Collaborating with other Physics Teachers

After the 7am-11pm intense week at Engineering Camp I flew to Portland, Oregon to meet up with two other Knowles Fellow physics teachers (Zach Ronneberg, and Bradford Hill) to work on streamlining our curricula, adding essential questions, and exchanging ideas in general. And basically it was a wicked sweet time. 

As a result of this week I will be: 

• adding a unit on thermo, where we'll build some kind of cool sun-energy device like a solar oven, hot dog cooker, or parabolic trough type device. We'll heat up water, use Q=cm(T2-T1).  It'll be great.
  
• using OmniOutliner to track my curriculum (hazaa!) 
  
• Oh yea we built these IR diode devices to use in conjunction with a Wii remote to function like a SmartBoard, only for about $50 instead of $2,000. hAha!  
  
• I've got a ton of essential questions now
• My unit on Egg Bungee Jumping is now "differentiated" 
• I've decided to go with the "learning is not optional" motto. So that when students get done they still have to work on something - even if it's grabbing a Scientific American from the back of the room. This is critical for differentiated instruction to be functional.

Other things I learned include: Portland O is pretty much just like Vermont only more populated. Similar values. Similar zoning laws. Similar lifestyles (frisbee, raspberry picking, Subaru-driving). 

I'd say at least 30% of the benefit of being a Knowles Fellow is hanging out with other Knowles Fellows, cause they're so driven, interesting, and bursting with ideas. So that made this  trip one of the best Summer Professional Development things I've done through Knowles yet.