, identities, the *ambiguous* case... transformations of trigonometric functions.
I had a long chat with my associate teacher in the work room on thursday. Mid-way through what was turning out to be a good week of first classes, she made me believe in myself as a person and as a teacher (the latter, for the first time). Something shifted, some inner resistance of mine broke down, and the last two classes of the day felt profoundly different- I relaxed into myself, the students felt it (I am sure) and we all enjoyed ourselves, as people in a room, being together, discussing, doing, learning.
Did I mention that I believe in angels? (and angles, too. unknown ones.... waiting to be figured out)
this past week's math topic: review of sine and cosine law, identities, the *ambiguous* case... transformations of trigonometric functions.
I had a long chat with my associate teacher in the work room on thursday. Mid-way through what was turning out to be a good week of first classes, she made me believe in myself as a person and as a teacher (the latter, for the first time). Something shifted, some inner resistance of mine broke down, and the last two classes of the day felt profoundly different- I relaxed into myself, the students felt it (I am sure) and we all enjoyed ourselves, as people in a room, being together, discussing, doing, learning.
Did I mention that I believe in angels? (and angles, too. unknown ones.... waiting to be figured out)