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Category Archives: Anecdotes
How to Blow Up a School
Lockdown drills are the modern-day equivalent of the air raid drills I got to practice when I was in elementary school. Both gave parents the peace of mind that comes from knowing that even when the unthinkable happens, our school … Continue reading
The Fun of Research & Development
I’m finally getting around to grading the 5-second timer labs my students did earlier this quarter. One of my students’ timers was a ceramic bowl with an amount of men’s cologne that burned for 5 seconds. Unbeknownst to me until … Continue reading
Diet Coke & Mentos Final Exam: Physics Version
I gave a chemistry final exam involving Diet CokeTM & MentosTM back in 2006. I’ve done it as a lab experiment a couple of times since then, but not as a final—until this year, when I did a physics version. … Continue reading
Egg On My Head
Today two groups of students successfully dropped raw eggs onto my head from the roof of the school as I walked underneath. Last week another group of students did the same thing. 00
Students Taking Charge of Their Learning
One of the things I appreciate about this year’s students is the way they take charge of their own learning. 00
Happy Parents
Parents’ Night was last Thursday. I had a long line for the whole evening–I seem to be quite a few students’ favorite teacher, and several of their parents wanted to meet me in person. 00
“We’ve never had this problem before.”
That was my department head’s tongue-in-cheek comment to me on Friday morning when yet another student asked for her signature to switch into physics. Some of the students had successfully switched in. Some clearly did not have the math background … Continue reading
Physics Day 6: Everything You Need to Pass the Final Exam
Once in a while I’ll come up with and use a teaching idea that I think is going to fail, but I’ll do it anyway because I think it will fail in a useful way. This time I was wrong: … Continue reading
Success Strategies in the Learning Center
I just gave my students a test on stoichiometry. As I was grading them, I noticed that all of the students who had taken the test in the Learning Center had identical wrong answers to the free response questions. One … Continue reading
Presenting at ChemEd 2011
My workshop proposal for this summer’s ChemEd 2011 conference has been accepted, so I will be presenting a workshop entitled Converting Existing “Cookbook” Laboratory Experiments to Inquiry Format at this year’s conference. 00