It has been too long since my last post! Since I last posted, third quarter has flown by and the fourth quarter of the school year is now upon us. A couple of weeks ago, one of my favorite math teachers (by the way, you should check out her AWESOME blog High Heels and No. 2 Pencils) approached me about participating in a cross-curricular lab involving the students on our team. At the time, my classes were just finishing up our unit on kinetic and potential energy and her classes were just beginning their unit on graphing/calculating slope. This created the perfect time for us to combine forces (and classes) to complete the Barbie Bungee Lab!
We decided to make this lab a two-day event with an introduction video to bungee jumping, data collection, and graphing all on day one of the lab! For the second day's grand finale, our school's head custodian (Who is the best!) volunteered to drop Barbie from the roof of the school building for each of our classes!!
This was my first time using the Barbie Bungee lab in my class and it was such a fun experience for myself and for my team's students. During the first day of the lab, we had the students who were in my physical science class, each period, be in charge of tying the slipknot rubber bands to Barbie's ankles, holding/releasing Barbie from the top of the meter stick, and determining how far Barbie dropped each time she was released. Students who were in math, each period, were in charge of recording the measurements from each Barbie drop (we used a "bungee cord" of 7 rubber bands, where each rubber band addition was tested three times), calculating the average of each set of trials, and plotting the data.
Science students dropping Barbie and Math students recording each trial's data.
Barbie in mid-flight!
It is always awesome to see my students fully engaged in a lab!
On the second day of the lab, we decided to start a friendly competition between ourselves and our classes. Before heading outside to the courtyard for the final drop, we taught our students how to calculate the height of the drop using the slope intercept formula (y=mx + b). Our students were then broken into two large teams per class and were challenged to predict how many rubber bands Barbie would need to successfully bungee jump from the roof of the school without hitting her head on the ground and dying. Each team of students were provided with a Barbie and as many rubber bands as they needed for their prediction. We teachers also made a prediction and added rubber bands to our own Barbie.
Looks just like me, right?
Our awesome head custodian, dropping each group's Barbie from the roof. He did this for us each period!
After completing this lab, it is safe to say that we will have to make sure that our lessons are aligned so we can do this lab again with our classes! Our students were able to review elastic potential energy, graphing techniques, and how to use the slope intercept formula. I would call that a success!!
This is officially my first blog post as an educator! So, with Christmas right around the corner I was invited to attend a professional development opportunity about Promethean Classflow. I'm always looking for new ways to integrate technology into my lessons, so I couldn't resist the opportunity to learn about this new program. Even though Classflow is a Promethean board program, it works great with the Smart board in my classroom. In the program, you can create lessons interactive learning opportunities for students by sending them "student slides" along with your presentation. All students have to do is log into your created classroom and voila they are in!
One of the things my students loved most about Classflow, was the screen share option. While teaching, Classflow gives me the option to push the current slide on the board to every single one of my students' computers. This was awesome for students who typically have a difficult time seeing the board and my students LOVED having the information on their own device. Another part of the program my students (and myself) loved was the different "quick polling" tools. At any time during a lesson, I can send students a quick poll. These are in the form of a "word seed" (kind of like a word web builder), multiple choice, true false, or a few more options! My favorite quick polling tool; however, is the "Creative" quick poll!! In this type of poll, students are given a tool bar that allows them to respond to a question by either drawing, typing a response, taking a picture, uploading a picture, or many other options. All of the quick polling tools can be viewed on the Smart board when completed or downloaded for a quick formative assessment/exit slip.
And did I mention the most fantastic part about Classflow?? IT IS FREE!!! All you have to do is create a teacher account, create a class, and then have your students sign up and register. Needless to say I'm completely in love this program and so are my students! This program is great for engaging students and checking for student comprehension/misconceptions. As I type this entry I'm getting geared up to present the Classflow program to my peers at work tomorrow and Friday, in our 7th and 8th grade PLC meetings. Hopefully they will enjoy it as much as the students did!
