Happy IA
Yesterday we had an in service training session on internal assessment. A group of students presented their experiences of good IA processes. None of them do physics so physics wasn't mentioned but from...
Virtual or remote?
When Colin Cuthbert asked on facebook if anyone could recommend a simulation of the alpha, beta and gamma experiment it reminded me of something I saw many years ago. It was a remote lab rather than a...
Love, hate and TOK
I must admit that I didn’t enjoy teaching TOK and the students didn’t enjoy me teaching it. My problem is that after more than 40 years of teaching physics I find it difficult to think in any other way...
Physics for a day!
I've been thinking about planning some activities to take advantage of the "one block a day" timetable we have at the end of term. This means that my students will have physics from 08:30 until 14:30....
One cup or two?
This morning I was waiting for the kettle to boil and I started to wonder and you can do a lot of wondering in 3 minutes, I started with wondering how much energy I waste by boiling the kettle with two...
Study Guide
The all new study guide is now available in English (SL and HL) and Spanish. The Spanish translation was done by one of my former students Teresa Irigoyen Lopez currently doing a PhD at Cambridge university...
Rulers of thumb
We often use rules of thumb to give rough answers but sometimes they can short circuit the thinking process. There are two rules of thumb associated with using a ruler. So if the smallest division is...
Where does all the energy go?
The other night I watched the David Attenborough film and it made me think. First I tried to persuade my wife that we should buy a Tesla but it looks like it might end up being more at the, not so smart,...
Need to know flashcards
A couple of weeks ago my school arranged a series of workshops for teachers on how to make our subjects more accessible to students who have English as an additional language (almost all of my students)....
Christmas crossword
Yes, it's here again, the Christmas crossword, not easy if you're not used to cryptic crosswords but good problem solving training. Note, there is no number 10. Across Down 1.Confused antiviral goat...